Ummm...did anyone happen to take a peek at the BIG PICTURE?!?!?! Linspire, a LINUX company that ships/sells a Linux distribution, has partnered with arguably the largest retailer in the world (and certainly the retailer with the greatest reach in the U.S.) to deliver a Linux-based laptop to the masses at a price point that has, until now, been untouchable.
Do you get it? VERY aggressive price points? MAMMOTH distribution? This is LINUX we're talking about. The SOHO market "desktop" wars have just been ratcheted up a notch. The Linux community always wants to talk about World Domination, but when a major coup is in the offing, they want to debate the heat generated by the processor in a cheap laptop. And think what you will, Michael Robertson has already done more (in getting this deal inked with Wal-Mart) than ESR EVER HAS OR WILL in support of gaining wide-spread adoption of Linux. Don't like his business practices? Sue him. Don't like his haircut? Send him an email. But don't focus your energies on tearing down what just might be the commercial foray that will take Linux to the next level. Have you ever tried to take a product back to Wal-Mart? Guess what -- you can. Almost anywhere in the US, as a matter of fact. This means that purchases at Wal-Mart are safe purchases to make for almost anyone. And if SOHO users start turning to low-end Wal-Mart machines to accomplish their business tasks (which they can, despite the laptop configuration dispute of earlier), they are going to need someone to support them. Someone like Linspire--or Red Hat--or Ceriant--or their local computer guy. Wake up, folks! If you want Linux to be widely accepted, installed, distributed, understood, respected, et al--get on board. The open source world's inability to successfully market itself and continually turn on itself over geek "religions" (e.g., Linux vs. BSD, GPL vs BSD license, ESR vs Stallman, whatever) is stunning, and stunning on an ongoing basis. Descending my soap box, Shane O. -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
