Exactly, after reading that document I am ashamed of the EFF. Clearly the search warrant had almost nothing to do with the fact that the person in question used Linux.
I use nothing but Linux, and if I was asked to grant that search warrant I certainly would.
I can understand the importance of such a policy. Controlling the exuberance of college-aged youth is an important civic duty for all of us. Still it seems somewhat excessive that criminal search warrants would need to be executed.
Microsoft Research is a big contributor to CS research. However, Microsoft as a company has a very strong aversion to actually producing its own hardware. With the expensive XBox fiascos and the less than stellar Zune it is easy to see why. So research that doesn't involve making a bog standard PC cooler simply doesn't see the light of day.
Microsoft's modus operandi when it comes to experimental devices is to do a prototype and then hope that someone else will actually engineer, build, develop, and market the device and then simply pay them to use its software. This allows Microsoft to control the new market (so that it feeds into the network effects that keep Windows on most desktops) without having to take the risks associated with creating a new hardware market.
The problem with this strategy is that more and more of the hardware companies that used to use Microsoft's software for new devices are looking to other alternatives.
This technology does seem pretty cool, but is it cool enough to make it worth paying money for Windows CE. If I was a hardware manufacturer I would be very skeptical.
I thought I was going to die when he kept retyping (slowly)
aptitude -v moo
instead of just hitting the up arrow on his keyboard. What's worse, he missed a part of the Easter egg. You get another bit of text if you -vvvvvv or more.
Somehow it didn't stop me from watching all of the videos though.
I thought it was funny that the reviewer called this a Mac OS X easter egg. I suppose it might be somewhat surprising to find that emacs is installed by default on a Mac, but tetris is hardly a emacs easter egg. Heck, there's even a menu entry for it.
Besides, if you are going to include tetris why not doctor or dunnet?
The meme of "manager stupid techie smart" is pervasive on Slashdot. I actually appreciate you calling me on it. That's not the message I was trying to convey at all.
Managers that don't at least consider Free Software in their purchasing decisions are somewhat behind the times. Free Software is pervasive to the point where even Microsoft is being forced to work with Free Software projects to guarantee that Free Software runs on its platform. Proprietary software often makes sense, but if you don't at least consider Free Software you are missing out on opportunities.
First of all, I would like to thank you for a series of excellent posts. Seriously, very well done.
To a certain extent my responses have been tongue in cheek. I have always liked my direct report managers. In fact, I have never worked for someone that I didn't feel had my best interests in mind. Now that I have some managerial experience myself it was clear that my previous bosses had a great deal of skill and knowledge. In fact, I would consider most of my bosses to be more intelligent than I am. I'm fairly good at gluing software together, but that's no big trick.
However, when I used to work for big business there were always plenty of cases where different departments came together to pick software. On more than one occasion the group I was working for was over-ruled and some incredibly Byzantine software was chosen. In one case in particular the manager of my group decided to basically set up a competing project that was ostensibly just for our division. He used Free Software, mostly because it fit into his budget, but also because he had technical people that he trusted that told him they could make it work.
The big budget project crashed horribly, and my manager got promoted when they picked up his project for the whole company. What he did was a bit of a gamble, but not too big of a gamble. After all, if the big budget project had worked he could have simply buried the skunkworks project.
This lead to a complete reversal on the use of Free Software within the company. It went from being strictly forbidden (including crazy things like the GNU tools for Solaris) to being fairly widely accepted.
You've had two staff members that tricked you into expensive proprietary solutions that subsequently failed and then they tried to save the day with Free Software.
No, you make it clear that you like the Free Software solution. In fact, for the plan to actually work you have to actually prefer the Free Software solution. More than that, you need to be able to get the Free Software solution to do what is needed. In short, don't try this unless you are confident that you can make the Free Software product work for you. Of course, experimenting with Free Software isn't particularly expensive. It can even be fun.
When the manager then shoots down the Free Software product you mostly just let the manager do whatever he wants, although suggesting that a particularly expensive product has "super enterprise" features will probably steer him in the right direction. The idea is to get him or her to spend nearly all of his budget on something that is ridiculously complicated and expensive to actually roll out. Fortunately, the folks with the most suitably baroque software tend to have the best salespeople and the highest prices so simply pointing the manager towards a product that he can barely afford should do the trick. We've all seen companies that roll out ridiculously complex content management software, that no one actually uses, when what they really need is a wiki.
