What Raymond did not let on at that time - February 2007 - was that he had joined the board of Freespire, a community Linux distribution which is owned by the company which sells the commercial distribution Linspire. Formerly known as Lindows, Linspire has no problems with including proprietary software, as long as it meets users' needs.

Raymond has been an implacable foe of Microsoft; one incident which is touted as proof of this is an encounter with Microsoft's Craig Mundie in an elevator. When Mundie asked him who he was, Raymond is reported to have said: "I am your worst nightmare."

Given his background, I'd like to pose a query to Raymond: Now that Linspire has genuflected to the people in Redmond, will you do the honourable thing and quit the board of Freespire?

The deal which Linspire signed with Microsoft is the latest in a line - others to fall flat on their faces include Novell, LG (life's good), and Xandros Corporation. The Linspire deal includes patent protection for its customers.

Another person who will have to make a stand now is the head of Canonical, Mark Shuttleworth. A few months back, Linspire and Canonical (the latter is the parent company of the well-known Ubuntu Linux distribution) signed a deal whereby the latter would be able to use proprietary software from Linspire's storehouse. The storehouse is known as Click N Run. There was also an announcement that Linspire would adopt Ubuntu as its base. Both distributions have their roots in Debian.

Will Shuttleworth continue to collaborate with a company which has now caved in to a protection racket? Or will he do stick to the principle behind the whole FOSS movement and walk away from the deal? We're watching and waiting, Mark.