I've always found it sad how, rather than being propped up for its merits as a good OS, Linux is propped up because it is just "free." It's like Linux is relegated to eating the remains and feces of whatever the desktop lions don't want.

Though it isn't always the case, "free" and "cheap" come with connotations of worthlessness and inferiority. Yes, I know, people will jump all over this saying they use Linux and that it is superior and blah blah blah, but it's like the middle class having to prove itself against royalty: it doesn't matter how good it is, it will always be seen as inferior. We will never see the "year of Linux" until Linux is seen as an equal, and represents itself as an equal--not just something you use because it is "free."

So enjoy the remains and feces of the OS market. It sucks being a "rebound" OS.

Or, maybe, some people like an operating system where you can make a crossover cable network bridge with a right mouse click rather than an hour at the command line terminal trying to figure out what the hell this crap means in the brctl man page - and then to post on a forum requesting help about it, only to be told to get a network splitter?

Perhaps they, god forbid, prefer Microsoft Office to Open Office from experience?

Maybe it's because a certain community's purist ideologies and bias are blinding them into not improving a certain operating system which they herald as superior, but others may not?

Maybe some people don't like their video card drivers breaking because they applied a patch to their operating system?

Let's face it, Linux isn't exactly the pinnacle of user friendliness or lay-men productivity in any of its forms. It's a good OS if you're running a server, or just feel like tinkering with something; but as a desktop operating system, it's just not as robust as Windows or Mac OS X.

Linux is a better OS than anything Microsoft will ever make.
No OS is perfect, not even Linux.
Microsoft is only as big as it is because most of the people in the world knows nothing else and does not want to try anything else.
Since the first Microsoft product, the world as been brain washed into buying its product not cuz its better, but cuz of the pushing of the products, whether the product is good or bad, everyone just accepts it.

"So why is it bad if the Linux Foundation sponsors a study?"

Because I as a Linux user don't want to be identified with something I look down? But lets read the content first...

These research companies (like IDC, Garner, etc) are pretty much whores. They do it with ANYONE who can pay! :D

Microsoft used them in 2004 with their "Get the Facts" campaign against Linux.

...And they used them again to help with Vista adoption. (Saying how much a region will benefit if they invest in Vista, etc).

So why is it bad if the Linux Foundation sponsors a study?

A desperate man is a man that needs to sell something to a naive fool, not a man with a sollution that costs the naive fool nothing. You really shouldnt look at the teeth of a horse that you got for free.
In the end the OS matters ZERO, its what you do with it. If the benefit/rewards of the doing with it overweights the price (pointing finger at payware), then its okay. Otherwise NO WAY!.

Cheers

Yet another story that proves how despertate the Linux geeks are lmao

"In a report entitled The Opportunity for Linux in a New Economy, sponsored by the Linux Foundation"

And thus all credibility is lost.