I think years later people are going to look back and say we had it pretty good with Windows&#x2F;Linux&#x2F;*BSD and x86.<p>I can take a bunch of OSes and run them on standard x86 hardware and peripherals more or less, build my own OS if I want to and run my own apps with the compilers, linkers and frameworks of my choice. Skip forward a few years and there&#x27;s a good chance that will all be gone.<p>x86 is also a less than ideal proposition with Intel the only game in town - sure they are Open Source friendly for now but still it would&#x27;ve been a better world where the likes of AMD and VIA were flourishing in x86 land.