And Linux is not a success in the public arena. Sorry. Tech savy people think it's cool, and it is a great product, but it has zero market penetration for public use.

I strongly disagree with this. On the desktop, you might be right, but that's not where innovation has been for the past five years. Most of the interesting work has been on the server side. How many of the web sites you visit and rely on every day run on linux (or BSD or other "free" operating systems)? Do you rely on NOAA's weather forecasts? Do you shop at Home Depot? Do you ever use google, amazon or orbitz? How would their business models be affected if they had to license (very expensive) Microsoft server OS's to run their sites?

The public uses (and relies on) Linux every day. They just don't happen to realize it.

--dan.