Then you simply need to be prepared to save the day. If the manager is smart, you can even allow him to be part of the solution. If not, he or she can take the fall for the expensive mistake.
The worst thing that can happen in this scenario is that the expensive project actually works. All of us have software we babysit that we don't really like. That's just how life is.
Free Software invariably gets into the Enterprise as a skunkworks project. The managers you are talking to have a budget for a business portal. They want the project to succeed, so that they look good, and they aren't really interested in having money left over in the budget when they are done. They are shopping around for a solution, not a project.
If you really want to get Free Software into your business the proper way to do so is talk the manager in charge of the project into spending most of his money on a proprietary product that won't actually work. There are plenty of commercial offerings out there that are likely to be a bad fit for your business. Talk the manager in question into purchasing one of those, but make sure that he takes all of the credit. It shouldn't be hard if you spent the first part of the purchasing process pushing for Free Software.
Watch the portal project crash and burn.
Now fire up a basic portal on the Free Software platform of your choice. If possible pre-populate it with data and tie it into your existing authorization and authentication mechanisms. The idea is to have a working demo of most of the functionality that the executives wanted.
The downside of this method is that, if you do it enough, you eventually end up being forced into management yourself.
My experience is that Docbook is much harder for mortals to use than LaTeX. You can create good looking documents with LaTeX with very little markup, that's not really the case with Docbook. Worse, if you want to produce print-ready PDFs you'll probably have to much around with TeX anyhow. Creating HTML is easy, any markup language should allow you to do that, creating print-ready PDFs is much harder.
As an added bonus with Docbook you have the pleasure of making sure that your files are XML compliant.
Sure, a tool like xmlspy (or Emacs with nxml-mode) can help generate the file, but there are plenty of tools for generating LaTeX as well.
The only reason to mess with Docbook is if your publisher wants Docbook. Even then you probably should consider generating the Docbook output from a simpler source (say restructured text).
If you are concerned about knife violence the obvious thing to do is to purchase a handgun and learn how to use it. You will then be prepared to deal effectively with knife-toting assailants.
Oh wait, we're talking about Great Britain. I suppose you could try hiding under your covers.
I hope that you are wrong. A protectionist agenda would send the U.S. into a depression that would make the Great Depression seem like a minor economic speedbump. We need the rest of the world more than they need us.
I imagine that U.S. Presidents will continue to preach the virtues of the Free Market. After all, even in times of economic crisis we tend to do better than countries with some other formula for managing their economy.
I certainly agree that Americans have no room for complaint.
Oh please. A highly educated foreigner is far more likely to be an asset to the U.S. than any random U.S. citizen.
We aren't talking about people that came into this country illegally. We are talking about foreigners that came into this country legally and have received an advanced degree (probably at least partly at American taxpayer expense). These people are going to be positive contributors to any society where they end up, and we are pushing them out.
Yes, but how many of these 20 million people are as highly educated and motivated as the poster above? Not very many.
People like this Anonymous Coward are going to get a job. They are very employable. The question is whether they are going to work in the U.S. and pay U.S. taxes (and mortgages), or if they are going to take their expertise elsewhere and compete against Americans somewhere where the cost of living is much lower.
The real problem that the U.S. has with outsourcing is that several countries have built up enough expertise in their own countries that they can actually compete with the U.S. I can compete with Indians and Chinese if they have to come to America to get the really good jobs. If the good jobs move overseas, however, because we won't let these highly educated people come here, then we are truly screwed.
There are so many choices these days when it comes to almost any purchase that we take shortcuts. Economists call this imperfect knowledge. The basic idea is that doing the proper research to find the very best tool at the very best price is too expensive. Sure, my Stanley tool might cost a $1 more than your superior Irwin tool, but my Stanley tool was good enough and I get to spend my time using the tool instead of doing research. My time is far more valuable than the money I might have saved getting precisely the right tool.
In the case of you and your cat's paw you probably enjoyed doing the research. You are interested in tools and woodworking and so the trade off is worth it. I can guarantee it that there are lots of other choices that you make based entirely on marketing. You probably haven't done a comparative analysis on dental floss, for example, or window cleaners, or shoes. You haven't visited every restaurant in your area and tried every dish so that you can be sure you are getting the best deal for your money. Heck, there are probably some things that you eat on a regular basis that you wouldn't touch with a barge pole if you knew how they were made.
