I don’t know why you want to absolve the EU regulators. MS was trying to lock down the kernel because Windows was quite unstable due to all the buggy kernel sof

I don’t know why you want to absolve the EU regulators. MS was trying to lock down the kernel because Windows was quite unstable due to all the buggy kernel software everyone was using. Security was a growing concern at the time, but it was mainly the system instability. Windows was literally a joke at the time, and everyone knew what a BSOD was. So this was a predictable (and predicted) consequence of the legislation. And sure, MS could have released both “open kernel” SKUs and “closed kernel” SKUs, but that would have made it essentially the purchaser’s choice — which it would have been anyway with just “open kernel” SKUs, so there is literally no point. I think you’re also suggesting that the EU would somehow continuously and independently test and certify Windows and CS software as sound and safe? The cost to do this in any substantial way would be massive — a significant fraction of the dev budgets of the products covered — Windows, CS, and all the other products covered. The entire Horizon 2025 budget wouldn’t begin to cover it.