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Raleigh, NC
Ruth Suehle is the community leadership manager for Red Hat's Open Source and Standards team. She's co-author of Raspberry Pi Hacks (O'Reilly, December 2013) and a senior editor at GeekMom, a site for those who find their joy in both geekery and parenting. She's a maker at heart who is often behind a sewing machine creating costumes, rolling fondant for an excessively large cake, or looking for the next great DIY project.
Authored Comments
In a way, we've already seen that happen with gaming consoles. For a while, there was a slight premium secondhand market for modded Xbox 360s. Then Microsoft started banning users with modded boxes from XBox Live, and suddenly you could pick up a modded Xbox pretty cheap on craigslist.
Unfortunately I don't think that what's happening with Windows is going to matter to most users who purchase a machine and never try to muck with the OS. It will, however, send Linux users and other DIY folks away from the big hardware vendors and over to those who sell boxes meant for or pre-installed with Linux. Could be a boost in business for people like ZaReason and System76.
I'm stunned at the percentage voting with the elitist opinion that every airport but NOT city should have free wifi. Ubiquitous access as a basic piece of infrastructure is increasingly critical to mere survival. For example, try looking for a job without the Internet or an email address. On a macro level, it's critical to staying globally competitive. Having it for free in an airport is merely a luxury.