Thanks a million to everyone who voted (and continues to do so).
What's really interesting here is the results - it's what people use, not what gets sold. Only about half of our home users here see themselves as Windows users - that's a very interesting - it's certainly a very different picture to what raw sales numbers would lead you to think - why the difference? I bet large corporation ordering thousands of PCs because of Microsoft's great business sales arm has a lot to do with it. All those people in those organisations do use PCs, but they had no choice in the matter at all.
It's also very interesting that more than 1 in 10 people here use Linux - it's still well behind the Mac, let alone Windows, but it's a heck of a lot more than it used to be. I ran Linux on my laptops about a decade ago when I did some teaching in a university, and it blew people's minds that it was possible to run something other than windows. In a room with 100 students, there were not 10 Linux machines, there was just mine - now, that just wouldn't be true any more - great!
I don't believe there's such thing as a universally best OS, there are only best choices for given situations and needs. What matters is that people realise they have a choice. 90% or more of people didn't used to think that, now at least half of us here know we have a choice.50% of us chose not to use Windows, but I bet that of the 50% who do use Windows, many do it as an educated choice now, rather than as an un-questioned only option.
As I say - a very interesting poll!
B.