Interesting article, as well as the link to the article about the BeOS/Mac programmer that has switched to using Win2k and XP from a Mac (Macophiles, are you reading? :))
However, I disagree in part with his statement
"The ability to support Microsoft applications would go a long way towards establishing the credibility of Windows alternatives among average consumers and businesses, EVEN IF they don't have all the features found in the Windows version. As many have noted in defense of StarOffice, the average consumer needs only a fraction of the features found in the Microsoft Office suite. For most users, even a less-functional Microsoft Office on Linux would be more than enough for their needs."
This is not really the ability to support, but the ability to run those applications. At home, this might not be a big problem, but in a business, I'd hate to be in the IT department that deals with "we're not sure whether or not this function is supported on this OS." It's enough work trying to troubleshoot application problems... it is extremely suspect to think that you'd save any money in OS licensing costs by adding an unsupported environment with an unknown degree of feature compatibility into the mix. Don't plan on any bug fixes for your unsupported OS issues, and have fun anytime a patch/service release comes out!
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