I’m not posting this to actually compare between Linux and Windows; there are tons of articles and posts that do that. I however, like to look at it from a different perspective. I believe that at the end operating systems, software running on it, and anything related to those are means to an end; whichever help you reach that goal is fine by me. There are one factor that I think to be most crucial because of my usability analysis background: satisfaction. Some people are happy to go through the tedious installation of Gentoo and quite satisfied doing so. Some people are happy the their drivers and virus protection are up to date and they actually go through the process of updating each and every software on the computer to stay up to date. The thought of using free and open source software and help develop an alternative is the source of satisfaction for others.

Follow-up:  I found a post at 91courtstreet entitled “What I Learned using Linux over the last 10 years” that goes into a similar discussion, just better