I'm not worried about Microsoft's "monopoly", but I've disliked their
products since the middle 1980s. Nowadays it looks as if the only
viable alternative is presented by the free software movement.
http://www.gnu.org/
http://www.debian.org/
http://www.gnustep.org/
http://www.freebsd.org/
http://www.linux.org/
And others. In addition to Linux and Stallman's various Gnu projects,
there are now (I think) three or four actively developed and
supported unencumbered versions of BSD Unix out there (I've only
listed FreeBSD above, but seek and ye shall find).
As for myself, I've found Lee Daniel Crocker's arguments presented
on this list against any "right" to prevent people from sharing
copies of information they have (which is a general enough idea
to include all software) very convincing, so even if I loved
Microsoft's products, I still might not want to use them anymore.
-- Eric Watt Forste ++ arkuat@pobox.com ++ expectation foils perception -pcd