>>Whil's posting is full of the same BS that most open source people use. You can read my comments regarding Whil's announcement on the Thurs, Jan 15 posting of my blog at http://www.craigberntson.com/blog/blogger.asp. The topic is "Open Source -- What is the Truth?"
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>On the issue of choice, I agree with you that the average computer user will not be modifying and recompiling their kernal, however, the opportunity does exist. Contrast this with Windows. If something about the OS really harshes your groove, you have what options? If you try to reverse engineer, or otherwise try to dig into the inner workings of the offending module(s), you face criminal charges thanks to the EULA and the UCITA.
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>Choice implies potential and doesn't demand to be acted upon.
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>I have been looking into open source software for the choice and freedom to do with the products as I wish without being tied down with such an onerous EULA such as the ones coming out of most software companies. That the solutions may actually have a higher long term cost is rather immaterial due to the flexibility provided.

Microsoft has one product which is fully backward compatible, and that's Fox.

The rest... well, you run a chance you'll have to upgrade every now and then, the file formats will change, the registry entries will just collide with each other (and really, why can't registry be a text file? It is in Wine)... Even email, which already comes in its own standard text format, has to be stored in a proprietary format. With Mozilla, I can still open the entire archives created with Netscape 4.3 without any problem; if a message was received partially, I could always open the archive in VFP's editor, fix the footer and open it regularly. With Outlook, I had all sorts of problems if anything had happened to the files, and I've lost a bunch of history that way.

And the EULA is basically "we guarantee nothing; in case of any dispute you are wrong and we are right, and if you do any of these things we mention, or refuse the new rules when we change them, we may sue you if we choose to". How very different from GPL.