Once XP finally becomes too outdated for my personal home use, what other, real option is there for a universally supported OS that nearly every program I use will still work? For example, can Linux run my 5 year old copy of MS Office? For the technomoron, would a Linux type OS run any tax prep software that's written for Windows?
WINE is a viable option for most programs. WINE stands for WINdows Emulator, and will run most popular Windows programs in Linux. As the popularity for Linux continues to grow, that will become less and less of a concern though.