not to sound pedantic, but that seems like a horribly impossible scenario, because letting the operating system's security, be it windows, linux, etc... be in charge of who launches nukes would be insanely insecure, no, even if they could open the program, there would undoubtedly there would be several very stringent layers of security on top of that.

I was entirely joking, but that's not to say that's not possible in less developed countries with nuclear arms..

Well you don't, but it would probably be more than the lowest-common-denominator Ubuntu or Mint user is interested in dealing with. Do you think they should have a default set of whitelisted commands?

No, in fact I am very pessimistic about general computing. I fully expect devices/desktops to be locked down to an extent that makes Windows 10 look truly open :(

I only hope people will still be able to install a Free OS in the future, which slowly seems to be getting harder (UEFI)

I wouldn't be too worried, some manufacturers would find out they could make money selling unlocked pcs to open-source enthusiasts.

Currently you can get computers that have free as in free bios installed.

But you are right, that's how android got the upper hand in the mobile market:(

Open desktop PCs will always be around, because there will always be people (especially developers) need them do their jobs. The question is, how much are you willing to pay? If it costs $2000 to buy a general-purpose dektop PC, will you buy one? What about $2500? We are in a pretty unique moment in history where anyone who wants one can bring home a workstation-class computer for under $1000. However, with the rise of internet terminals like the ChromeBook and mobile devices that satisfy 98% of consumers' needs while being cheaper and idiot-proof (people give literal babies smartphones nowadays), it is likely that to buy a workstation-class computer you will have to once again pay a workstation-class price, or salvage an old one that a business is throwing away.

E: and before anyone says anything, I know modern workstations are more powerful than consumer PCs, but that's it--they're more PC with more cores and more memory and a few nice features like ECC. A real old-style workstation relied on totally different technology from other microcomputers (RISC processors, SCSI, exotic cards like Silicon Graphics' 3D accelerators, backplane construction, etc.), ran totally different software (Unix or very occasionally Windows NT when home computers ran much simpler operating systems like DOS or MacOS Classic, or if you were very lucky OS/2), and could do things that were extremely difficult if not impossible on a consumer PC. In DOS, just installing a network stack was a monumental undertaking that in the end cost you 200K or more of your precious 640K of main memory, crippling your machine for other tasks unless you set up an alternate boot. And then you bring home an old HP 9000 from the office, and now you can access shared network files in one terminal, have vi open in another, troll Usenet from a third, and look at porn in 65,536 colors on your CDE desktop, all at the same time, and the old dog does all of it faster than your new 386.

A true all-purpose computer was a rare thing for an ordinary person to have in the day, and so it may be again. If I were Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, Linux would not keep me up at night, Android would. Linux is an alternative PC operating system to Windows. Android is an alternative to PCs, and one that consumers increasingly like better than all the fuss of trying to learn, use, and maintain a general-purpose PC. It doesn't matter that it can't do as much as a PC, because the majority of users do not need those capabilities. And as they stop buying PCs, PCs will have to go upmarket, way upmarket to survive. The corporations don't need some sort of nefarious conspiracy to make this happen, because consumers will make it happen for them.