Agreed. If you're running mingw and cygwin on Windows, you're getting closer to Linux, but I'd still much rather do development work on Ubuntu or some other Debian distro. And I say that as someone whose work requirements him to sometimes work on Windows.
I bet windows is the place to be if you're developing grandma-proof applications which you hope to see widespread use (such as clients for file sharing networks.)
It really depends on what you're used to. If you like Visual Studio and are productive with it, you'll find Linux cumbersome. Visual Studio is very powerful and dependable.
What I don't understand is the comment about the "Microsoft" tax as he seems to work on Windows.
The "tax" has nothing to do with using Windows or not, just paying for Windows (reflected in the increased price of hardware that comes with Windows pre-installed) when it is not needed. This could be because you already own a copy or plan on using an alternative OS.
Exactly, if he's using Microsoft technology (C# and .NET), that was NOT made to work on Linux or Mac OS, he shouldn't be saying Linux is not a good development platform. It obviously won't work so well if he's using a language that was made for Windows by Windows guys.
I think Linux is the best development platform of all, and I don't think he has the right to say Linux is behind Windows n development tools.
I just don't get that.