I wouldn't say the founding of the United States was all that radical. We almost ended up with King George III's son as the new nation's king. The motion only lost by one vote. Noah Webster - founder of Webster's Dictionary - was a strong proponent of an "independent" American monarchy directly related to the British monarchy just as the Bourbons ruled Spain and France. This is not taught in the K-12 public education system even for those students who actually care to learn about the nation's history.

The "President" as an Executive Office position was meant to be held for life and picked by the Senate*. That is pretty close to a kingship without the royal trappings.

The Senate was meant to ape the British House of Lords but without the hereditary peerage. For examples of this, see the Canadian Senate or the modern British House of Lords post-Tony Blair's so-called "reforms" via New Labour.

The House of Representatives was meant to ape the House of Commons. Granted, the House of Commons has more power than the House of Representatives does since the Commons has been more powerful than the Lords since WWI.

Any university level history course on early American history will point out these facts. Had our nation truly been founded in radicalism, then we would not have retained the English language as our - unofficial - language nor would we have retained the English Common Law as our legal system. We'd have some other radical government system resembling some of the ideas discussed during the earlier English Civil War that were squashed, like the proto-communism of the Diggers (not to be confused with the often left-leaning members of digg.com).

*The English/British Parliament had chosen its monarch more than once before the American Revolution so the selection of the American Executive Office by the Senate was not an example of revolutionary political reform.

I thought I'd chime in and ask the undying question of whether Microsoft had come to their senses and finally decided to give free upgrades to Windows Se7en for all legit consumer Vista users.

They could really win some good will back from their users if they did this...kinda like the free Zune* firmware updates for the original players...

*No, I am not a Microsoft apologist, Vista user, or Zune owner. I am typing this from my MacBook while taking a break from my PS3. I just think it would be a good idea for MS to do this for its users. It certainly would be more pro-active than their lame laptop commercials.

If you are going to advocate BeOS then I am going to mention AmigaOS 4.1. Both operating systems have open source alternatives but AmigaOS is still being developed commercially...and I make that recommendation as an old-school Atari ST enthusiast.

Imagine what kind of buzz AmigaOS would get if the Dalai Lama used it...

But back to reality...While I'd have to agree that Linux would be more secure than Windows, the fact that the Chinese government has invested quite a few resources into it might be a good enough reason not to use it.

Why isn't anyone suggesting Open Solaris?