Really, this isn't a good question. There are lots of open source applications that are for win32, and actually it's possible for apps programmed for unix (and Linux) to be run on Windows.
 
Now, an open source OS that can run win32 apps perfectly in itself is something that can be interesting.

while a 100% compatibility is unlikely, if anything close it emerged, it would be worth checking out.

I'll second the Mac OS X. Up till now, I haven't seen any OS for x86 that was a serious consideration. More programs for Windows end up on the Mac than for Linux. Mac is really into USB and Firewire, so support for stuff like that won't take forever to come out. Also, I can't really say that most companies actively develop Linux drivers, and if they do, I don't remember hearing much about actually supporting them. Nvidia and ATI do write and support the Mac, so I'd hedge my bets that you'd have an even better chance for a fully functional PC.
Also, one big item that makes this even more realistic is the Mac being user friendly. Unless Linux undergoes some massive changes, I don't think we'll ever see mass user adoption. Right now it's a hobby OS, I mean for any serious use, there are better options available: FreeBSD, Mac OS X, Windows. Linux is supposed to be an alternative to Windows, but not unless it becomes easy to use. The Mac OS offers the easy of use while allowing the l33t h4><0r types to do their thing. Windows is still highly dominate, but the Mac has enough backing to make it a very realistic alternative.

Quote:
Would you switch to a OS the was able to run win32 apllications and open source aplications and had better performance than Microsoft?
It usually helps if the person askign the question understands all the terms he uses in it. Dude, this question makes no sense.

Thanks for the info. It seems as if the others understood what I was talking about just fine. Why can'y you? Ohh, your a closed minded *** who just wants to show everyone how smart he is by trying to make me look like an idiot. Now I understand.

http://sourceforge.net/
 
emthompson, go there, do a search for win32, lots of open source win32 apps. You really do need to reword that poll.
 
There is no magic to open source apps. It's not that some operating systems support it and some don't. All do. It's just a matter of if the developer(s) release the code or not and allow others to mess with it.
 
An operating system ITSELF being open source though seperates it from others, and would make this work.

Sorry for the *** in my last post. I guess that I forgot about the using the word ***. Thanks for that link Sandaasu. I will check it out. About this pole I was just asking as a type of marketing pole, just wanted to see what people thought.

Anyone know anything about MS Interix? It's only $99, so I was thinking of giving it a try just to see if I could get certain apps running 'natively'. (For those that don't know, Interix is a NT Subsystem peer that provide a UNIX API to NT/2000).
 
Of course, there's no pre-built packages, so I would be hoping that the buildscripts could grok the Interix environment. And that's the big IF, because I know nothing about C and Unix porting.
 
There's also RedHat Cygwin, which has the advantage of a bunch of stuff which is already pre-packaged. But it sounds much more hacky than Interix (sitting on top of Win32 instead of the kernel).