graphical user interface: Windows vs. X Window ? winner Windows.
document processinging: MS Office vs. Open Office ? winner Windows
shell: PowerShell vs. bash or tc shell ? winner Linux, Linux, Linux.
scripting: batch vs. bash scripts or myriad of Linux scripting options ? winner Linux, Linux, Linux.

tools like grep, find, awk, pipes help so much. The windows counterpart of these utilities are very awkward.

scheduling Scheduled Tasks vs. cron ? winner tie.
application layer network protocol support:
scp: winner Linux
ssh: winner Linux
ftp: winner Linux
telnet: tied (although it is a better user experience on Linux)
remote administration:
remote desktop connection vs. ssh ? winner Linux
remote usage: (for example, using a remote system to perform ui related tasks such writing a document)
remote desktop connection vs. x windows ? winner windows
task management:
depends:
process management:
task manager vs. Linux process management ? winner Linux (very important for production deployed applications with many nodes)
ui related processes:
task manager vs. Linux process management ? winner windows (not so important for a production system with many nodes)

Overall, I find Windows suitable for document writing, media viewing, and web browsing. However, I find the tools necessary for administrating a group of machines, their processes, and networking support much stronger in Linux.

I believe a good system can be architected for both Windows and Linux, however, I truly believe that enterprise Linux systems really shine in management, administration, and diagnosis.

I believe that if there are many nodes in your architecture, you’ll have an easier time in the long run in one built on Linux.

Finally, the java platform runs very well on windows or Linux, however, .NET doesn’t. Although .NET provides a very nice platform for writing applications, the fact that the only good distributions of it are available only for the Windows platform really hurts it in my opinion. Also, I disagree with the issue of costs. If there is a time when you truly need to scale out, and you built your system on open-source, you’re going to save so much money.

Regardless, this is not about good vs. . evil in my opinion. If you know .NET and Windows better, then perhaps that is the winning edge you need to get to market faster.

By the way, this list would be different if we included MacOS, which I recommend as a client or desktop system. However, my argument is based on production systems.

Keep up the good work!

-Mark

In all seriousness though, is that question even relevant anymore? Especially with services such as DocStoc, FaceBook, and others that live and breath online only and not on the user’s desktop. Ten years ago, when software resided on a company’s server and had to be maintained by the company’s internal staff, that question had some relevance because it determined the type of people that need to be hired/trained to maintain the system. But today, who cares? What companies like DocStoc are doing is selling a service and not software or systems or hardware. The guarantee that DocStoc makes to its users is that the service will be reliable and available. These two things have more to do with the hardware that it is running on and the bandwidth than the language or platform on which the service is built. .Net is as reliable (if not more so) than other open source platforms.

The key for me is that companies or users that are using hosted services (which is essentially what sites like DocStoc, Scribd, LinkedIn, and others are) are not buying software. They are buying a service. To me it is the same as bringing in a plumber to service the pipes in your house. You do not care if the plumber learned on the job or went to plumbing school. You simple care that it fixes the problem and services you correctly. Granted, that is not always the case. If you need a lawyer or a doctor, you generally care about where they got their education and which hospitals they did their residency in, but I equate that to purchasing an ERP system. In that case, you do care about whether or not it uses SQL Server or MySQL. But do you really care what language it is written in? Even Siebel used to be written in VB and used ASP.NET for its “web” interface. And this was the number one ERP system in the world.

Lets face it, every platform has its strong points and weak points. But that is irrelevant to the end user. As you have said Alon, a perfect example is MySpace and Facebook. Two companies using two very different platforms and yet very successful.

Guess what the next question will be? Why did you develop your mobile application for the iPhone vs. the Android Phone… More on that later…

Jim