But ...

I still don't know what Windows 7 will do for us that XP couldn't. Or, why didn't Microsoft throw Vista in the garbage can, and ship (say) "XP reloaded"? By all means, replace its kernel, if they can do a better job starting afresh. But keep the user interfaces we are familiar with, so there isn't a massive hidden cost while everyone gets used to the gratuitous rearrangement of all that we had got used to.

As for that bug that was latent in the Linux kernel for eight years: almost as soon as it was spotted, a fix was available. Most major Linux suppliers patched their currently-supported distros within weeks if not days. Any that don't(?), you have several alternatives to choose from. Contrast this with that bug in Windows that Microsoft recently fixed after about two years of ignoring it, and only because the black hats had started exploiting it. Ask yourself, how sure are you that there aren't any eight-year-old latent bugs as yet undiscovered in XP? And more importantly, if or when they are discovered, are you confident that they will be fixed within days? And even more importantly, what are your alternatives?

And most importantly, ask yourself who has most to gain from the discovery of such bugs after XP is no longer a supported operating system?