"Being easy to install and easy to use is not enough. The first lesson of "open source business" is that your first debt is to your user and developer communities, from which everything else grows".

The biggest problem for Xandros and Linspire has been the "patent covenants" that both companies signed with Microsoft.

"First we had Novell jumping onboard with Microsoft, and then came a cooperative deal with Xandros. Now we have Linspire following the trend and I’m left wondering: should we be worried? Many of you may point out that it is merely a handful of companies, but I see this differently."

In my blog yesterday, I shared how Michael Robertson had sold Linspire to Xandros without a shareholder meeting or any input from the 100 some-odd shareholders. Today, Xandros' CEO, Andy Typaldos, did a Q & A (spin) about this deal. I thought I'd add some additional "color" to some of his answers.

OK, so why have Novell, Xandros, and Linspire all gotten into bed with Microsoft? Is it...

1. They were seduced by Steve Ballmer's charming smile?
2. They've gone over to the dark side of the force?
3. Terror of Microsoft's mighty patent portfolio had them groveling at Microsoft's feet?

"SJVN jubilates: GPLv3 picks up traction. Consulting gpl3.palamida.com, a site who monitors the conversions to GPLv3 and LGPLv3, he notes: "out of the 3,205 projects licensed under GPLv2 or later, about 8 percent of them have moved to the GPLv3.""

Microsoft denies that it has anything to do with GPLv3 or vice versa. Novell, however, is making it clear that it will be supporting SUSE Linux Enterprise Server in the future, including any components, such as future versions of Samba, that are licensed under GPLv3.

Microsoft says software that's licensed under GPLv3 isn't covered by the patent protection deal it recently signed with desktop Linux distributor Linspire.

Early reports yesterday alleged that Xandros had secretly purchased Linspire, an accusation later confirmed by Xandros executives. We now have fresh details on the deal, straight from the mouth of Andreas Typaldos, CEO of Xandros and freshly installed President of Linspire.

Mandriva has become the third major Linux distributor to publicly announce it has no intention to join Microsoft in licensing and non-litigation pacts. Red Hat and Ubuntu have made similar statements, while Novell, Xandros and Linspire have partnered with Microsoft in sharing licensed technology and agreeing not to sue each other over possible patent infringements.