Don't look at it as the Desktop not being important anymore, but as the market having expanded.
This means that there are alternatives to the Microsoft monopoly, even if those are not on the desktop; therefore the original problem is no longer that severe and thus has been solved, but in an unexpected way.
I agree with part of that - it's not longer that severe. So, in technical terms, reduce the severity of the bug. Or mark it 'wontfix'. 'Fix released' is inaccurate: MS still have the whip hand in the desktop PC market, and that market is important to many people (me included).
If this were a real bug and not a political statement, I'd be complaining that the bug is badly written and leaves too much up to interpretation.
The title makes a vague reference to "market share", but doesn't specify where. The body then limits it to desktop PCs. However, it then goes on a big discussion about proprietary software, and how the goal is to make sure PCs come with only free software.
So, what does the person who filed the bug want? Is it:
A. Undo MS's majority share in consumer computing, as the bug title suggests?
B. Undo MS's majority share in desktop PCs, as the beginning of the body suggests?
C. Ensure that a majority of desktop PCs are sold containing only free software?
These are all quite different. The submitter seems to have assumed that the desktop PC would continue to be the only segment of consumer computing that mattered, and that the only possible alternative to MS having a majority market share is for free software to have a majority market share. These assumptions are clearly untrue today.
Don't get me wrong, it's a fun bug and an interesting statement, but I'd be careful about being too precise about trying to figure out exactly what it's about. If it were technical, I'd probably kick it back to the submitter and ask him to figure out what he actually wants. Since it's a political "bug", this is a nice political "fix".
I totally disagree with this. There's a really succinct test case on the bug: "Visit a local PC store, Attempt to buy a machine without any proprietary software".
So "the submitter" (Mark) wants to be able to go into a PC store and buy a PC without proprietary software. Even in those general terms, the bug is clearly still evident and clearly has not been fixed: saying "ah, but you can go into a shop and buy an Android tablet" is pretty unsatisfying.
That's supposed to demonstrate the bug, but it's not necessarily the end-all and be-all of fixing it.
In a hypothetical world where Apple somehow took over the PC market, would this bug be fixed? The title suggests yes. The first paragraph suggests yes. The rest suggests no. The bug is vague and contradictory.
Apple taking over is a hypothetical state in which you could argue the bug is fixed. I don't see anything in the actual state of things which allows that argument.
Vagueness is a continuum, not an absolute. The bug could be less vague, sure. I don't think it needs to be less vague in order to evaluate it right now, though.
The vagueness which applies to the actual situation today is: did they really mean desktop PCs only, or did they mean consumer computing, with desktop PCs being the only pertinent example of it in 2004? And, did they mean no proprietary software on a majority, or just no MS software?
Because right now, MS does not have a majority in consumer computing, but the majority is no longer desktop PCs, and the majority still ships with plenty of proprietary software. It's not possible to know whether or not this fits with the intent of the bug, because it's not sufficiently clear.
Who cares what crapware is on the machine? You can wipe it out and install whatever free OS you like. I would argue that your test case isn't particularly relevant any more.
> saying "ah, but you can go into a shop and buy an Android tablet" is pretty unsatisfying.
Particularly because it's doubtful that you could buy one without pre-installed software which is not only proprietary, but reports a great deal of information about you and your contacts to Google.
This means that there are alternatives to the Microsoft monopoly, even if those are not on the desktop; therefore the original problem is no longer that severe and thus has been solved, but in an unexpected way.