++ [ originally posted by Alex ] ++
fraid not, john, not if you're thinking desktop OS. Who's gonna buy your software? Even if it were well tested and certified for quality, which btw is a loooong way from just starting up a business, Microsoft got hardware vendors shipping Windows with their hardware. That's no exception, that's a standard, pretty much global too. Hell, even if your OS were free noone would take it. Windows is well known and used all over the place, anyone using your stuff would be incompatible. And here we arrive at point two, an OS alone won't do, you need software so people can use it and be productive. You plan to develop that yourself? Even if you did, your package would be nothing but a fringe product. It's a hard life life, johnny...