> The proper name for Linux is GNU/Linux.

M$ agreeing with RMS?

> if all software were free, how would they eat?

He well knows free is not in the monetary sense. FUD.

> When pushed, the Free Software Foundation
> defines "free" as a matter of liberty, not of
> price.

Really have to push hard to get this definition out of them - NOT. More FUD.

> Xwindows, which looks amazingly like Windows.

After all, M$ did invent the GUI, didn't they. Oh, I forgot, they stole it from Apple who copied it from Xerox.

> A big practical disadvantage of Linux is that
> there isn't much application software for it.

Desktop application software, maybe.

> But that's because so few people use it.

And yet Slate is wasting oh so valuable space on their site (running on *NIX?) and your time over it.

> Linux has a utility program that helped me
> [repartition] (because it knows you're going to
> want to keep running Windows too).

Oh yes, exactly why.

> On my machine I can claim only a week of
> running without restarting.

Missed blue screen and had to reboot to see one.

> If you hate Microsoft, you can use Linux.

I sure hate this FUD.

> Do all those software developers writing open
> source code for Linux have the incentive to fix
> problems as they arise?

Yes (just read Kernal Traffic). FUD, FUD, FUD.

> To keep old code running?

Something M$ is well known for doing.

> Perhaps the greatest technological feature that
> Windows possesses is that it can handle
> programs as old as the first DOS applications.

Bullsh*t.

> Linux will never do that.

Thankfully, but it will run good Unix SW which predates MS-DOG.

> Some critics say that Linux will fracture into > a dozen different incompatible versions, just
> as Unix did.

Stinking FUD.

> This is the ultimate problem with Open Source
> development: not enough formal engaged testing.

But M$ has definately got this one licked. Yeah right.