What does it mean for proprietary software?
In its current evolutionary dispensation, proprietary software like Microsoft’s Windows OS relies on a long term return for the investment by closed source code and a business model in which they control who gets what and when they get it. For example, the customer has no direct input to what the Ballmer and Gates decide to do, other than the ultimate weapon of product boycott. (The only possible exception to this is the Pharamcuticals industry, where the phenomenal costs, time scales and statutory regulations possibly justify at least partially the retention of patents.) If certain features are absent or buggy or upgraded OSs like Vista come out and cripple you machine with DRM and hobble its hardware performance (and they have decided to discontinue support for you version of Windows) you scope for action is limited. Perhaps if you write a nice, begging letter Bill and Steve might condescend to dig deeply into the bloated coffers of the beast of Redmond and subsidize your abandoned,
