So Windows is dying a certain death, and everybody is waiting for linux to take over the desktop PC's after having taken over everything else in terms of computing...
But it's just not going to happen just like that.
Reason: Intel has always had a lot of benefit from the Wintel alliance, but as Windows is dead, they don't have a scheme like that any more.
Behold the new Windows... WindRiver VxWorks...
WindRiver was a small software company that took an open source linux distro, and modified it into a proprietary linux distro, much like OSX is a proprietary BSD distro. Intel bought WindRiver, and used it's influence in the US government to make NASA and JPL use WindRiver VxWorks instead of Debian on the generic Intel hardware in the Mars Curiosity Rover in 2012. The project had been using Debian since 2001 without ANY problem. VxWorks has crashed twice during the mission, and had to be OTA updated in order not to make the Curiosity Rover useless, so VxWorks has a lot in common with Windows for sure.
The Curiosity Rover imagery is also not available to the public through the open source Maestro software, like it always was before, but NASA receives it in encrypted format, and then decides which images to release to the public on it's website to registered users. Besides this being a violation of the Space Treaty, it's also a sign that the corporate control of the US government is complete, but that's another story.
Now Intel is a major contributor to the linux kernel. That is normal, because linux was originally developed as an x86 kernel. The problem is that Intel thinks that it costs too much to develop for linux. In 2013, Intel has fired all of it's open source driver developers, and has moved the development to China. That of course means that all drivers are - as has been the case traditionally with Intel - open source. Intel doesn't want that any more. They want a closed system like Apple.
A closed system is very hard to realize if the main operating system used on the Intel hardware is GPM-licensed. So Intel wants to change this, by adding an operating system blocking hardware feature into its CPU's. This would only allow certain operating systems to run with that CPU, like for example Windows, or OSX, or VxWorks, which is Intel's own linux clone.
As Windows faces certain death, and OSX is not about to take over the world, Intel is probably thinking that VxWorks might just become the next Windows. They are not going to allow continuing the majority of their hardware be used with free and open source software though, that's for sure.
Intel also has a mobile operating system ready, called Tizen, which is also based on Linux, but also proprietary.
Luckily in all of this, AMD is no longer controlled from the US, but by GlobalFoudries (owned by ATIC), of which the center of command is in Germany, and the majority shareholders are in the UAE.
Who would have thought that the fact that riba is a deadly sin would one day save software freedom in the world? It's strange how things turn out...