AirPlay supports Linux … and Windows, then.

Some hackers already exist to allow you to extend the rather limited certified AirPlay feature of iOS 4.2 to the app on non-iOS devices: last week, for example, TUAW's Erica Sadun published AirPlayer, an application that makes AirPlayer think that your Mac is an AppleTV.

Now, however, brave and ingenious hackers are discovering how to do the same thing on hardware other than Apple, and the first fruit of this work is now available for Linux.

The hack runs under Ubuntu in XBMC, formerly known as Xbox Media Center, the HTPC multimedia front end that started on Microsoft's original Xbox console and has since become its own cross-platform entity, having also created the incredible Boxee application (and top box).

Very nice, even if I wonder what Apple thinks about all this. Something tells me that Cupertino wants AppleTV to be limited to Apple devices. Now it runs on Linux, and it looks like Windows is at a crossroads.