@PalePimp @charlie_root @dcc @Goalkeeper @Volkish_Observer @tyler @gvs >Personal computers wasn't the realm of academy where the FOSS movement began.
Please do not rewrite history - "FOSS" degeneracy was not a concept until ~2004 and it didn't become popular until ~2020.

Free software has been a thing ever since the start of computing, although rms gave it a definition ~1984.

"open source" was only defined in 1998.

>There was a legacy of 20+ years of proprietary software on the PC platform running DOS, that ecosystem of productivity software jumped to Windows many years before Linux even existed.
An ecosystem is a natural system that you merely observe.

MS-DOS and windows was/is an artificial monopoly from microsoft and IBM.

MS-DOS was a thing since 1981, although GNU was a thing since 1984 and GNU Emacs was originally released in early 1985.

In late 1985, windows was released, but it was just a graphical shell over MS-DOS, so of course DOS software still worked.

Linux did not even exist until 1991 and it was released as proprietary software.


Such compatibility mostly remained until after windows 98, where DOS was dropped and the "NT" replacement was written, breaking many DOS programs.

Not surprisingly, MS-DOS was always garbage and "FreeDOS" works much better - too bad it still sucks, it's only useful to run proprietary software and you can't compile it without a proprietary compiler.

>It is called market inertia, for Linux to usurp Windows it would have to be not just good, but better at being Windows than Windows.
It's rather anti-competitive behavior and monopolies.

Of course GNU/Linux would be more popular than windows if it came on most prebuilt computers and laptops.

>A pretty hard bar to jump, and a pointless endeavor (check Android)
There it is - a prime example of the consequences of referring to GNU as "Linux".

Android uses the kernel, Linux (without GNU), with over a billion installs, making Linux a far more popular kernel than the NT kernel.

Too bad almost none of those users have freedom (only Replicant users have it), demonstrating that aiming for popularity is a fools errand.

>If you are happy with Windows, be my guest, I'm happy for you.
If you are happy being shackled by windows, I am sad for you.