Patently monopolistic

For people in any doubt as to why Microsoft are so despised, it's because they've got to where they are by shafting everyone else as hard as possible.
The company's latest wheeze is to secure worldwide patents for as wide-ranging intellectual property as they can get away with. This now includes double-clicking and electronic to do lists. Any other company developing software to make use of this functionality will do so under Microsoft licence. This is compounded by governments supporting this kind of practice, most notably the Irish who recently renegotiated European patent law to allow Microsoft to get away with this short of nonsense.
The open source community's distrust is not misplaced.