Comment 565 for bug 1

Details on Chris Perrod's mention of "French Députés have now Ubuntu working computers":

French police deal blow to Microsoft
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iU4Lq7tOR_WVOJLZ3IeRaIH03x6w

Excerpt: "There are three reasons behind the move, Geraud said at the Solution Linux 2008 conference here. The first is to diversify suppliers and reduce the force's reliance on one company, the second is to give the gendarmerie mastery of the operating system and the third is cost, he said."

There's also an important lesson in that article on how to successfully migrate to software libre; start by replacing the various programs one uses with libre equivalents and then when Windows is just a skeletal framework on which they hang, replace it with a libre OS; the apps will be identical and the final transition almost completely painless.

This suggests that a good step to fighting Bug #1 would be to convince OEMs which preload Windows to include lots of software libre on their Windows systems; OpenOffice.org, Firefox, etc. Dell is 'considering' this, but has not made any commitments yet:

http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/62245/Have_Firefox_preinstalled_as_default_browser
http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/62047/PreInstalled_OpenOffice__alternative_to_MS_Works__MS_Office