Adrian Kingsley-Hughes over at ZDNet seems to have insighted a small firestorm of debate on a recent post “Is Ubuntu becoming the generic Linux distro?” in which he observes

Sometimes you stumble across an article that makes you wonder whether people are spreading FUD or whether they are really that ignorant. When you take it down, bit by bit, it becomes more and more obvious how ridiculous their statements are. This one is from Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. It is a well written article and it seems as if he knows what he is talking about. Well, since I have an unexpected free half hour as I wait for a call to be returned, let's take this baby apart.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has a great post over on Datamation entitled, "Linux...Why is it So Hard to Give It Away?". He addresses the difficulty in getting retailers to sell cheap Linux-based PCs, and decides that the problem is the support burden: It's easier to offload that to Microsoft than to undertake it to save a few dollars:

Microsoft's recent survey proclaimed nearly half the population believe it is ok to use pirated software for personal use. This diminishes the argument by Linux advocates that you can use their operating system without any cost. Yet, you can't confuse free as in cost with free as in freedom. Here's what FOSS really means.

There are different reasons people use Unix-like operating systems, including configurable, availability free of charge, powerful command line interface an many more. Some people are motivated by the moral issue: they reject non-free software.

"People are ignorant, but we already know that. As usual, I’ve read something really stupid on Twitter this morning. It said: I hope Apple will develop for everyone [every OS]. I think it would be one of the worst things to ever happen. Why do people want to install non-free software on free systems?

People who use and promote free software cite various reasons for their choice, but do those reasons tell the whole story? If, as a community, we want free software to continue to grow in popularity, especially in the mainstream, we should understand better the true reasons for choosing it—especially our own.

"Freedom is... the GNU Operating System. GNU is the first operating system designed to give you, the user, the freedom to share, study and modify it. We call this free software, because the user is free. GNU and free software are used by millions of people all over the world.

The Linux desktop market share is increasing. Will Microsoft feel threatened? Would they give away their software or operating system for free to limit the spread of free and open source software?