whose definition? and what are you refering to anyhow?

many people have posted here.

or are you having some sort of inner dialog?

Also remember that to Government agencies, Microsoft Windows is "open source."

Well, not "open," but they do have access to the source code of everything they use. Somewhere.

I am capable of looking back a few posts which seems to be a problem for you!

Also try the fact that many Linuxs are based on the same core or kernel if you prefer but calling the kettle black is probably easier for you.

@ dave@burn-it.co.uk - Please allow me to suggest that perhaps your ongoing argument w/ ondoho may not be whether Linuxes or XP Home and XP Pro are the same,. but simply that XP Home and Xp Pro do not have HUGE differences as you claimed. There is possibly what can be called a HUGE difference between XP 64 and XP Home but that wasn't what you specified. There was a greater difference between Win 95 and Win 98 than between XP Home and XP Pro and from my POV 95 - 98 was little more than a service pack pawned off as a whole new OpSys.

Of course, Windows 9x was the official end of the "MS-DOS" foundation. Subsequently it was a native 32-bit (now 64-bit) OS kernel ... the "NT" kernel.

As far as I am aware, the differences between the editions has to do not only with what tools are available, but also various subsystems.

I much prefer the way that Apple does OS/X: there is one version, "period." Developer tools are optional but included.

The Linux system of "packages, hundreds of 'em," is actually somewhat problematic, but it is in keeping with the philosophy of the system. It can be somewhat difficult comparing one Linux installation to the next. Many packages might have to be installed to complete a deployment. Fortunately, tools exist to capture the package configuration and replicate it on another machine, but the setup process can be quite lengthy.

Did you ever have to support them?
There IS a big difference.

home edition was intentionally crippled to prevent it running in corporate environments. Most of the limitations are from the lack of SMP support, the "simple file sharing" being forced on, lack of file system encryption, no support for group policies, no dynamic localisation selection, etc. home is also barred from joining windows nt domains. This is not a huge difference, the kernel is the same between versions and the base operating system is the same, it's a matter of configuration, omission of certain software and a restriction imposed in the license. There are typically four builds of ntoskrnl.exe, for all combinations of PAE and SMP or neither. XP home only includes the uniprocessor kernel image if I recall correctly (or can only boot to it).

Dunno: I never bought Home Edition. Whenever I bought a Windows computer, I always bought a top-of-the-line Windows non-OEM product. I immediately wiped the machine clean of whatever-the-hell it came with, installed the Windows distribution that I had lawfully purchased, and pasted the license-sticker over the old one.

I paid Microsoft full-retail for what I really wanted to run on the computer, and, believe it or not ... ... I always felt that I had received my money's worth.

"As strange a company as they may be, in some ways," I have never felt that Microsoft Corporation was not a master of "the game as they chose to play it."

. . . but, then again, "I knew exactly what I was doing."

I would forever-fault Microsoft for, in my opinion, deliberately publishing (and, very-widely disseminating) versions of their product that they knew were insufficient. I think that they fell-in-love with the money that they were being paid by Messrs. Peter Norton & Company.

... and, y'know, "WDAD = What Did Apple (and Linux ...) Do?™" Uhh, basically: "don't do that!"

Today, I think that Microsoft Corporation paid ... and, continues to pay ... "a dreadful price" for these short-sighted decisions.

um, i do NOT have an ongoing argument about the differences between win xp versions with ANYONE.
frankly, i consider myself above that.

what i DID say is that people should make it clear WHO they are refering to when they enter some sort of dialog in a thread that so many people have contributed to.

@ ondoho Perhaps we have different definitions of "argument". To me an argument is like a debate. It does not necessarily include malice nor acrimony and can be a gentleman's conflict. I certainly had no intention of offending either one of you.

no offence, i simply factually did NOT have that debate with anyone in this thread.
and when i said i consider myself above that, i meant that i consider myself above discussing outdated versions of an operating system that i don't use, with anyone, with or without malice.

no harm done, just keeping the facts straight.