The Failure of Proprietory Software

So here I am at work, contemplating our recent trend of replacing
"dumb" serial terminals with Windoze PC's.

Admittedly, this does allow more flexibility, but, on the other hand,
we now have to support these fragile, high-maintenance, expensive XP
machines, instead of the dumb terminals, which "just work".

My peeve of the day? Our old dumb terminals have programmable
function keys, which can save a lot of typing and errors. With
Windows, if you want this functionality you have to spend like $120
for some overkill (also does telnet, ssh, rlogin, etc) software.

Gee, wasn't some troll just telling us the "lack of market-based
coupling between user priorities and developer priorities with OSS
development models"? (cough ZnU cough)

By what magic force, I wonder, if not "market-based coupling", did
FOSS manage to satisfy my needs, while proprietary software failed?

BTW, these PC's, including legal Windoze XP, cost about $200. These
are decent machines, too, with Northwood P4's and a Gig of RAM.

On GNU/Linux, the functionality that I need is there and is free, in
programs like gtkterm and minicom.

On Windows, I need to spend over 50% to get the same functionality,
and then there's virus scanners, backup software, and Windows itself,
probably making the cost about double the Linux equivalent.