Depending on the support contract, that might or might not be a big deal. It's also possible they have a large customer who has requested that, so they already have a process.
Support contract with who? They are more likely to promise Linux for a large customer and just take a bath on the extra cost, sales people will promise the earth if they can smell commission. In the server market though Linux is a big deal, so they do tend to support it there.
Who said anything about supporting an OS they can't charge money for? Of course they are going to charge money for it..
Free to them doesn't mean free to the consumer.. ;-) Of course support costs need to be built in.
Which will mean that buying a computer with Linux could cost more than one with Windows, which is likely going to upset the majority of Linux users who only use it because it meets their communist ideology. Selling with no operating system at all also has a cost beyond the Windows license itself, like the additional cost of support/returns when people find that the operating system they want to install won't work. It's easier and cheaper all round to just say it's Windows only, take it or leave it.
If it costs money, and they don't make money selling it, they won't.
Sure, which is why generally they won't.
It costs them money everytime MS releases a new version of the OS. Doesn't mean they won't support it...
They can spread that cost over a whole lot more systems. The component manufacturers also make the same choices, so the cheaper components are likely to only have windows drivers.
If/when it appeals to customers, then they will support it, regardless of the "cost" to them. That is just the cost of doing business..
It has to appear to enough customers and they have to be willing to pay more if they happen to be in a minority.
For more recent examples of that kind of behaviour search the net for "UEFI Secure Boot", which in turn is the second coming of "Trusted Computing" - Google the latter in combination with "Palladium" and "criticism" to learn what the rest of us have to worry about regarding Microsoft even if we never use any MS products.
UEFI secure boot is one of the most demonised good ideas ever. The criticism is basically "UEFI secure boot is evil because Microsoft is evil". I've yet to see a single valid criticism of it.
It was designed purely to stop malware from installing itself in the boot process, where it could hide itself from any anti virus/malware software.
Stop the lies! The day that Microsoft 'saved' Apple
The funny thing there is that the headline suggests it's a lie and then goes on to list the many ways that Microsoft saved Apple.
Microsoft bought $150 million of stock & committed to writing apps for the Mac, it saved Apple. Why they did it is irrelevant.
