What concerns me are the ducks being lined up:

Novell
Xandros
Linspire
and others…

Yes, Turbolinux for a fact, with various rumours about Mandriva, which are nonetheless unsubstantiated. There are also at least 4 companies which use Linux in devices. They have all signed a deal with Microsoft and they pass royalties to Microsoft to cover imaginary property (see quotes from Ballmer, Smith and Gutierrez). I’m aware that it’s upsetting to hear this, but just ignoring the issue won’t make it go away. Lack of awareness or burying one’s head in the sand is the worst one can do at this stage.

Which have entered into agreements with Microsoft and some (Xandros and the EEeePC

This is actually an interesting issue. It was natrual to assume that royalties are being passed, but recent feedback from a senior Xandros employee suggests that Asustek isn’t necessarily paying Microsoft a penny.

, or whatever it’s called -and- Linspire and computers at Sears)

Yes, they do Freespire, but I doubt it’s the right route to take. For similar reasons, it’s advised to avoid OpenSUSE. We received a lot of flak for saying so. The companies benefit from their userbase (just look at the value of MySQL for example).

of these are launching into stores since the Dell/Ubuntu efforts launched by the most noble Mark Shuttleworth.

Mind the fact that Dell joined the Novell/Microsoft deal — whatever that actually means (it was very vague and that only raises doubts and suspicion).

With people buying these Xandros/Linspire machines, is there a Microsoft tax involved?

It’s hard to tell, but we’ve gathered evidence. As the quotes from Ballmer, Smith and Gutierrez show, it’s all made vague and probably deliberately so. It’s all being done behind the scenes with unnmaed companies (refusal to reveal identity). One has to wonder if it’s an attempt to increase uncertainty (creating doubt, fear).

For similar reasons, the alleged patent violations were never named — and that’s just how a classic extortion scheme (racket) works. Think along the lines of “we have a very big pistol in our pocket and you don’t want to mess with us.”

Can we expect more companies to join Microsoft and sell Linux?

It’s the big ones we should worry about — Red Hat (servers) and Canonical (desktop). We posted an open letter to Red Hat’s new CEO and it was read by many people. Mark Shuttleworth is very opinionated so he can be trusted. Last year, Steven Vaughan opined that everyone would sign such a deal, but that’s just pessimism and defeatism which we refuse to embrace.

Should something bad happen and the Ubuntu well dries up, will Microsoft retract the Microsoft-pact Linux offerings? We know what happened to Corel Linux after Microsoft came in.

We looked back at the Corel deal about a year ago. It’s appalling, but again, Canonical can be trusted and there will be big companies like IBM, Google and Oracle who won’t permit this.

This is going to be a long battle, Microsoft is ruthless in its history of dominating others, as it is a criminal organization and gets away with almost anything in the United States. I fear for the future of FREE and true linux distros. I’m convinced if these pacts continue, Linux’s fate is to be wrapped in a closed source blanket of Microsoft’s electric semen.

Watch the following video. It sums up pretty well Microsoft’s prospects of changing the law to suit itself. As Professor Lessig shredly concludes, it’s corruption we must address. Looking at the merits of GNU/Linux alone is not enough when someone actively tries to suffocate it ‘peripherally’.

If we need to make compromises and sacrifice the ‘sweet talk’, then so be it. You can’t be gentle and polite when facing a company that sabotages, steals, lies, bribes and threatens.

What concerns me are the ducks being lined up:

Novell
Xandros
Linspire
and others…

Which have entered into agreements with Microsoft and some (Xandros and the EEeePC , or whatever it’s called -and- Linspire and computers at Sears) of these are launching into stores since the Dell/Ubuntu efforts launched by the most noble Mark Shuttleworth. With people buying these Xandros/Linspire machines, is there a Microsoft tax involved? Can we expect more companies to join Microsoft and sell Linux? Should something bad happen and the Ubuntu well dries up, will Microsoft retract the Microsoft-pact Linux offerings? We know what happened to Corel Linux after Microsoft came in.

This is going to be a long battle, Microsoft is ruthless in its history of dominating others, as it is a criminal organization and gets away with almost anything in the United States. I fear for the future of FREE and true linux distros. I’m convinced if these pacts continue, Linux’s fate is to be wrapped in a closed source blanket of Microsoft’s electric semen.

Oh, and I just want to add FUCK YOU MICROSOFT!

When Daniel Robbins joined Microsoft he only lasted there for a few months. It didn’t work out so well for Gentoo.

Crispin Cowan joins the Windows Security Team
http://blogs.msdn.com/michael_howard/archive/2008/01/17/crispin-cowan-joins-the-windows-security-team.aspx

Another disgusting story. Thankfully some of us like RMS have morals and values.