Australian Linux consultancy lodges complaint against Microsoft Windows
A Melbourne based open source firm has lodged a complaint with that country’s Competition and Consumer Commision against Microsoft. According to The Computer Business Review online, they claim that Microsoft’s monopoly is harming consumers. They are calling for 1) the availability of computers without a preinstalled operating system and 2) the commision to force Microsoft to disclose any information that would allow for interoperability with their software.
They cite that markets without preinstalled operating system software, such as servers, there has come to be fierce competition between linux and windows with Linux gaining as much as 30% of that market. I would argue that in that case numbers are tough to pin down. Given the nature of Windows’ license you should be able to easily count how many copies of that are sold, but with linux…. Well, if I download the latest version of Mandriva and configure as a LAN file and print sharing server, then it doesn’t get counted in the statistics.
Anyway, it’s an interesting development in the seeming never ending complaints against Microsoft.