Comment 1218 for bug 1

> If in order to run Ubuntu my mother has to buy Windows, then the present bug will take decades to be fixed...

Exactly! If we allow M$ to have the luxury of charging us even for
licenses that actually never get used (which their own EULA clearly
states as a completely valid reason to get a refund, but you get a
pretty good idea about their dirty business practices if you try), then
it's absolutely impossible to ever starve them! That's why we should at
least try to do whatever we can to either completely kill or severely
restrict currently employed bundling practices.
I've said before I'm fairly confident that once this obstacle is out of
the way, we will all be able to notice a significantly higher adoption
rates. At that point, all the hardware and software support problems
we're having right now will start to diminish, because nobody of the so
called "independent" hardware and software vendors can afford to ignore
any system that has reached critical mass.
Based on the observation of the current status quo, this means only
about 10% of the overall market share, which really isn't that much.
Have a look at Apple, that's already enjoying pretty much the kind of
treatment usually reserved for the first class citizen.
We can probably get there pretty soon, because as you see, right now
even people who already know about GNU/Linux and could do with just fine
don't have much choice. Forget that they can still assemble their own
machines - we all know that the vast majority of people don't do that
not to mention it's almost impossible with notebooks (let alone
increasingly popular netbooks and nettops).
Just do the math - if only one of every 10 guys buying a new PC decides
to run something other than Winblow$, then M$'s stranglehold over the
whole ICT industry is in serious trouble.
Everyone has to have the opportunity to get whatever machine he likes
and run whatever code he sees fit without first being forced to pay for
any software that somebody decided to bundle with it without even the
courtesy of asking.
We really need to do something about this, because it's most likely the
biggest problem we have right now. We can deal with bugs and missing
features. Granted - there are things that will probably never work
anywhere other than Winblow$, but that's not our fault. But if even
people who actually won't use their crap have to pay M$ anyway, making
sure they won't even notice they just lost another customer, then we're
getting nowhere!