1. I think MS' motives are the usual mixture of pride and greed. Gates dislikes being second to anyone, and right now, in web search technology, MS is a distant third behind Google and Yahoo.

2. It's an anti-competitive move, surely, but what specific effect it will have on me I can't yet guess.

3. Bill Gates will never have enough.

4. The pro's of Linux:
better stability
better immunity to malware
multiple sources
adequate functionality for most purposes
low cost

The con's:
need to learn new ways of doing some things
some functionality not yet available
hostility of some hardware manufacturers

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