What's more, if you would have spent more time looking you probably could have gotten the exact same good cat's paw, by the same manufacturer, at a much better price. At some point, however, you decided to give up your search for perfection, and you settled for a tool and a price that was "good enough."
That's just economics. The basic premise is that everyone makes the choices that have the lowest opportunity costs. If someone makes a different decision than you would make that simply means that they have different priorities. Gathering information about purchases has an opportunity cost as well. That time could be spent on something else.
Our higher education system is the best in the world, and the U.S. does far more research in almost any subject than anyone else.
Interestingly enough, our public educational system is also world class through about the fourth grade. After that, we don't do so well. However, for the involved parent in the U.S. it is pretty easy to guarantee your child a good public education, and there's always private school.
Sure, it would be nice if we could find some way to motivate more Americans to push themselves harder, but that's just not going to happen. I went to high school in South America, and most Americans are never going to have the same drive that pushes the best and brightest from the third world to succeed. For people in many countries being the best of the best is almost a matter of survival.
As long as these people come to America to finish their education and finally to work, the United States is going to have an advantage over the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, too many in the technology business in the U.S. don't understand this concept. They've never lived outside the U.S., and they don't understand that the only thing giving the U.S. a technology edge is the fact that we've been siphoning the cream of the world's crop for decades. Right now it almost doesn't matter where the geniuses are born, if they are going to live up to their potential they probably need to come to the U.S.
If that changes, then the U.S. economy is in for a world of hurt.
Precisely. I can compete with Indians that live around the corner. They have to pay the same taxes (mostly), and they have comparable expenses. If technology continues to shift from the United States to India, however, American technology workers are screwed.
As long as all of the truly bright people in the world come to the U.S. to work then the U.S. will continue to have a long-lasting advantage over the rest of the world. When that stops happening, then the U.S. economy is really headed for trouble.
Nothing personal sbeckstead, but if you've really been unemployed for five years you might consider rethinking your employment strategy. Your current strategy is clearly not working. It's only been fairly recently that opportunity has dried up.
The little bits of work that I have done with Free Software have certainly opened up employment opportunities for me.
Actually there is far more money in clients than in servers. The profit margins on server software (and hardware) tend to be higher per sale, but in terms of both gross revenue and total profit clients wins hands down.
Heck, that's why Microsoft is the 800 pound gorilla of software. Windows makes truly ridiculous amounts of money, and the fact that Microsoft controls the end user experience at a very low level gives Microsoft a great deal of leverage.
Microsoft has a very profitable server software division, but its profits are barely a third of Microsoft's Client division, and MS Office (another piece of client software) generates nearly as much profit as Windows.
I'd still have *my* copy of Linux that was licensed to me under the terms of the GPLv2. In other words, the copyright cat is already out of the bag. Trademark, of course, is a different beast altogether. So the folks working on Linux would have to change the name. Perhaps Richard Stallman could finally get his wish and we'd simply call it LiGNUx (although that's probably too close to Linux).
I would bet, however, that if Microsoft tried to throw its weight around over the "Linux" trademark that it would find that it has been seriously diluted.
In short, Microsoft's best use for that $1 billion would probably be to use it to improve Windows (or at least market it a little better).
To my friends in the Mac Fanboi community I extend a warm welcome to the install-it-yourself operating system slums. You get no support, your sale counts as a sale for an operating system you wouldn't touch with a ten-foot barge pole, but you get to run the operating system you want on the hardware you purchased. That assumes, of course, that someone in China hasn't switched out a wireless chipset or a memory card reader for something 10 cents cheaper, that your operating system doesn't support, without changing the model number.
Dell doesn't care what operating system you actually run. They only care what operating system you PAID for. People that switch operating systems on their hardware just mean less support calls for Dell. If anything running OS X on your Dell Mini only strengthens the case for selling Linux. Dell can sell Linux-based minis and steal sales from Microsoft and Apple both.
The only company that *does* care that you installed OS X on a Dell Mini is Apple, and they are almost certainly hard at work trying to shut this practice down. At least when Linux users go install-it-yourself slumming we are not breaking the law.
Don't kid yourself, OS X is not a factor in this particular market.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly, after reading that document I am ashamed of the EFF. Clearly the search warrant had almost nothing to do with the fact that the person in question used Linux.
I use nothing but Linux, and if I was asked to grant that search warrant I certainly would.
