The very short answer is ‘Yes’, though the long answer is far closer to ‘maybe’. It is true that Linux (by definition) is license free, though this often doesn’t stretch to implementations being used commercially – check the terms and conditions of whatever derivative you have in mind.
The second (and most important) consideration is the ‘NRE’ involved in Linux development. Microsoft based operating systems carry a license fee because that work is already done, productionising a Microsoft OS is often as simple as installing your application and selecting pre-configured parameters to achieve the experience you want.
With Linux, the initial development effort is magnitudes higher and invariably requires individual(s) experienced in Linux, whether you have such individuals in house or need to involve a third party to develop your Linux OS – both involve cost.
DSL are licensed and authorised Microsoft partners, thus can provide support including custom image creation for almost all Microsoft Operating Systems. The same is not true for Linux, as it isn’t viable to maintain up to date expertise for such a vast spectrum of off-the-shelf distributions (with regular version updates) to be provided as part of off-the-shelf products.
If you are experienced in implementing Linux, then do not let DSL discourage you – for those there really does exist a viable opportunity to reduce unit cost by avoiding Microsoft license costs. However for those that do not have that experience, the cost of developing the ‘license-free’ OS needs to be weighed up against those savings and a suitable party identified to undertake the development effort if that expertise does not exist in house.
DSL’s hardware has been tested by us and our customers under a huge range of Linux derivatives, however, as much as we would like to, we cannot undertake that development effort ourselves for off-the-shelf products, nor offer technical support relating to any specific Linux implementation.
It is for this reason that, whilst the hardware fully supports versions of Linux, we do not offer such operating systems pre-installed. DSL will only supply ‘off-the-shelf’ configurations that we can fully support ourselves in-house.