It's not an entirely original thought but a European think tank called the Globalisation Institute has suggested that computers should not be sold with a bundled operating system. I think we can safely assume that means Windows as the next sentence states that "the bundling of Microsoft Windows with computers is not in the public interest, and prevents meaningful competition in the operating system market."

Now, despite the fact that I happen to like many of the Open Source alternatives, I don't think this is a very good idea. It assumes too much expertise on the part of the buyers of new computers and the amount of time they are willing to spend setting the computer up.

There's nothing fun about installing an operating system, even if everything goes smoothly. Frankly it is very dull and a good time to read a book or watch TV. The situation wouldn't be too bad if we could rely on all manufacturers to supply drivers but which drivers? Just Windows? In which case there would be just as good conditions for a monopoly than there are now. Should they just stop at Linux or continue with Mac OS X, BeOS?

The full report can be downloaded as a PDF file.