If

What will you do if Microsoft and other companies succeed in making the PC a closed architecture?  Sort of like cell phones?

Linux.

never happen

There will always be alternatives, and if only for companies that don't want to run Microsoft applications. I'm prepared to pay more and use BSD/Solaris if I must.

To elaborate on >>4's post: there are too many businesses that make too much money using open platform hardware (and open source software too, I might add) for a few players to close the pool like >>1 suggests.