The latest attack on Linux — apparently it’s used to pirate Windows!

You couldn’t make this stuff up. Forrester Research, a consultancy, has decided that the reason PCs with pre-installed Linux are selling so widely is that people want to wipe their disks and install bootleg copies of Windows. Here’s the summary from Good Morning Silicon Valley:

Forty percent of PCs shipped with Linux in the U.S. and Western Europe are subsequently scrubbed clean and outfitted with a pirated copy of Windows. In emerging markets, that fate awaits a full 80 percent of Linux pre-installs. This according to research outfit Gartner, which notes in a report aptly titled: “Linux Has a Fight on Its Hands in Emerging PC Markets,” that by 2008, Linux will account for 7.5 percent of desktops shipped, but only 2.6 percent of the installed base. Just as the high price of legitimate copies of Windows is driving vendors in countries like China and Russia to ship Linux on many of their machines, the low price of pirated copies of the OS — which will set you back $1 in most cities in Asia and Eastern Europe — is driving many new PC owners to swap Linux for Windows. Writes Gartner analyst Annette Jump: “The widespread availability of pirated versions of Windows at a fraction of the cost of a legal copy stimulates the growth of Linux on PCs in emerging markets,”

Hmmm… having recently tried to persuade a Windows XP box to stay connected to a wireless network, my feeling is that XP is overpriced at $1.