Every few weeks or so, another bot troll shows up somewhere, either on a Windows forum talking about Linux, or on a Linux forum talking about Windows. They're looking for action. But, I would suggest, to no avail. "It really doesn't matter anyway."

Operating systems – all operating systems – are fundamentally an environment. They are "a means to an end, not an end unto themselves." And there are literally millions of installed and hard-working copies of every flavor, doing what their owners expect them to do.

Microsoft stole a page from IBM's playbook and produced a vertically-integrated software environment with Windows® at its center. Although other companies do sell software that runs there, "Microsoft is the king of their hill," and most companies use Windows to run a suite of software that is all also published by Microsoft. And, "guess what? It works!" You might pay a hefty license fee but companies don't care, because they get what they paid for and it all works together.

Apple converted their system to run on (open source) Darwin Unix®, and while they do sell other software that runs on it, it's most common for the software to be provided by other vendors and sold through Apple's "App Store" under Apple's careful tutelage.

Linux, finally, is a completely open-source system. It's the unquestioned "heavy lifter" of the Internet world. It's never been strong on the desktop, although it works perfectly well at satisfying those minuscule requirements, perhaps because it doesn't really shine there. It's much more likely to be found in a server-farm, where it excels. It has also been ported to well more than 25 radically-different hardware platforms, simply because it can be.

And I haven't even started talking about IBM AS/400®'s or Z/OS® nee MVS® ...

So, we are left with "a multitude of choices," all good choices, rather than "a competition" that is supposed to be left with "the last man standing."

It would behoove everyone in this business to realize that it is "their business" to learn about and become conversant with all of these environments (including IBM big-iron, if you are so inclined). You'll find that they're all tackling the same issues and providing more or less the same features, but all in different ways. And, in any "shop" of any size, you are quite likely to find all of them, working together. The more familiar you can become with "what's really going on here," the better-off you will be.

Indeed!!
I started using computers with MVS,DOS and VM long before PCs and alll the things that run on them came along.
Having worked with so many operating systems over the years, it becomes a question of "what words do I use to do this?" rather than "how do I do this?" or "can this be done?"

Your thinking about it from your perspective and it's philosophical argument. It would matter if you were still trying to use MS-DOS, as how would you YouTube, for instance? Good luck! You'll need it!

Microsoft does not "love Linux" for no reason, think about it, and more to point, it's called the smartphone, tablets, etc - which yes, mostly run Android aka, Linux. It's for the same/similar reasons Ubuntu's developers are sucking up to Microsoft.

Now what was that Bill Gates said? Oh that's right, "if you want to use my software, I expect you to pay for it!"

It's got nothing to do with being a "good system", sundialsvcs. It's called capitalism, in the proprietary software world. You don't own it, Microsoft does, aka, Microsoft Windows!

So yes, it does matter, if you want something we call "choice" ! As in, complete choice and freedom.

The real question to me is, what's the difference between choice and freedom? Are they really one of the same thing ?

Think about it.

It matters if the free software/kernels/ideology was not there. For us broke a$$ computer users anyways.

You can afford the hardware!!!

Cheap secondhand computers run Linux for a very good reason - it does the job at minimal cost - why pay a big corporation a bucket load of money for something you can just download & use for free - it doesn't make any sense!

+1 Dave. I started with WangVS, then MCP,JCL and LINC on Burroughs. I learned "logic" on IBM PCAM machines in the '60's. It's all about the syntax...with whatever hardware or software meets the requirements.

The desktop/laptop computer is mainly a business machine nowadays, whilst a few of us still use a desktop at home, most will be using laptops, & they will never be dominated by Linux whilst MS is able to get it's OS onto nearly every new computer sold - fact of life.

However, the SBC, (Single Board Computer), is mainly running Linux.
(This market is still growing, & MS is getting left behind.)

Lots of tablet & phone users want to run Linux on their hardware, but it still isn't easy to do - hopefully it will get easier to have the system you want on them too.

Dells are sold with Linux pre-installed

I think that the Internet was absolutely critical in making "open-source licensing" a success. Otherwise, a Scandinavian college student might have just whiled-away a winter's evening building a curious project in his dorm-room and that would have been the end of it. Companies had long been vexed with the fact that computer software is hideously expensive to produce, such that a great many companies with great products couldn't make a financial go of it, and they and their products disappeared.

The Internet made it pragmatically possible to share information, awareness, and source-code. Lawyers(!) performed a critically important step by helping to hammer-out the licenses (such as GPL) that would facilitate such exchanges as a safe, practical, business(!) strategy ... and by shepherding those licenses through court tests, which upheld them around the world. Now, the stage was set. It was clearly established that you could share source-code with strings attached ... just, "not certain strings" ... and that there was enforceable legal power to prevent you from attaching those "other certain strings."

Since that time, everyone has benefited – including proprietary players like IBM, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, and so on. Instead of wrestling with conflicting proprietary standards put forth by self-financed companies who simply hoped to stay in business long enough to make it matter – and very often didn't – we have uniform standards implemented by peer-reviewed, open-source source code. And that has made all the difference ... literally, "in the world." Crucial financial strictures that were hobbling the development of new software were broken by worldwide legally enforceable(!) cooperative software development.