People need to embrace open-source & alternative platforms. AMD, Intel, Microsoft, Adobe and other mega-corporations shouldn't be able to create this scenario. And although Apple isn't nearly as bad, I'd be worried that they might similarly abuse their power if Macs became more popular & affordable as a result. They threatened lawsuits against the people who developed Linux for the Mac, as their hardware is proprietary too.
If this proposal does go through as planned, perhaps there'll be a boom in the second-hand pc & niche hardware-developer's market. Then again, does the average consumer even know what's going on? M$ is a masterful marketing & spin-doctoring corporation. The ability to use Win & Office has become entrenched as a necessary requirement in today's job market. What other company requires you to pay them vast sums of money to learn how to troubleshoot design flaws in their products, then when you start working for them they further milk your wallet for operators licenses & commissions. All this to have the title MCSE behind your name! No thanks!
Bleah!
Yet people still get excited about the prospect. It's sometimes worse in developing nations such as my own, where freedom of information and choice are often luxuries or fairly new concepts & M$ cements their stranglehold on the world market because their competitors are even scarcer!
The world needs to wake up & stop buying into the bull that closed-source is more secure & hassle-free. Far from it, proprietary formats/apps are hazardous because they're so secretive. Hence the spyware boom, the virus/trojan dangers, the various security exploits & the buggy software which is released at a certain date just because it was announced it would be. Some people may find Linux difficult to use, but have they ever installed windows from scratch? And the documentation is one of its great features. Now if only it could appeal more to gamers & engineers. Open DirectX?
