After all the money we spend on government to protect us from shoddy goods and price gouging, the marketplace may turn out to be the best protector of all.

For years, government regulators have attached themselves to Microsoft like a rabid chihuahua on a mailman’s leg. Whether it’s the Justice Department’s anti-trust division or the European Union’s equivalent, the complaint is the same: Bill Gates is “too successful.” Windows is a “monopoly.” Nobody can “compete.”

Someone forgot to tell Linus Torvalds, Finland’s contribution to the American way. Linux, the “open source” operating system Torvalds unveiled in 1991, transformed itself from a fashionable “nerd alternative” into Microsoft’s worst nightmare in only a decade. By 2008, one in five desktop computers will likely run Linux.

When it comes to computer network servers, Linux may have already passed Windows NT. Bill Gates sells operating systems. The main complaint against his company is that it throws in too much “free” stuff web browsers, media players and such stifling the ability of companies that sell those “extras” to compete.

Linux went the other way. The operating system is free, and vendors make their money selling technical support, administration services and “extra” applications (although there are plenty of free ones). It wasn’t litigation that made Linux successful. It was innovation and entrepreneurship. Finding a better way. Building a better mousetrap. And letting customers decide for themselves which one is better.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.