Linux people are doing. Maybe in 5-6 years, it will be ready for prime time!

Sooner than that Bill. I'd give it 1-2 years. One of the biggest obstacles is likely to be hardware. Maufacturers can be strangely loyal to providing MS drivers or MS with the info needed where open source people are forced into things like reverse engineering to ensure they can support printer X or scanner Y.

There are moves to prevent this under the name of "anti-piracy" but IMO a hardware maufacturer preventing another software (especially OS) manufacturer from supporting your printer or whatever device is not healthy and can only help confirm a near monopoly in certain areas.

Unfortunately, I don't suppose any concepts of a free market will include supporting totaly free products becuase there is no money in it.