MY RESPONSE: Not me. I knew, back near the end of February, when ZDNet’s Mary-Jo Foley wrote this article…

Microsoft’s monetization dilemma:
Bundling’s not all it’s cracked up to be

SEE | http://zd.net/1i5ET5l

…which disclosed Microsoft’s plans to distribute a Bing-enhanced free version of Windows 8.1, that this is precisely the sort of thing that would happen.

I couldn’t predict exactly how it would be done, of course; but it seemed to me back then that making Win8 free on phones, at the very least, was likely. That it’ll be that, plus free on 7″ and 8″ and 9″ tablets, too, is just gravy.

It won’t change anything, though. “Free” and “open source” are two very different things. As long as Windows comes with copyright strings attached, it’ll still not be very attractive to device makers, compared with Android (which really is open-source).

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Gregg L. DesElms
Napa, California USA
gregg at greggdeselms dot com

Veritas nihil veretur nisi abscondi.
Veritas nimium altercando amittitur.