Very true. And one can see some of that influence appearing in some
of MS' products.

One of the biggest complaints I read about in various forums is that
people cannot click on "Documents and Settings" in Vista. Those
complaints tell me those people haven't bothered learning Vista whose
directory hierarchy is more-closer to Linux/UNIX. As an example, all
the stuff that was under "Documents and Settings" and elsewhere in XP
and prior Windows releases is now under C:\Users\%username% which is
akin to Linux's /home/username

For the curious, Vista's "Documents and Settings" is a junction which
is akin (for a program, not a user) to a Linux symbolic link.

Though dot files (e.g., .bashrc, .profile, etc.) don't exist as such
in Windows, their counterparts do (in Vista).

There's even an etc directory containing the hosts, networks, protocol
and services files (C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc).

And Vista (and Server 2008) are modular; I even created a Live CD for
use fixing other Windows systems and is what I recently used to
upgrade my work XP laptop's hard drive.

I went to Scotland a couple of years ago. People over there don't like
American cars and they don't like Microsoft. They probably don't like
Americans either, but I didn't feel bad vibes.

The hotel had a Linux box in the lobby for guests to check their email on.

Whereabouts in Scotland? As a resident, I can say that there's no
particular dislike of Americans here. In fact, I'm English - and the
Scots have far more reason to hate the English than Americans - and I've
found the Scots in the Far North to be very welcoming. Yes, there are
idiots up here - you get them everywhere - but they're pretty few and
far between compared to Kent, where I used to live.

And the reason we don't like American cars? Simple economics. They're
generally more expensive to buy and run, that's all

We took a bus tour that started and ended in Glasgow. It was beautiful. My
wife and I enjoyed every minute. I guess I just think Scotts don't like us
because just about every one else have negative opinions of us. I thought
that all of people we met in Scotland were delightful.

As far as the cars, American cars aren't doing so well here either. Same
reason, Simple economics.