[bitwize]

A free OS for PCs is a good idea -- but impossible. Microsoft and Apple have tenthousands of developers. And not just any devs, some of the best in the industry. Microsoft and Apple have research labs where they can subject their OS to hundreds of thousands of user-hours of testing for usability, scalability, and robustness.

How do you compete with that?

[kuschku]

With tenthousands of corporate developers from RedHat, Google, IBM?

Do you seriously think Torvalds, Stallmann and a few dozen enthusiasts could maintain all of the Linux ecosystem?

[bitwize]

Red Hat and Google got into their advantageous positions by building their businesses on top of Linux in the first place, back when people were saying it would never compete with Microsoft or big-iron Unix.

[butterfi]

Linux?

[lwhsiao]

I believe the parent was intentionally mirroring the grandparent comment to make the argument that Linux is a good counterexample.

[bitwize]

Not only that, but I was almost directly quoting the arguments that were routinely used against Linux back in the 90s.

[DirtyDan]

I believe he was being sarcastic