Unless you live under a rock, or you just plain don't watch television you've seen one of Microsoft's "I'm a PC" ads. These ads focus on the idea that PC's are generally a better value than Mac's on the basis of comparable hardware specs. I agree with this generalization.

How often do you hear Linux geeks complain about the Mac Tax? Answer - not very often because we buy a less expensive Windows based computer to wipe the hard drive clean and install Linux. Why buy a $2000 laptop when you can pay $900 for essentially the same hardware for your Linux build?

I'm no fan of Microsoft, but I'm even less of a fan of Apple. Apple has taken the beauty of BSD and turned it into the most locked down, proprietary, consumer OS available. Because of this, I kind of enjoy these ads from Microsoft. They reflect my own thoughts about computer hardware value. However, one thing about this advertising campaign perplexes me to no end. That one thing is their tag line, "Life Without Walls."

"Life Without Walls" implies there are no boundaries, you are free! What OS is more free than your favorite Linux distro? You're free to download, install, distribute, change, etc. with Linux. Now that's the ultimate life without walls. Afterall, when you live a life without walls, who the heck needs Windows?!