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How Microsoft Inadvertently Helps To Fund FOSS
christian.einfeldt writes "The State of California sued Microsoft for anti-trust violations, and now the proceeds of the settlement of that case are being used to fund the acquisition of computers for any school district in California. The terms of the settlement allow every school district in California to be reimbursed a set dollar amount for the purchase of computers with the software of their choice. Microsoft probably anticipated that school districts would mainly use the settlement to buy more Microsoft products, with a few Apple purchases sprinkled in here and there. But now that Free Open Source Software is being commercialized by hardware vendors such as Dell, System76, EmperorLinux, Zareason.com, and TechCollective.com, acquiring computers powered by FOSS is straightforward. I'm a volunteer sysadmin at a northern California public charter school and in my Slashdot journal I detail the step-by-step process for using Microsoft's money to pay for the Linux purchases of your school's choice." And then there's the Ubuntu team in Belgium that is raising funds by auctioning off a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate that a Microsoft rep gave them at a trade show. So far the bidding is up to 101.76 Euros, about $144.
Conversely, the though of supporting FOSS could artificially inflate the price, MS could ignore that fact, and could argue that people percieve Windows to be worth more than they are charging.
Double-edged-sword, that.
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Perhaps, it is because HAD Apple gained the marketshare that Microsoft did, not only would we have closed software, we would also have closed hardware.
/Won't somebody please think of the games?!
While Apple certainly has an extremely creative group of engineers, would we have as much choice and innovation as we do now for hardware if 80+% of the market went with Apple? I think not. This is where the "even worse" comes in, it is in the possibility of what might have happened.