There are certainly some interesting stories appearing at the moment. In yesterday morning's news and the British press in particular (e.g. this one, with further commentary here) it was revealed that the desktop product from ASUS -- part of the Eee family -- will run Windows and not GNU/Linux as initially promised. How come? ASUS says that its Xandros derivative will come later, but why not first? Why the sudden change, what about pricing, and why a distribution that is rendered 'tainted' by a software patents deal with Microsoft?

“...Microsoft clearly has a history of getting its top competitors to stop competing.”Going back to Corel days, Microsoft clearly has a history of getting its top competitors to stop competing. Money is typically involved -- a transaction for securing a monopoly if you like.

In yesterday's news, coincidentally enough, practices related to this were described as harmful. And with Corel, Xandros comes to mind again. We are still not sure whether Microsoft gets paid for Linux-based Eee PCs or.

The choice of Xandros and Windows by ASUS gets criticised in this new article (remember the fight against Linux sub-notebooks using crippled hardware and cheap Windows). It's a good read.

From the same source (Free Software Magazine), here is Seagate getting slammed and even compared to Novell.

It is sad to see a great hardware manufacturer, like Seagate, pandering to the demands of a Convicted Monopolist, like Microsoft, to the extent that they are making life difficult for all their other customers. It seems like Microsoft corrupts everything it touches. The free software community should maintain a complete apartheid from this corporation and with all those who attempt to collaborate with it, like Novell.

Seagate, Novell, Xandros... Microsoft sure gets around. It wasn't long ago that Microsoft and Seagate got together (there's this earlier one too). Linux users around the world (across the Web) complained very vocally at the beginning of this year and the end of last year due to Linux exclusion or neglect by Seagate, so this is not news. Hard-drives needn't be platform dependent; neither should Seagate. They sell hardware.

It goes further. As a side note, surely enough Adobe is once again betraying the Linux Foundation, of which it is a new member. Its newly-announced media player supports Mac OS and Windows but nothing else, so that's another one to keep in mind.

Last but now least, Samsung has got this new product (described below), but despite the fact that it's Linux-based, Samsung is definitely to be avoided not just because of the corruption but also because it sold out (Linux developers) to Microsoft.

A style-conscious Samsung digital camera and personal media player (PMP) is built on a MontaVista Linux platform, it was revealed by a reader. Shipping since last year, the Samsung i70 features 7.2-megapixel resolution, 3x optical zoom, and Samsung's ASR (Advanced Shake Reduction) technology.

It is interesting to see that Samsung uses MontaVista rather than a homebrew Linux platform. Does this mean that MontaVista too could be tainted if put in the hands of companies that signed software patent deals which involve Linux? The ripple effect (or chain reaction) is not a convenience one. Ponder the transitory relationship between ASUS and Microsoft, due to Xandros in the middle. ⬆