[johnea]

Your comments that MS is a completely differnt company are absolutely correct.

MS owns github, linkedin, and it's cloud services in azure, etc, are outside the initial desktop OS business model. Not to mention it being one of the biggest contributors to the linux kernel (to my chagrin). All of this is because of the slide in significance and dominance of it's windows OS business.

This OS business is still quite present though, such as in the h/w upgrades being pushed on users now in migrating to win11. The big h/w OEMs pay windows OS royalties for all those new computers.

Also, WRT your mention of the h/w driver dominance of MS, it's ironic to note that in the modern world h/w peripherals still often come with a custom windows driver, when their use on linux is almost always supported by standard USB class device drivers. A notable failure to evolve.