Dear Debianistas: John Hasler wrote: > The manufacturer may be paying Microsoft a fixed fee for > every machine he ships rather than for every copy of > Microsoft Windows he ships. This makes sense when nearly > every machine has Microsoft Windows installed.
Precisely. But the sense is inverted. Nearly every
machine has a copy of MS Windows installed because the
manufacturer pays a fixed fee for every machine shipped.
When this whole thing started to snowball (as in when MS
had gotten a solid foothold by selling MS-DOS for lots less
than the P-system or CP/M-86) MS made an offer no one in
her right mind could refuse. Their per-hardware-unit-sold
license was so much cheaper than the per-OS-copy-sold
license that it made no sense to do anything else. Thus,
any system sent out already had the cost of MS-DOS (later MS
Windows) built into its price. Hence, remarks about the
``Microsoft Tax''.
Once this happens, adding any other OS, no matter what
(>= 0) its price, means more effort for the manufacturer.
It raises the cost of the sale, and Linux is frozen out by
economics.
Q.E.D.
--
Best wishes,
Max Hyre
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