I can understand the importance of such a policy. Controlling the exuberance of college-aged youth is an important civic duty for all of us. Still it seems somewhat excessive that criminal search warrants would need to be executed.
By the way, your link was pure awesome.
You can get in trouble for writing an email saying that someone is gay?
Microsoft Research is a big contributor to CS research. However, Microsoft as a company has a very strong aversion to actually producing its own hardware. With the expensive XBox fiascos and the less than stellar Zune it is easy to see why. So research that doesn't involve making a bog standard PC cooler simply doesn't see the light of day.
Microsoft's modus operandi when it comes to experimental devices is to do a prototype and then hope that someone else will actually engineer, build, develop, and market the device and then simply pay them to use its software. This allows Microsoft to control the new market (so that it feeds into the network effects that keep Windows on most desktops) without having to take the risks associated with creating a new hardware market.
The problem with this strategy is that more and more of the hardware companies that used to use Microsoft's software for new devices are looking to other alternatives.
This technology does seem pretty cool, but is it cool enough to make it worth paying money for Windows CE. If I was a hardware manufacturer I would be very skeptical.
I thought I was going to die when he kept retyping (slowly)
aptitude -v moo
instead of just hitting the up arrow on his keyboard. What's worse, he missed a part of the Easter egg. You get another bit of text if you -vvvvvv or more.
Somehow it didn't stop me from watching all of the videos though.
I thought it was funny that the reviewer called this a Mac OS X easter egg. I suppose it might be somewhat surprising to find that emacs is installed by default on a Mac, but tetris is hardly a emacs easter egg. Heck, there's even a menu entry for it.
Besides, if you are going to include tetris why not doctor or dunnet?
The meme of "manager stupid techie smart" is pervasive on Slashdot. I actually appreciate you calling me on it. That's not the message I was trying to convey at all.
Managers that don't at least consider Free Software in their purchasing decisions are somewhat behind the times. Free Software is pervasive to the point where even Microsoft is being forced to work with Free Software projects to guarantee that Free Software runs on its platform. Proprietary software often makes sense, but if you don't at least consider Free Software you are missing out on opportunities.
First of all, I would like to thank you for a series of excellent posts. Seriously, very well done.
To a certain extent my responses have been tongue in cheek. I have always liked my direct report managers. In fact, I have never worked for someone that I didn't feel had my best interests in mind. Now that I have some managerial experience myself it was clear that my previous bosses had a great deal of skill and knowledge. In fact, I would consider most of my bosses to be more intelligent than I am. I'm fairly good at gluing software together, but that's no big trick.
However, when I used to work for big business there were always plenty of cases where different departments came together to pick software. On more than one occasion the group I was working for was over-ruled and some incredibly Byzantine software was chosen. In one case in particular the manager of my group decided to basically set up a competing project that was ostensibly just for our division. He used Free Software, mostly because it fit into his budget, but also because he had technical people that he trusted that told him they could make it work.
The big budget project crashed horribly, and my manager got promoted when they picked up his project for the whole company. What he did was a bit of a gamble, but not too big of a gamble. After all, if the big budget project had worked he could have simply buried the skunkworks project.
This lead to a complete reversal on the use of Free Software within the company. It went from being strictly forbidden (including crazy things like the GNU tools for Solaris) to being fairly widely accepted.
You've had two staff members that tricked you into expensive proprietary solutions that subsequently failed and then they tried to save the day with Free Software.
And you fired them.
Let me guess, you either work for AIG or GM.
No, you make it clear that you like the Free Software solution. In fact, for the plan to actually work you have to actually prefer the Free Software solution. More than that, you need to be able to get the Free Software solution to do what is needed. In short, don't try this unless you are confident that you can make the Free Software product work for you. Of course, experimenting with Free Software isn't particularly expensive. It can even be fun.
When the manager then shoots down the Free Software product you mostly just let the manager do whatever he wants, although suggesting that a particularly expensive product has "super enterprise" features will probably steer him in the right direction. The idea is to get him or her to spend nearly all of his budget on something that is ridiculously complicated and expensive to actually roll out. Fortunately, the folks with the most suitably baroque software tend to have the best salespeople and the highest prices so simply pointing the manager towards a product that he can barely afford should do the trick. We've all seen companies that roll out ridiculously complex content management software, that no one actually uses, when what they really need is a wiki.
