Microsoft is on par with Linux and BSD machines. Until you are reading all the source code, there's no point in switching to Linux or BSD if you're already using Microsoft. Microsoft has the best and robust tools for the job.
When I run into a problem with my Windows machine, I have to resort to random searches and hoping that someone else has seen it.
When I run into a problem on my Linux machine, I typically have to do a lot of searching. More searching than I must do with Windows, because while there is generally only one Windows (at least relative to Linux), there are hundreds of Linuxes, distros and versions of those distros - many that are majorly different than the previous version.
Do you think it's easier for the average Linux user to find answers?
We're talking about a product designed to be run on multiple servers, in a datacenter. At that level, you're generally talking about professionals.
(edit: clarification)
A minority, to be sure. But ultimately I am worried about the ability possessed by myself, my team, and potential hires. Not that of the average Linux user not working on the problems I am working on.
The argument for how the ability to do this is beneficial is not predicated on general users being able to do it, but the people administrating the services in question being able to do it.
If you have the ability to do so, it's possible in Linux (or the other open source OS). It's simply not possible in Windows.
Whether or not that's a huge deal is up for debate, but you're not really attacking a part of the argument that's relevant to their original point.
Maybe you can but do you? This requires not only figuring out how to compile your ENTIRE stack but also doing it AND figuring out how to debug each piece (since generic debugging tools are not the best). I understand there may be major issues that require this level of insanity but the rarity is so incredibly high and so few have enough domain knowledge to do it effectively that I don't buy this argument at all.
I certainly agree with you but the claims of tracing the flow of execution down to the kernel? That's extreme in my opinion. Obviously there are times that's useful but for the majority of developers I can't imagine that's even as frequent as a rare occurrence. At least in my personal experience I only know maybe 2 people in my past experience who could actually do this. I just don't think the majority of developers know how to step outside of a few frameworks or languages.
At least Microsoft released the debug symbols for .Net back in 2012 so you've been able to at least trace through your framework's source for a while now :)
Increasingly, many tools and environments work best on Linux - which is quite an amazing shift from a decade ago.