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Originally Posted by Jerrek
Linux is free....
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Have a look at the Free Software Foundation and see what is meant by free, the licence it (i.e the Kernel) is distributed under does not preclude charging for it, so people may make money off of it.
I think your analysis of what would happen if MS were to pull out of Europe isn't particularly likely. The more probable situation would be that there would be a time of readjustment, which would be a huge desruption, while all existing MS products are replaced with alternatives. Because of the vacumn created, a hell of a lot more research would be done, improving them for use in everyday life. I.e, Linux on the desktop would be sped up a lot.
Arguing that, I can see that it is bad to have a homogeous environment where one product dominates because of the dangers if that product dissapears/develops a major fault. It is exactly those resons why I think that a controlled market is better than free trade. From my perspective I believe that free trade only serves in the long run to stifle cooperation and creativity and reduces consumer choice.