Watching Linspire after its deal with Microsoft is like watching SCO disintegrating over the past couple of years. The company has become friends with the wrong people and as a result, not only is it left without access to key code, but it also loses key people.

Ubuntu snags top Linspire staffers

Linspire, the troubled Linux distribution vendor, has recently lost a top executive and a lead developer to the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution. Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu, has hired former Linspire staffers Randy Linnell and Brian Thomason.

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Thomson was the lead engineer in charge of Linspire's CNR Warehouse. The new CNR is meant to make it simple for users to find, download, and install Linux applications from a combined wiki and file repository. The multi-Linux distribution CNR is still in alpha development at this time.

"The question remains, how much money did Kevin Carmony get paid to destroy the company?"Congratulations to Randy Linnell and Brian Thomason, who appear to be in very safe hands now.

Let's analyse to see what Microsoft has achieved here and how.

1. Microsoft pays about $20 million to Linspire
2. It then gets Carmony to go out there and throw mud in the face of other Linux companies (the "high-brow pirates" remark)
3. it claims that another company now supports OOXML
4. it claims that another company now pays for interoperability, whatever that actually is (in pragmatic terms, to Linspire at least)
5. Then, it backstabs Linspire and uses that betrayal to spread more FUD about the GPLv3
6. Saving the best for last, Linspire is as alive as SCO

Does anybody still think that deals with Microsoft are a good idea?

At the end of the day Microsoft gets all of this for a mere $20 million. It takes Microsoft minutes to make that sum -- minutes that are spent completely destroying a rival.

Linspire could have and should have seen better. Looking at recent history, it should be crystal clear what happens when you liaise with a 'Friendly' Neighborhood Lord (Neelie Kroes had something to say about this yesterday). The question remains, how much money did Kevin Carmony get paid to destroy the company? Ron Hovsepian appears to have received personal rewards as well, just like Dark McBride who received a pay rise when SCO's bankruptcy was declared. Isn't the world of finance crazy?