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"If some user doesn't care about freedom/price, why should anyone care about him using linux?"

Network effects. The more Linux users there are, the greater the incentive for companies to support their hardware and software on Linux.

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I see your point. I wonder, though, whether it's worth the trouble. We're doing really well for <1% market share or whatever it is. Much of the popular windows games/software runs on wine/cedega & I haven't had any trouble finding linux-compatible hardware. Maybe it was the case in 2001, but I don't think unsupported hardware/software is much of an obstacle today.

I don't think we've reached the point yet where you can buy a laptop or PC and not wonder about whether it can flawlessly run all your Linux apps, with all the finger print readers, weird mice and keyboards, webcams, etc, that now come with computers. That's the point I'd say Linux hardware support should aim for.

I don't think any more than that would be good. If it gets too mainstream, it won't be a geek OS anymore... We'll have to find something else :(. And the possible problem of people writing more viruses for it. (Though I'm not an expert on security issues)

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