will that be the same time it becomes obvious to ordinary computer users that reading forum posts and editing esoteric configuration files in order to get their applications and hardware to work is preferable to out of the box support at the expense of a little stability and flexibility?
So cryptic registry entries and corruption of same are better than plain text configuration files? The Registry was the worst idea Microsoft ever came up with - a single point of failure. Microsoft is the #1 "Not Invented Here" place to Work; they reinvent everything and its shows. Most anything they have done right was copied from Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc.
Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) work hard to provide "out of the box" support and if the user is lucky, he will have a good experience.
Canonical's Ubuntu provides an excellent "out of the box" experience (nearly everything works just fine with zero configuration [not to be confused with the networking protocol of the same name] via their Live CD which runs the OS from the CD with an option to install to the hard drive. They also have an application that copies this ISO image to a USB flash drive, making it Live as well. MS Windows installation from an install CD can be a very taunting experience, even to an experienced software developer. Red Hat has a great Linux server OS (Red Enterprise Linux).
When OEMs realize how much easier Linux is to maintain than MS Windows, Microsoft will lose massive amounts of income.
Don't get me wrong I use both Linux and Windows and there are many things I prefer about Linux but then I am a software developer not an average computer user.
MS Windows isn't very good at running Linux/UNIX applications, but through the efforts of Code Weavers and the Wine project, a large number of MS Windows applications, including "Civilization V" work quite well. There is also plenty of free software and open source applications that run very well on MS Windows and often better than the corresponding closed, proprietary MS Windows applications.
Its the old adage "Linux is Only Free If Your Time is Worthless".
I can't agree less. I find it is vastly easier to add features to free software or open source projects than ask Microsoft to change its closed, proprietary software.
I spent more time with Microsoft's GUI configuration mechanisms time and time again, because for certain type of configuration, Microsoft decided not to support the CLI and configuration files that can be easily manipulated by simple scripts. Have a dozen machines that need to be configured the same, except for different network gateways and other simple differences? A single script can copy the template configuration to all the machines remotely with the desired changes.
There are many thousands of people working at dozens of companies (Google, IBM, HP, Red Hat, Novell, Intel, ...) working with free software and often making six figure salaries doing so. The adage above is not just old, its obsolete.
The revolving door at Microsoft has been very busy these past years with their massive layouts still in progress and their best people leaving in droves in the face of unless stock options. Steve Ballmer allegedly tried to keep
Mark Lucovsky at Microsoft by throwing a ... Microsoft is now operating in deep panic mode, though the company certainly wants to keep it quiet. To maintain their growth, they needed to move into new markets and they have done so with dismal success, unless you think 5% of the Internet Search market is a measure of success (Bing).
The Days of the PC are numbered, and Microsoft's plans to move into new markets have largely failed, though Xbox 360 provides some hope for the company with maybe as much as 30% of the console market. Times are tough at Microsoft and its really showing; even Steve Ballmer looks tired now and he's normally one of the most animated leaders in the PC industry (he allegedly throws chairs off camera to convince employees not to quit; See link above).
When's the last time you have seriously used or investigated the features, stability, embedded market share, supercomputer market share of Linux? Don't forget Google's Android (Linux Kernel/Java User Space) which has many times the market share of Microsoft's competing product with its measly 5% share. The world is changing and I'm not sure Microsoft is tracking it, much less taking advantage of it.
gareththegeek, please don't take offense at any of the above. None was intended. I'm just trying express that I probably have a very different opinion concerning the relative technical merits, market shares and futures of MS Windows and GNU/Linux than you do. In a few more years, even the PC (Game) prognosticators (secretly) paid by Microsoft will stop looking at Microsoft with rose colored glasses and so eventually the PC Game Players will at last abandon the MS Windows platform for Linux. After all, the vast majority of serious Game Players will get the best platform for the Game they want to play and that platform will eventually be GNU/Linux.
Sun Tzu Wu