If I find myself worrying about what OS is running, I've probably already failed. It's a very easy mistake! What I think an OS is for and what a commercial vendor thinks an OS is for are very different things. I want to OSes to be like you say they are; freely replaceable, just a small matter of preference. But OS vendors work very hard to ensure that is not the case. You have to shave with Microsoft razor blades and drive on Apple roads, if there is any way they can manage it.

Everything I do is also on the web, but I look at the web from the other side of the screen. From my point of view, Microsoft makes designer consumer products for the purpose of generating constant cash flow. There's an OS in their product somewhere, but it's like the OS that might be embedded in your photocopier; you're not really allowed to use it. I am not terribly familiar with OSX and I am inclined to think that it is not as bad, but Apple has been extremely “innovative” in the area of user lock-in. I assume I'm just ignorant of how the OS helps achieve that goal.

I work hard to isolate myself and my code from the host operating system. I consider it none of my business, and I appreciate it when it keeps out of mine. But it takes a great deal of careful discipline to achieve. So I agree with you philosophically, and perhaps there is a convincing user-level illusion that all OSes are the same… but try and change the OS that hosts your web applications and databases, and see if it's a simple matter.

If I find myself worrying about what OS is running, I've probably already failed. It's a very easy mistake! What I think an OS is for and what a commercial vendor thinks an OS is for are very different things. I want to OSes to be like you say they are; freely replaceable, just a small matter of preference. But OS vendors work very hard to ensure that is not the case. You have to shave with Microsoft razor blades and drive on Apple roads, if there is any way they can manage it.

Everything I do is also on the web, but I look at the web from the other side of the screen. From my point of view, Microsoft makes designer consumer products for the purpose of generating constant cash flow. There's an OS in their product somewhere, but it's like the OS that might be embedded in your photocopier; you're not really allowed to use it. I am not terribly familiar with OSX and I am inclined to think that it is not as bad, but Apple has been extremely “innovative” in the area of user lock-in. I assume I'm just ignorant of how the OS helps achieve that goal.

I work hard to isolate myself and my code from the host operating system. I consider it none of my business, and I appreciate it when it keeps out of mine. But it takes a great deal of careful discipline to achieve. So I agree with you philosophically, and perhaps there is a convincing user-level illusion that all OSes are the same… but try and change the OS that hosts your web applications and databases, and see if it's a simple matter.

OS is not important to most end users except for how the browser behaves. I still prefer aethetically the way that most sites look in IE7 over Opera, Safari and FF (even FF3 – not that impressed), but FF is more stable so I switch between them constantly, and they behave differently depending on which system I'm on.