Dell and Linux

Posted on May 8, 2007 by Guy Snir
Filed Under Open Source, Enterprise, Linux |

You have probably heard about the recent Open Source community rave about Dell planning to sell their PC’s with Pre-Installed Ubuntu.

I think that their decision was influenced partially by the large amount of positive input they got on IdeaStorm (The decision was also announced there).

Now Dell have announced a deal with MS/Novell, a discussion at slashdot has raised (naturally) some claims and accusations.

One commenter called Microsoft’s move a “protection racket” since this reduces the chances of Dell being sued for Intellectual Property issues. Others claim to see a pattern where every OEM deal involving Linux is getting blocked by Microsoft.

To say the least, people in the Open Source community are not pleased with the fact the Microsoft will be getting a commission out of every SUSE Enterprise sold on Dell servers (or elsewhere).

Hopefully this deal will remain in the servers domain, leaving the Ubuntu on the desktop decision still valid, and unrelated to Microsoft.