Here's an extraordinary - and extraordinarily depressing - story from Stefano Maffulli about the Comune di Milano (roughly the Milan city council) pushing to its citizens some free services from Microsoft for, er, free...
When will governments finally learn their lessons about 'free' (gratis) Microsoft offers? They merely acts as agents of monopolisation. ⬆
“They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
The crowd/audience Linus Torvalds panders to is paid by GAFAM to go attend and dominate (speak at) LF events. They're people whose employer forces them to use slop, it's inorganic.
"Before the announcement, former Microsoft employees publicly described staff being placed on performance improvement plans or offered “voluntary” exits."