Then you simply need to be prepared to save the day. If the manager is smart, you can even allow him to be part of the solution. If not, he or she can take the fall for the expensive mistake.
The worst thing that can happen in this scenario is that the expensive project actually works. All of us have software we babysit that we don't really like. That's just how life is.
Free Software invariably gets into the Enterprise as a skunkworks project. The managers you are talking to have a budget for a business portal. They want the project to succeed, so that they look good, and they aren't really interested in having money left over in the budget when they are done. They are shopping around for a solution, not a project.
If you really want to get Free Software into your business the proper way to do so is talk the manager in charge of the project into spending most of his money on a proprietary product that won't actually work. There are plenty of commercial offerings out there that are likely to be a bad fit for your business. Talk the manager in question into purchasing one of those, but make sure that he takes all of the credit. It shouldn't be hard if you spent the first part of the purchasing process pushing for Free Software.
Watch the portal project crash and burn.
Now fire up a basic portal on the Free Software platform of your choice. If possible pre-populate it with data and tie it into your existing authorization and authentication mechanisms. The idea is to have a working demo of most of the functionality that the executives wanted.
The downside of this method is that, if you do it enough, you eventually end up being forced into management yourself.
My wife can tell the difference. At 71F it is "freezing" and at 73F it is "boiling."
I wish I was lying.
Translation: you aren't a real scientist if you aren't using LaTeX. :)
My experience is that Docbook is much harder for mortals to use than LaTeX. You can create good looking documents with LaTeX with very little markup, that's not really the case with Docbook. Worse, if you want to produce print-ready PDFs you'll probably have to much around with TeX anyhow. Creating HTML is easy, any markup language should allow you to do that, creating print-ready PDFs is much harder.
As an added bonus with Docbook you have the pleasure of making sure that your files are XML compliant.
Sure, a tool like xmlspy (or Emacs with nxml-mode) can help generate the file, but there are plenty of tools for generating LaTeX as well.
The only reason to mess with Docbook is if your publisher wants Docbook. Even then you probably should consider generating the Docbook output from a simpler source (say restructured text).
If you are concerned about knife violence the obvious thing to do is to purchase a handgun and learn how to use it. You will then be prepared to deal effectively with knife-toting assailants.
Oh wait, we're talking about Great Britain. I suppose you could try hiding under your covers.
I hope that you are wrong. A protectionist agenda would send the U.S. into a depression that would make the Great Depression seem like a minor economic speedbump. We need the rest of the world more than they need us.
I imagine that U.S. Presidents will continue to preach the virtues of the Free Market. After all, even in times of economic crisis we tend to do better than countries with some other formula for managing their economy.
I certainly agree that Americans have no room for complaint.
Oh please. A highly educated foreigner is far more likely to be an asset to the U.S. than any random U.S. citizen.
We aren't talking about people that came into this country illegally. We are talking about foreigners that came into this country legally and have received an advanced degree (probably at least partly at American taxpayer expense). These people are going to be positive contributors to any society where they end up, and we are pushing them out.
Yes, but how many of these 20 million people are as highly educated and motivated as the poster above? Not very many.
People like this Anonymous Coward are going to get a job. They are very employable. The question is whether they are going to work in the U.S. and pay U.S. taxes (and mortgages), or if they are going to take their expertise elsewhere and compete against Americans somewhere where the cost of living is much lower.
The real problem that the U.S. has with outsourcing is that several countries have built up enough expertise in their own countries that they can actually compete with the U.S. I can compete with Indians and Chinese if they have to come to America to get the really good jobs. If the good jobs move overseas, however, because we won't let these highly educated people come here, then we are truly screwed.
There are so many choices these days when it comes to almost any purchase that we take shortcuts. Economists call this imperfect knowledge. The basic idea is that doing the proper research to find the very best tool at the very best price is too expensive. Sure, my Stanley tool might cost a $1 more than your superior Irwin tool, but my Stanley tool was good enough and I get to spend my time using the tool instead of doing research. My time is far more valuable than the money I might have saved getting precisely the right tool.
In the case of you and your cat's paw you probably enjoyed doing the research. You are interested in tools and woodworking and so the trade off is worth it. I can guarantee it that there are lots of other choices that you make based entirely on marketing. You probably haven't done a comparative analysis on dental floss, for example, or window cleaners, or shoes. You haven't visited every restaurant in your area and tried every dish so that you can be sure you are getting the best deal for your money. Heck, there are probably some things that you eat on a regular basis that you wouldn't touch with a barge pole if you knew how they were made.
