Seeing that the SAM3X has on-board Ethernet, but the Due doesn't have a port, I hope someone either builds a clone that does, or builds a simple (compared to current Ethernet shields) shield that adds the port.

This should really help lower the entry cost of using Ethernet in DIY devices, which I think is cool.

The Ethernet PHY is actually rather expensive, around $20. That's why the cheap dev boards don't have it.

That's true, of course. So, all I can hope for is that something like this (http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/ethernet-shield-p-518.html?...) drops in price by $5 then (the price of their on-board Ethernet controller). :)

I'm not sure Atmel AVR microcontrollers (used in the rest of the Arduino line) are open source hardware either. Sure, they are fully documented from the user's perspective, but Atmel doesn't give away source (Verilog/VHDL/etc.) for the core.

(I'll give you that ARM is more patent-encumbered.)

ARMv7

Major competitor to the Raspberry Pi.

Not at all. Cortex units lack a MMU, ARMv7 instructions (they're limited to THUMB/THUMB2), and don't have nearly enough RAM for even a bootloader capable of LOADING Linux, much less for Linux itself.

This and the Pi serve radically different purposes.