"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"

The Answer Guy

By James T. Dennis,
Starshine Technical Services, http://www.starshine.org/

The original Open Letter to Dell was posted to comp.os.linux.advocacy and copied to Linux Weekly News and Dell Computer Corporation.

Letter to Dell - Linux on Dell Hardware

From Rafael on 10 May 1998

Thanks Denis for your letter to DELL.

I bought some Dell stocks this year. Not much but that puts me in an awkward situation. Dell is doing well but it realy bothered me that they officialy issued that statement about Linux.

As a shareholder, even of only a few shares, your message will probably get far more attention than mine.

I would love to see your letter to them, expressing your concerns both as a customer and as a stockholder.

I wonder if we could find other investors, Linux users, admins perhaps and put a little pressure from that position. That would be even more effective if we do it openly on the web.

I agree. You want to be even more "positive" in your tone since you actually have a financial stake in their future.

You want to emphasize how big a market you believe the Linux community to be --- point out that the first major company to offer Linux will probably remain at the top of that market for a long time, etc.

I know that Dell signed a letter with other CEO's in support of MS. What a bummer.

I personally can understand their official statements of support. From an official standpoint they claim that MS places no contractual restrictions on their choice of software bundles.

We can presume that there are veiled, subtle "issues" which suggest that any support for alternatives might result in unusual delays and backlogs or Dell's order fulfillment and possibly delays in the negotiation of new contracts and terms for future versions of MS products. It doesn't take much of this from a key supplier or customer (and MS probably does buy a large number of Dell workstations) to have a chilling effect.

Unfortunately none of those assertions are likely to be revealed in court --- and there's simply too much "plausible deniability" for them to have any effect in any event.

I'm not sure I can characterize it as a "bummer" --- since it is so utterly predictable.

What we want to do is to recast Linux as an "opportunity" for a "win-win" situation for Dell and MS. I think we can do this by pointing out that Dell offering "fine print" alternatives (No OS included, and Linux) will give the appearance of greater competition in the marketplace.

My plan is to outline this strategy to MS execs (I have a mole). Convince them that purely cosmetic notes in the marketing materials from Compaq will get the DoJ off their back and give them the ammo, in the arena of public opinion, to say: "Look! People have choices, and they still pick us almost all the time. The free market is working."

(This is bound to be more effective for them than that pathetic attempt to fabricate a "ground swell of grassroots support" --- as was reported by the L.A. Times recently).

Dell & Linux

From Khimenko Victor on 10 May 1998

You must know this already but just in case: in linux-kernel list there are quite a few questions like this:

While I do read lkern -- I queue up the digests for a week or so at a time and binge on them -- so I hadn't noticed these, yet.

or this

or this

At least this means that some of Dell customers are using Linux ) And not only for jokes (if you'll just try to play some games with Linux you'll not going to buy dual Pentium II or 4x Pentium Pro server, right?). Thay just not tries to bother Dell with their problems since they are sure that Linux is not supported by Dell anyway...

That is the point of my message. We are somewhat self-sufficient and that is great for our userbase and developers. However, as consumers we must communicate our requirements back to the vendors --- and we must do so proactively.

In other words every Unix, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris x86, and SCO user must tell Dell, and Compaq, and (and Apple and Umax) every other vendor that refuses to recognize our market:

We demand recognition and support

... and we must back that up with action by shopping with vendors that meet this requirement.

If we fail to do so, and we scramble about to reverse engineer every new wrinkle then we are failing as consumers (no matter how we shine as engineers). "They" won't (and shouldn't?) care about the "silent minority."

The risk and cost of this is that we may not always benefit from the same economy of scale that's enjoyed by the mass market. We may have to pay a bit more (though not quite as bit of a premium as we used to see between PC's and Macs nor nearly the discrepancy that still exists between micros and workstations).

Copyright © 1998, James T. Dennis
Published in Linux Gazette Issue 29 June 1998

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