Comments

• Needs Sunlight

  2009-07-28 10:21:20

  It's already possible to buy MIPS and ARM based netbooks. That's hardware inherently free of the M$ tax.
  
  You might scratch beneath the surface of the x86 market and find that a lot of home users and casual business users have dropped M$d cruft from their desktops.

• Robotron 2084

  2009-07-28 10:41:18

  There is no Microsoft Tax. There is a great blog posting about this written by a guy who although primarily develops on Linux, he is NOT a zealot. You could learn something, but I doubt it.
  
  http://lucky13linux.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/there-is-no-microsoft-tax-except-on-lazy-twats/

• Needs Sunlight

  2009-07-28 12:35:13

  The M$ tax is still there for x86 machines, except to Apple. From time to time there are white boxes and linux-preinstalls. Those sell quickly and stocks last only a short while. Then, Asus being a typical example, the company mysteriously does a 180.
  
  http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/the_microsoft_tax_revisited
  
  This page is dated, but still gives an overview of the scope of the problem.
  
  http://windowsrefund.info/survey/doku.php
  
  Show me machines with linux or any other non-M$ system pre-installed. Oh, you can't, huh?

• zatoichi

  2009-07-28 13:11:45

  There's nothing mysterious about Asus' change, and I'd challenge the assertion that Linux-based devices from Asus "sold quickly". Asus said they had a high return rate from users on Linux-based boxes, and a low overall demand.
  
  Maintain separate BoMs (know what a "BoM" is? Anyone?) is an expense and additional work for companies. If Asus decided not to stock netbooks with Linux pre-installed, there's no "mystery" about it, it's because the additional cost and inconvenience of doing so wasn't justified by the sales.

• aeshna23

  2009-07-28 12:57:04

  Robotron is to be thanked for reminding us of the hollowness of the people calling us "zealots." He links to some angry person without a serious argument. And he says that angry person mostly develops Linux. If angry person does indeed develop Linux, I suggest he spends his time developing on a platform that he actually likes.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-07-28 13:02:27

  Robotron is to be thanked for reminding us of the hollowness of the people calling us “zealots.”

  
  
  "Robotron 2084" is a nymshift of someone who has been 'heckling' (and that's putting it gently) this Web site for years.

• eet

  2009-07-28 13:43:33

  This is interesting, Roy. Care to share your knowledge, or is it just inference as your usual vague accusations?

• zatoichi

  2009-07-28 14:22:44

  <B"But why would anyone expect Microsoft and its ilk to continue to court a community that ridicules and second-guesses its every attempt at perestroika? I know from conversations with several companies that they're actually scared to engage the open-source community because the responses have been so intemperate and ideological.
  
  "I'm convinced that this element of the open-source community, vocal and sometimes vicious, is a minority. I'm equally convinced that we'd better off if this enemy within would spend more time analyzing its own behavior rather than shouting down the supposed "mudbloods" of open source." —Matt Asay