[Fyron]

I do not think activation only occurs when you first install the OS. It takes some massive hardware changes to trigger WPA (even your link says so). Most computer users do not upgrade internal hardware any more than they buy retail OS disks (especially when you talk about parts like motherboards and cpus)... they just buy whole OEM PCs when they upgrade. I still posit that a large majority of (computer-owning) people have never needed to activate XP and thus would never be subject to the termination of XP activations. Microsoft would not profit much at all from terminating XP activations.

Business users with volume licensed XP would certainly move to volume licensed Vista, not retail copies of Vista. Why would they not get volume licensing for Vista if they had to upgrade? Unless you are talking about small business owners that do not qualify for volume licensing... in which case, the same exact ecosystem of buying whole new OEM PCs and not doing piecemeal upgrades tends to apply exactly the same as it does for home users.

Product activation is an invalid reason to switch to Linux. There are good reasons to do so, but completely unrealistic paranoia about MS cutting off activation of XP is certainly not one of them. And again with the DRM boogeyman... In all likelihood, you are probably doing Linux adoption a disservice by perpetuating the WPA/DRM scare tactics...