Ever since, your correspondent has kept a copy of this clever Linux distribution ( gOS 3.1 Gadgets is the latest version) on one of his office machines to remind him of what, with luck, the future could look like.

ECONOMIST: Google goes in search of an instant operating system

He disagreed that this was good for competition in the books markets and said that the "economics of the e-book industry is quite different to the print industry" because costs are the same up until first copy but after that e-books incur none of costs of printing and distribution.

BBC: US has 'strong case' against Apple's e-books