My most recent computer purchase was a modest dual-core PC with 350 GB hard drive. It cost only $350 CDN without an operating system - but it was surprisingly difficult to find an assembled computer for sale that didn't come bundled with an OS.
I've been thinking about this for some time. Microsoft these days is pilloried (rightly IMHO) for being closed and proprietary; but the reason DOS originally won is that it had the cheapest, most open and permissive licence - i.e. it was the closest (at the time) to free software.
It was this openness that earned Microsoft its market monopoly on the OS and consequent positive network externalities - benefits that the company has leveraged to maintain its dominance of the desktop for two decades.
So what I'm proposing is this: perhaps the FSF did well during the reign of Microsoft not as a foil to the big, evil monopolistic corporation, but rather because the FSF is the logical conclusion of the very strategy Microsoft itself has used to establish and maintain its market share.
