Had they just made 'Other OS' option not available for the new PS3 slim at the start that would be fine, but to remove it without any way of preventing it is a bit out of order I agree. Whether it is due to piracy being made easier with Linux on PS3 (ie BluRay movie ripping) I don't know.
What you have to remember is they make a loss on the hardware, and people who buy the machine to run Linux will probably buy one game, and some scientific institutes bought them to run complex calculations on CELL and that's it.
Thing is people buy the cheap and tacky, noisy as hell 360 and then pay for a crappy limited to 24 maximum players online service and nobody complains...why? Is it the same idiots who can't see what a piece of $hit Windows, the dirty profits of which made them rich enough to burn 100s of millions on the xbox1 project just to get a foothold in the market.
There are better things to complain about, like why there is no justice in the USA and hence forcing Microsoft to give away it's pathetic OS FREE for at least 25 years more. I bet if it was a Japanese company that screwed everyone but didn't make tax dollars for the ailing economy there would be a lot more fuss kicked up