Hold on there, Tiger. Let's not start giving revolutionary credit and praise to a company that's simply latched onto a Linux distro and spun it into a rebranded OS.
Praise Linux for what it is, but keep your tits in your shirt here in regards to this Vision OS - the C-USA boys haven't done anything other than customize a distro like any schlub in his basement could have done in a weekend. Credit where credit is due, they are providing the product they promised and I do hope it fits the needs of their users.
They deserve no praise for freely making it available, they have to abide by GPL like anyone else. We here at A.org could each go buy a case of beers this weekend and roll out our own A.org OS distro collectively. The "Dancing Franko" screenblanker might take some time though.
As for the "the right way to do it" comment, what options were there? Linux can be handed out willy nilly, tweaked to look as something fancy - FREE. Include a handwritten sheet in the computer box that says "4 AN OS PLZ VISIT UBUNTU.COM & ASK THEM 2 MAIL U A DEE VEE DEE, THX!!" if you want. From a support angle it's entirely sane, esp. for a new company that may not want to wrangle around with Microsoft. let's just not give credit where credit is due and say Linux is their brainchild, ok?
I agree they were smart with going with Linux, leaving a MS OS up to the user, but the "right way to go" idea is silly. Linux costs them nothing, that's why they went with it. No cost to them, no obligation to support it. Fanboys can develop linux themes and backdrops for zilch - you simply are not going to convince me they spent anything more than beer money on "customization", lol. It is absolutely a brain dead process to roll your own customized Linux "distro", even without ever seeing a single line of source.
The option was selling the machines with a Windows OEM/VLK tag, and that would a have severely effected their profits. FREE vs. $50, minimum? Can't say I wouldn't have done any different, but then again I also wouldn't have done the marketing hype of trying to pass a Linux distro off as a new OS.
