If your laptop hinge broke after a few months you might expect a warranty repair. This guy discovered to his horror that the biggest IT superstore in the UK would not repair his laptop because he had installed Linux. But then the story started getting really bizarre.

Today I visited PC World (London, UK) because my 5-month-old laptop has developed a manufacturing fault: the hinge to the display has started to crack the plastic casing. Anyone in the know will know that this is due to the joint inside, and it means that in time the screen will separate from the keyboard.

"You know how I always tell you when I make a mistake? Well, it looks like I made one when I told you that I didn't think Massachusetts would care what you said in any emails about Microsoft's OfficeOpen XML specification (now Ecma 376) being proposed as an addition to their list of usable "open standards". I'm hearing that they are reading the emails and will take them seriously."

Microsoft once made the mistake of broad-brushing Linux as an intellectual property quagmire. It made Microsoft headlines, but few friends: lawyers didn't believe it, customers didn't want to hear it, and competitors dared it to sue.

An anonymous poster told us about a recent order from Judge Kimball in another case, unrelated to SCO, but one that references his own decision in SCO v. Novell. So I took a look at the order, and it answers a question I've had, namely, what if, at trial, a judge were to realize he'd made a mistake on an earlier ruling on summary judgment motions? Is it too late to fix it?

Days later you receive an email from your reputable vendor that your RMA refund request has been denied, because you installed Linux on the laptop. You contact your vendor's customer service group, and are again told, "No refund. You installed Linux."

Can you believe it? We’ve made it to thirty. That’s right; thirty issues of FCM, and they wouldn’t have happened without you! Here’s a giant thank you to all the editors, translators, writers, hosting donators, and everyone else that’s made FCM and Ubuntu possible.

I don’t know how many times I’ve run into this particular mistake, but free software developers keep making it, so I think it’s worth a brief post. Free software is based on contact between users and developers.

The London Stock Exchange has just crashes again, having made the mistake of betting on Microsoft.