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They could also sue all manufacturers for anti-competitiveness for not allowing Linux to be run

But I think the $99 is cheaper and better (given what some idiot bios developers do - remember (IIRC) one link here on HN where the bios would look for 'Microsoft Windows' or 'Red Hat Linux' on boot entries?)

This is not only occasional but common. ACPI tables are notoriously broken in many bioses and Linux in fact has to do a bunch of horrible workarounds in order to get working tables regularly.

Maybe the $99 is a way to establish that a contract has been agreed on.

Yeah, but why does Fedora need a contract with Microsoft to use a Dell computer, or a generic computer built from parts?

I'm sorry, but what does IBM compatibility even mean anymore?

Think of it as a philosophy towards consumer computing hardware.

It just sounds so anachronistic. IBM hasn't been really involved in PCs for over 15 years.