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How did he do this? “ So, to make things painfully clear: Bill Gates made it so that his company would tax every computer sold no matter whether it ran Windows

How did he do this? “ So, to make things painfully clear: Bill Gates made it so that his company would tax every computer sold no matter whether it ran Windows or not. If a manufacturer wanted to sell computers running Windows, all the computers it sold were taxed by Microsoft. He would get paid for the work a Linux distribution was doing, and the Linux distribution would not get that money.”

umeshunni 7y ago
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows and https://www.cnet.com/news/microsofts-1994-consent-decree-boon-or-bust/ https://www.cnet.com/news/microsofts-1994-consent-decree-boo... Till 1994, Microsoft charged OEMs based on the total number of computers they sold, not based on how many of them had Windows. Now, whether Linux's low desktop market share in 2019 is because of a practice that happened from 1983-1994 is a different question.
henryfjordan 7y ago
Contracts. You, as Microsoft, tell Dell and HP they can either pay for a license for Windows for every computer they sell regardless of whether or not they install Windows, or they cannot have a single license for Windows. Dell and HP then choose: Hope people accept linux/BSD/Other and stop selling windows, or sell windows and pay some extra. Nothing illegal about it unless you are exploiting a monopoly (which Microsoft did according to the author of the post).
- tenebrisalietum 7y ago
  It would have been very interesting if things could have worked out where OEMs refused to pay that MS tax and instead provided instructions on how to purchase and install your own operating system separately.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    I remember that some OEMs (including one or two major ones) had started to go this direction, offering "naked" PCs without an OS at all. Microsoft's response was to demonize the practice as encouraging piracy. Their argument was that obviously nobody wants a computer without Windows, so people buying them that way were clearly intending to install a pirated copy.
  - wmf 7y ago
    Back in the day it wasn't easy for people to find OEM licenses so they would have had to buy far more expensive retail Windows licenses which would have essentially raised the cost of each PC by ~$200. The "MS tax" actually saved money for the vast majority of customers. Also, I suspect many people would have failed to install Windows. People used to say that Linux was hard to install, but they were comparing against a PC with pre-installed Windows.

umeshunni 7y ago

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows and https://www.cnet.com/news/microsofts-1994-consent-decree-boon-or-bust/ https://www.cnet.com/news/microsofts-1994-consent-decree-boo... Till 1994, Microsoft charged OEMs based on the total number of computers they sold, not based on how many of them had Windows. Now, whether Linux's low desktop market share in 2019 is because of a practice that happened from 1983-1994 is a different question.

henryfjordan 7y ago

Contracts. You, as Microsoft, tell Dell and HP they can either pay for a license for Windows for every computer they sell regardless of whether or not they install Windows, or they cannot have a single license for Windows. Dell and HP then choose: Hope people accept linux/BSD/Other and stop selling windows, or sell windows and pay some extra. Nothing illegal about it unless you are exploiting a monopoly (which Microsoft did according to the author of the post).

tenebrisalietum 7y ago
It would have been very interesting if things could have worked out where OEMs refused to pay that MS tax and instead provided instructions on how to purchase and install your own operating system separately.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  I remember that some OEMs (including one or two major ones) had started to go this direction, offering "naked" PCs without an OS at all. Microsoft's response was to demonize the practice as encouraging piracy. Their argument was that obviously nobody wants a computer without Windows, so people buying them that way were clearly intending to install a pirated copy.
- wmf 7y ago
  Back in the day it wasn't easy for people to find OEM licenses so they would have had to buy far more expensive retail Windows licenses which would have essentially raised the cost of each PC by ~$200. The "MS tax" actually saved money for the vast majority of customers. Also, I suspect many people would have failed to install Windows. People used to say that Linux was hard to install, but they were comparing against a PC with pre-installed Windows.