Mark Shuttleworth is looking forward to a good, clean netbook fight with Microsoft following the release of Windows 7.
Speaking with The Reg, the founder of popular Linux distro Ubuntu and chief executive of Canonical called Windows 7 a great operating system.
Great? Doesn't Shuttleworth work for the competition? Shouldn't he be building up Windows 7's hidden weaknesses?
Apparently not. "I'm not going to 'diss it", he said categorically. So there.
In fact, Shuttleworth believes a good version of Windows will end the current phony war between Windows and Linux in the high-growth netbook market and reignite the fight on features and capabilities.
Shuttleworth believes that a decent edition of Windows will mean Microsoft finally has to charge full price and that Redmond will finally stop allowing OEMs to use low-cost copies of Windows XP instead of paying full price for the full version of the official flagship - Windows Vista.
"We are in an awkward situation now because they are giving away XP in the netbook market - they are literally giving it way to OEMs," he claimed.
"You can make the argument Linux is more expensive that Windows XP because Microsoft has been very aggressive in licensing," Shuttleworth said.
