Free as in Freedom, with Microsoft's conditions that are not enforceable by law

Dana Blankenhorn yesterday called the OLPC project a failure for its inability to mass market a low-cost Linux laptop. Dana’s definition of failure, in this case, seems to be based on the quantity of XO laptops distributed.

My blogging colleague Dana Blankenhorn reports that ThinkgOS founder David Lui isn’t worried by the Wal-Mart snub. He should be.

If you have been having trouble finding Linux on a netbook, you can stop wondering why. I suspected it was being monopoly-crushed. Here's the smoking gun, at last, thanks to Dana Blankenhorn of ZDNet, who attended Comdex and asked the right question...

What's the trend? Bigger. We are in the midst of a Gold Rush, as Dana Blankenhorn has written. The rules of software business are being rewritten, and those who understand them will make a lot of money for shareholders...and themselves.

I have been pondering the meaning of “free” in association with Free Open Source Software (FOSS) in general and GNU/Linux in particular. If one asks a FOSS advocate what free means in regard to these one might hear the reply, “Free as in beer!” and/or “Free as in freedom!”.

Color me surprised. Dana Blankenhorn, a well-known writer about Linux and open source recently asked for someone—anyone–to send him a loaner Linux laptop to replace his now dead Windows laptop. What, he didn’t already have one?

MICROSOFT'S calculated attack on sub-notebooks running GNU/Linux is well documented [1, 2] and since Dana Blankenhorn finds excuses for what Groklaw concludes, it is clear that he has not been following what happened closely enough. What Groklaw offered as a "smoking gun" is just the tip of the iceberg and not even as compelling a proof as the words of ASUS and kickbacks, for example.

A couple of days ago, Simon Phipps from Sun Microsystems said that the company ”screwed up“ when it comes to open source. Dana Blankenhorn opines that Sun is still screwing up. Here is the core of his argument.