An alternate paradigm? 20 years ago I mused over a law called the "Operating System Fairness Act", designed to level the playing field, mostly for smaller OS's.

An alternate paradigm? 20 years ago I mused over a law called the "Operating System Fairness Act", designed to level the playing field, mostly for smaller OS's. It's nowhere as revolutionary as separating hw development from sw development, but may thus be more realistic. One clause (of maybe six) concerned "Forced licensing of must-have drivers, algorithms, codecs, file formats, etc. to any viable OS, and for a price that market can bear". At the time I was thinking of technologies like the Unisys GIF patent, Flash, various audio and video codecs, and peripheral drivers. If not having a technology makes an OS vitally less useful and appealing to a user then there's potentially a path to developer documentation. Who decides? I think the current system for DMCA exemptions works pretty well (noting that I despise the DMCA), so maybe a branch of the US Copyright Office or another government's similar branch? A viable OS is one with a notable following and which can use the technology. If I write RadiumOS for myself, that doesn't count. Likewise Widevine for the Atari 800 is out. But Linux anything would, the BSD family, and Amiga, BeOS/Haiku, etc. would have a fair shot. Making a free, public developers kit is always better, but offering an NDA to a developer representing each OS family would likely be common. No, it wouldn't be an instantaneous process, yes, there would be paperwork and maybe a lawyer involved, but the burden has to be bearable for each OS/developer. If you're Apple wanting the MS Office file formats, MS is allowed to charge a not insignificant amount, but if you're a free, open source OS, then the cost would be either free or nearly so. Not every vendor in a field would be cracked open. If AMD is very friendly to developers, then Nvidia could keep their video drivers proprietary. With all the OSS available today vs. 20 years ago, something like this is maybe a bit less useful, but IMHO still a significant step forward, and a hedge against companies suddenly taking their specs private.