I agree, but for a different reason. Let me drag out the soap box...
When I was in Korea I was supposed to attend the big "kick-off" project meeting in a lovely town named Deagu. One only small problem - I got lost. So lost, in fact, that I would have driven myself off a cliff if I could have only found one. When I finally got through to the Lucent office they asked "where are you" and I replied "in front of Wal-Mart". Funny, everyone knew exactly where that was.
Wal-Mart in Korea was a lot different then Wal-Mart in the US (for one thing you parked on the roof of the building - really). The Korea Wal-Mart stocked local foods and products and I really did not see much overlap in inventory with the US stores I had visited. Wal-Mart as the ability to morph even within one country and it "localizes" better then any other company I've ever seen. In fact, there is one store in Pennsylvania that has a section of the parking lot that was made into a barn where the Amish can park their horse carriages. They'll even feed the horses, for a small fee. Heck, they even have an on-site vet!
Wal-Mart appears to be heading to places you wouldn't expect - 3rd world places that aren't thought of as needing a gigantic retail location. Why? People in these places need products just like anywhere else. A mission might come into a country, build a school but then the school has to be stocked. Today it's probably a truck ride or a Cessna 208 trip to who-knows-where but within the next decade I'll be willing to bet that "somewhere" is going to be Wal-Mart who now, ta-da, sells computers. Not only computers, but computers that don't have high costs or overheads (such as anti-virus subscription updates not to mention a ludicrous toll paid to the richest man in the world). I wouldn't be surprised to see a Wal-Mart with a landing strip these "far off" locations, but I'm getting off-topic.
The computers these children in the 3rd world will use will be reliable, and linux is certainly that. I would expect that Wal-Mart may start selling Internet service next. I don't know exactly how, but I would imagine within the next 10 years they'll figure out a way to do that in the 3rd world. Linux, as well all know, can do just about anything a school needs: firewall, mail server, web server, etc, etc.
Tomorrow's 3rd World children are going to the Internet as a tool to level themselves with the rest of the world. They are going to use Linux; I see this as nothing but inevitable. They will most likely purchase these computers from Wal-Mart. People from all over the world have hatched Linux, GNU, and a million open-source projects. The hatchling is nearly ready to leave the nest and it's going to be a hell of an interesting next decade to watch it take root all over the world used a tool to gain knowledge and understanding. And wealth.
On Dec 22, 2004, at 11:19 AM, Shane O'Donnell wrote:
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.
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