Interesting post PaleMoon, two thumbs up, since a n00b can't give AP's ... :-)

Although this would be a Good Thing (tm), there are a couple of roadblocks to be encountered on such an endeavour...
1.) Billy'$ Boyz will surely expend vast amounts of resources on lawyers, lobby groups, etc., to prevent such things from happening. If this works, though, anything that makes M$ blow vast quantities of money on something that ends up going against them would make quite a few people in many countries deliriously happy *coughs*.
2.)Inertia - The bane of IS/IT departments in both the Private AND Public sectors. Going to OSS, although much less expensive in terms of licensing costs, can be prohibitively expensive from the Training point of view. Imagine thousands upon thousands of hapless (l)users, who had trouble with the various flavours of Windoze, now thrust onto a 'new' OS and it's 'new' programs. Even rolled out over a one to two year period, Tech Support will still be getting frantic calls from some wackjob who boots up his box and discovers a Kernel Panic!, or proudly informs you that s/he's exorcised the computer of all the resident daemons. Did I mention the inherent F.U.D. from management types?...urghhh.
3.) Public Opinion - Anything that's forced upon us (in general, no flames please) can only be a Bad Thing (tm). Nobody wants to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the altar of Sensible Computing. Sure, Bill and Co. snuck it in like drug dealers (Windows 3.X, anyone?), but they did it quietly. No one want's to be forced to use another OS. We have a choice (now, in any case).
If this bill does go through, I sincerely hope that the wording is carefully chosen. Language can be a very powerful thing, and badly chosen words have started wars between countries, no matter the good intentions.
If what's coming down the pike is true ( I can't find the URL, I will post again, I'm sure), we will have to make some sort of choice. Micro$oft is looking at a more restrictive licensing scheme, so that even if you only have one Win2k server on your network, and everything else is *nix or species of Apple (hyuk), one will still be considered a Win2k server client, and licensing will apply ( I could be wrong in the interpretation of this, feel free to correct). Bill, Steve B. and the gang may end up shooting themselves in the feet introducing stuff like that, and the impending California bill may be moot. But caution is recommended. There's a lot of snakes in this business that don't like to be tread upon...


zaddikim