Bill Weinberg - Linuxpundit.com 

On Wednesday the 13th of June, Microsoft announced yet another of its strong-arm cross licensing deals (Microsoft and Linspire Collaboration Promotes Interoperability and Customer Choice), this time with commercial Linux-based desktop vendor Linspire.  Linspire, readers may recall, used to be called "Lindows" until lawyers from Redmond showed up on their doorstep to warn them away from Microsoft trademarks.

Well, the many in the OSS blogosphere appear extra-enraged by this particular deal, perhaps even more so than for Xandros, Samsung, and of course Novell.  Why?  Because open source icon ESR (Eric Raymond) is on the "Community Leadership Board" of Freespire, the theoretically purer OSS arm of the Linspire desktop distribution.  And, because ESR has yet to comment in his blog (Armed and Dangerous), his silence is being taken for tacit approval.  Ho hum.

Dangerous domino?  Deathknoll for OSS? Crack of Linux desktop doom?  I think not.  Linspire is a gimme for Microsoft - not a heavy shoe dropping, more of a child's ballet slipper.  Linspire has very limited market share, influence, and street cred.  Call it coin-operated Linux for Dummies. Newbies and power desktop users alike are much better served by Ubuntu.  And Freespire?  Reading the tales of woe was actually the first I'd heard it mentioned.  

Back to work on my Ubuntu desktop.