Red Hat Diaries/0079

Welcome to Dell

We were wandering through Streets of Southpoint the other night. Right inside the entrance there is a significant bit of real estate - the actual walking corridor itself - portioned out to additional entrepreneurs who either didn't get their bids for real shops submitted on time or who couldn't afford it. You find fingernail specialists, QVC-styled charlatans, things like that. And right inside the west entrance is Time-Warner, Roadrunner, and Dell. I took one step to the left as we were walking through to get a bit of a closer look at an Inspiron 2650 open and on display there.

'Welcome to Dell,' the Dell guy says. I look up and around, wondering when and where I passed through the entrance. I'm tempted to reply 'welcome to the Streets of Southpoint', but do not. Instead I start asking the guy questions about the 2650.

Now this isn't exactly the most delightful task I've ever been presented with, but the fact remains that I do need a very portable Windows box to lug around all the time - I still have a modicum of support duties for the software on the Radsoft site which I helped build and enhance over the years. And this 2650 is only $899, so it's an almost painless purchase.

It's not exactly a breathtaking computing experience; it doesn't come with DVD for that price; it doesn't even come with a CD burner. But it does come with XP Home Edition, and who knows? It might even boot a few times before getting screwed up. I ask the guy about Microsoft's Product Activation, but he doesn't know much: He says he thinks (operative word here: 'thinks') that the boxes come with XP already installed and activated. Oh well.

They can have the box to me in 8-14 days. It has to be manufactured at one of their plants. I pay now, I pay to this guy, I pay $899 plus tax and whatever extra, and then in maybe two weeks a computer comes to my door.

And I might even be able to run Unix on it. But my time in the Apple camp has convinced me of one thing: Linux and open source do not have a future.

Back when this project was conceived, we were all too much in the dark to realise that for all its trumpet-blowing, Linux had not garnered more than 1% of the total client PC market. Certainly Apple does not have much more, but at least their market share is significant. And there is a big difference between Mac users and Linux freaks: The former are willing to pay for their product and thereby support its development, whereas the latter won't download anything that is not for free and doesn't let them play Armchair System Architect.

I am so sick and tired of hearing all this talk about Linux, and especially about GNU, and about RMS, and about how this thing contravenes the GPL and the spirit of GNU, about how Linux should be called GNU/Linux instead - Nazis? Yes they are. Apple has its Nazis too - and I've had enough of these Nazis for a lifetime.

Several years down the road and they'll still be arguing if this or that is in accordance with their Sacred Covenant - and they'll have 1% of the market share they have today and still not be wiser for it. Let's put it this way: They're not the kind of people I like to hang out with.

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