[TopQuark]

ANd the relevance of this to the topic at hand is...?

[PokeyJoe]

This is because private ownership stimulates innovation. Undertaking a new enterprise is risky, and the only compensation for an increased risk is higher reward. Remove that possibility --- and there is no reason to take risk; no reason to develope new products.

from this qoute . . .

to the point . . .

Linux is already available in 64bit versions (not XP), that Linux already has clustering capability (not XP), that Linux has a choice of over 4 desktops (not XP), that Linux can read HPFS, NTFS, FAT, UFS, DFS, and has a working version of a filesystem driven database-style transactional updates (not XP), and I could go on . . .

Innovation requires the FREEDOM to innovate.