Filed under: Business, News, Linux, Office, Open Source
HP - Linux for the desktop tipping point?
by Dolores Parker Mar 9th 2007 at 12:00PM
We previously reported evidence of this when the number one consumer comment on Dell's Idea Storm website was having Linux pre-installed on Dell PC's. Dell launched Idea Storm to get consumer feedback to help get its sales back on course.
Clearly, HP is attuned to the market demand for open source and attributes $25 million in hardware sales for its support of the Debian distribution in its Europe, Middle East and African market, (see HP: Debian Cha Ching!). It's never been a question of when brand name PC's come pre-loaded with Linux, but more a question of who will be the first to lead the way.
So it's clear there is consumer demand and profits to be realized in leveraging the free software community. To help move things along, the Free Software Foundation is working to get hardware vendors to take advantage of ripening conditions by making their products work optimally with free software and that their drivers are easy to operate and maintain. In a recent white paper, they make a case for hardware manufacturers to do the following:
- provide free software drivers
- remove proprietary BIOS locks
- ship hardware with free BIOS and provide free BIOS support
- end the "Microsoft Tax"
- discard Digital Restrictions Management
Could these developments be the sign the Linux tipping point is near? No one can say for sure, but things are looking positive.
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
