Ok, total shower thought but what if the likes of Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Acer, Asus etc. got together and said "Guys, let's form a consortium to create a new OS (based on Linux, of course) to break the Microsoft hold".

Would it work? Would there be demand?

Hell, I'll run it for them: I just want Windows 2000 with some security fixes :-)

Just a crazy thought but hey, you never know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