We pro-regulators were making an assumption that history has shown to be completely false: That something as complex as an OS has to be built by a commercial entity. Only crazies imagined that volunteers outside the control of a corporation could successfully create a system over which no one had exclusive command. We knew those crazies. They worked on something called Linux.

I think about this mistake whenever I think about the current Microsoft-like network-neutrality debate – whether network owners can pick the stuff that flows across "their" network.