Can we rethink on Linux vs Windows debate?

The launch of Windows 7 and imminent launch of Ubuntu 9.10 three days hence, all within a span of just a week or so have sent people mad. The fence sitters wondering whether to go Linux or Windows. They now have good reasons to stick to Win. The hardcore Linux geeks tightening their teeth-'Ah, let the hackers get it. Sooner the better' and the Win guys getting reassured -'Aha, the Waiting for Godot script now needs to be altered. Windows has arrived after all. Better late than never, even if after a decade, so what?'. Of course, Mac guys laughing all the way, 'What a broken promise!'

I too have been following the goings on the Internet closely. A whole book can come out of the battle between the two camps. Whatever the criticism or the praise on either side, it is largely individual, more of personal preferences, individual choices dictated by operating system mercenaries whether free or sponsored. Somewhere society at large has been missed out. It's been always 'me' and rarely 'we'.

I come from the so called third world, and a country called India (which once was the first world) having a population of 1.15 billion souls (and thus the second largest populous country in the world). In such a vast country can we afford the luxury to allow the bridges of crossing the Digital Divide to be built by anything or everything just depending upon personal choices, individual preferences and subjective opinions?

This to me should have been the foundation of the debates over Linux vs Windows in India and in all those countries that are grappling with digital Divide.

This much for now...Till then keep thinking for a better society ... the best technology...