When the law and it's execution are undermined and weak, it becomes the cudgel of fickle changing power, i.e. it is applied selectively and it means nothing to people except when they are being beat in the head with it, at which point they only regret having been caught, successfully undermining the social and political fabric of a nation.

Having a bad law with a weak enforcement mechanism isn't quite the thing to be boasting about you seem to think it is.

it's the people that sell the pickaxe pickaxes.

These are markets far bigger than the consumer desktop licensing market where Microsoft can't even make a dent into Linux's dominance, this represents >$100B in annual lost revenue for microsoft. So yes, Linux already won, and it won big time, despite going up against the MSFT behemoth as you say.

Global Linux desktop usage is at about ~5% and growing while Windows is bleeding out and dying. And Microsoft doesn't care, go read their earnings reports to see why, their consumer desktop business does not matter except for it's ability to generate leads and demand for their actual core products. And geopolitical levers are also in Linux's favor, e.g. EU's desires for tech independence: the moves European governments were already making away from global tech products while funding domestic (often open source) alternatives are going to continue to accelerate:

- https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101135795

- https://nlnet.nl/project/index.html

- https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/denmarks-strategic-leap...

- https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/15/schleswig_holstein_op...

And to answer your original question again, yes, open source software can compete, and it often can compete with a comical fraction of the resources of its closed source competitor. It's not a surprise: The open source model works extremely well and is the most efficient way to build software and technology that we know of; human beings have been sharing technology in this way for the duration of recorded history.

I'd be happy to make that offer to any of the parties that build closed ecosystems, but none of them will take the offer since closed ecosystems are almost always built with the intent of misusing the copyright system to create a state-enforced monopoly and bloodsuck value produced by real economic activity.

MSFT Market cap: 2.951T AAPL Market cap: 3.883T

It's time to say goodbye.

I doubt it. These products might even be good, but they are not like their early ancestors in several significant ways that will have them relegated to the footnotes of history. Most importantly, they are difficult to distinguish from both their immediate predecessors and their immediate successors. I don't mean to say that people won't have treasured experiences from this time that they long for in 20 years, just that I doubt the console will play as significant of a role in the memory.