Someone break out the champagne for Francois Bancilhon, CEO of Mandriva. He had blogged his anger with Microsoft counterpart Steve Ballmer over what Bancilhon suggested were dirty tactics in gaining business with Nigeria.

Bancilhon’s Mandriva won the contract to place its OS on thousands of arriving Intel Classmate PCs. But a change took place that vexed Bancilhon: Nigeria would pay for the Mandriva licenses as agreed, but the OS would be wiped and replaced with Windows XP.

That change meant Mandriva would lose out on maintenance agreements, which would contribute an ongoing revenue stream to the company. Open Source companies like Red Hat and others have demonstrated this business model can make "free" software profitable.

Now the winds of fortune have shifted in Bancihlon’s favor. InfoWorld reported the company that planned to do the OS change before distributing the computers won’t be doing so.

A government official from the agency funding the computer purchase said in the report, "we are sticking with (Mandriva)," but offered no other details.

The motivation for the original shift will have to remain a matter of speculation, despite Bancilhon’s hinting of back-door shenanigans taking place.

Francois Bancilhon has posted an open letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to complain about Microsoft’s business tactics. Mssr. Bancilhon, welcome to the real world. Microsoft has a long history of playing tough with the competition.

Mandriva’s CEO is not happy with Ballmer and Microsoft. Mandriva has been working a deal with the Nigerian government where the Mandriva Linux operating system would be in place on 17,000 PCs.

At some point, Microsoft got involved in the process. "I would not say it got dirty, but someone could have said that," Bancilhon said of Microsoft’s competitive approach.

The kicker that irritated Bancilhon came in the form of a new message from the Nigerians: though they will pay for the Mandriva software as agreed, they will replace it with Windows.

Bancilhon is not happy about this, likely due to the loss of support agreements that would have provided ongoing revenue after the initial sale:

Wow! I’m impressed, Steve! What have you done for these guys to change their mind like this? It’s pretty clear to me, and it will be clear to everyone. How do you call what you just did Steve, in the place where you live? In my place, they give it various names, I’m sure you know them.

Hey Steve, how do you feel looking at yourself in the mirror in the morning?

Considering the Microsoft CEO’s place among the world’s wealthiest people, we imagine he feels pretty good most days.