We may someday call it the shot heard 'round the world. On February 17th, the Xbox Linux Project wrote an open letter to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) discussing its desire to run somebody else's software on the company's gaming console.
Microsoft hasn't been too friendly toward those efforts. Last fall, it shut down a maker of "mod chips" -- circuitry that can be soldered onto the motherboard of the Xbox to make the machine run Linux. The letter politely demanded that Microsoft stop "restricting choice" -- and rid itself of the mod market to boot -- by publishing the code required to run unapproved programs without modifications to the Xbox .
Imagine the nerve. There goes your tea right over the side.
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