> > What's the problem? The users can just download the same browser if they're really interested in the additional functionality.
> Instead of working to ensure that my parents' computer running Windows 3.1 shipped with a C compiler by default a few decades ago, people inside Microsoft and Borland were probably thinking the same thing.
Er, no, they weren't. For Microsoft, they were not thinking users could just download top quality dev tools, in fact that would have been directly contrary to their interests -- they had a profit-based motive for assuring that quality dev tools were a separate purchase. Bundling them into the OS would have required them to sacrifice the additional cost that people making money developing software would be willing to pay for a dev tools .
And Borland was also trying to sell dev tools, but was really irrelevant to what Windows was going to be bundled with.
> Instead of working to ensure that my parents' computer running Windows 3.1 shipped with a C compiler by default a few decades ago, people inside Microsoft and Borland were probably thinking the same thing.
Er, no, they weren't. For Microsoft, they were not thinking users could just download top quality dev tools, in fact that would have been directly contrary to their interests -- they had a profit-based motive for assuring that quality dev tools were a separate purchase. Bundling them into the OS would have required them to sacrifice the additional cost that people making money developing software would be willing to pay for a dev tools .
And Borland was also trying to sell dev tools, but was really irrelevant to what Windows was going to be bundled with.