What's more, if you would have spent more time looking you probably could have gotten the exact same good cat's paw, by the same manufacturer, at a much better price. At some point, however, you decided to give up your search for perfection, and you settled for a tool and a price that was "good enough."
That's just economics. The basic premise is that everyone makes the choices that have the lowest opportunity costs. If someone makes a different decision than you would make that simply means that they have different priorities. Gathering information about purchases has an opportunity cost as well. That time could be spent on something else.
Our higher education system is the best in the world, and the U.S. does far more research in almost any subject than anyone else.
Interestingly enough, our public educational system is also world class through about the fourth grade. After that, we don't do so well. However, for the involved parent in the U.S. it is pretty easy to guarantee your child a good public education, and there's always private school.
Sure, it would be nice if we could find some way to motivate more Americans to push themselves harder, but that's just not going to happen. I went to high school in South America, and most Americans are never going to have the same drive that pushes the best and brightest from the third world to succeed. For people in many countries being the best of the best is almost a matter of survival.
As long as these people come to America to finish their education and finally to work, the United States is going to have an advantage over the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, too many in the technology business in the U.S. don't understand this concept. They've never lived outside the U.S., and they don't understand that the only thing giving the U.S. a technology edge is the fact that we've been siphoning the cream of the world's crop for decades. Right now it almost doesn't matter where the geniuses are born, if they are going to live up to their potential they probably need to come to the U.S.
If that changes, then the U.S. economy is in for a world of hurt.
Precisely. I can compete with Indians that live around the corner. They have to pay the same taxes (mostly), and they have comparable expenses. If technology continues to shift from the United States to India, however, American technology workers are screwed.
As long as all of the truly bright people in the world come to the U.S. to work then the U.S. will continue to have a long-lasting advantage over the rest of the world. When that stops happening, then the U.S. economy is really headed for trouble.
Nothing personal sbeckstead, but if you've really been unemployed for five years you might consider rethinking your employment strategy. Your current strategy is clearly not working. It's only been fairly recently that opportunity has dried up.
The little bits of work that I have done with Free Software have certainly opened up employment opportunities for me.
Actually there is far more money in clients than in servers. The profit margins on server software (and hardware) tend to be higher per sale, but in terms of both gross revenue and total profit clients wins hands down.
Heck, that's why Microsoft is the 800 pound gorilla of software. Windows makes truly ridiculous amounts of money, and the fact that Microsoft controls the end user experience at a very low level gives Microsoft a great deal of leverage.
Microsoft has a very profitable server software division, but its profits are barely a third of Microsoft's Client division, and MS Office (another piece of client software) generates nearly as much profit as Windows.
The client rules, plain and simple.
I'd still have *my* copy of Linux that was licensed to me under the terms of the GPLv2. In other words, the copyright cat is already out of the bag. Trademark, of course, is a different beast altogether. So the folks working on Linux would have to change the name. Perhaps Richard Stallman could finally get his wish and we'd simply call it LiGNUx (although that's probably too close to Linux).
I would bet, however, that if Microsoft tried to throw its weight around over the "Linux" trademark that it would find that it has been seriously diluted.
In short, Microsoft's best use for that $1 billion would probably be to use it to improve Windows (or at least market it a little better).
To my friends in the Mac Fanboi community I extend a warm welcome to the install-it-yourself operating system slums. You get no support, your sale counts as a sale for an operating system you wouldn't touch with a ten-foot barge pole, but you get to run the operating system you want on the hardware you purchased. That assumes, of course, that someone in China hasn't switched out a wireless chipset or a memory card reader for something 10 cents cheaper, that your operating system doesn't support, without changing the model number.
Dell doesn't care what operating system you actually run. They only care what operating system you PAID for. People that switch operating systems on their hardware just mean less support calls for Dell. If anything running OS X on your Dell Mini only strengthens the case for selling Linux. Dell can sell Linux-based minis and steal sales from Microsoft and Apple both.
The only company that *does* care that you installed OS X on a Dell Mini is Apple, and they are almost certainly hard at work trying to shut this practice down. At least when Linux users go install-it-yourself slumming we are not breaking the law.
Don't kid yourself, OS X is not a factor in this particular market.