Comment 707 for bug 1

Don't get me wrong - I never made the assumption you mentioned. The point is, that even if the ratio is much lower (say 2:8), the GNU/Linux user base will start growing much faster and at some point all the problems with 3rd-party support will be gone, leaving only the bugs causing problems with usability for average joe standing in our way (I guess we can all agree that majority of ICT users are nothing more than average joes knowing nothing more than just how to use their machines for basic tasks).

The problem is that although (using your own words) "anyone can uninstall windows and replace it with whatever they like", they still make you pay for the bundled OS with absolute disregard to whether you actually use it or not and getting your money for unused license back is almost impossible despite the fact this right is granted to everyone by Microsoft's own EULA; you see where this is going - this way you literally pay Microsoft the ransom for being so bold to purchase a computer, giving them the money they need to survive and recover from failures like the one with ME & Vista. If this can be stopped, they wouldn't be able to withstand too many failures which make them loose money and expend their reserves...

I agree GNU/Linux isn't ready for prime time quite yet, but it's already pretty suitable for user who doesn't need anything more than browse the internet, play his multimedia and use the office suite (I agree that multimedia can be hell of a pain in the ass if hardware acceleration of these things doesn't work on your machine, but that's exactly the kind of 3rd-party support I meant; the same thing understandably goes for the lack of drivers for the WinSomething kind of "hardware").

What I'm trying to tell is: all present OSes suffer from usability problems to the certain extent, so it's something we can deal with, but that is not the case of any unfair advantages Microsoft has over us...