"Linux on the other hand benefits from the "many eyes" phenomenon of open source and when anyone smart enough notices slowness in Linux they can simply look in

"Linux on the other hand benefits from the "many eyes" phenomenon of open source and when anyone smart enough notices slowness in Linux they can simply look in the code and find and remove any obviously slow algorithms." More like Linux benefits from "many budgets and priorities". If someone at Microsoft spots an obviously slow algorithm, they may not be allowed to fix it, rather than working on whatever they're supposed to be working on, which probably doesn't include "fixing shipped, mature code that pretty much works in most cases." On the Linux side, someone can decide it's really freakin' important to them to fix a slow bit, and there's little risk of it being a career-limiting move.