He's thinking the same way about Linux as he thinks about WIndows. You build the hardware, and then buy the OS from someone else. What he should be doing is rolling his own distribution for his hardware. Indeed, all of the hardware manufacturers should roll their own distributions, but in the meantime, maintain binary compatibility with the greater community. Dell should pick his favorite distribution, assemble a team to create the Dell distribution (keeping it up to date with what's in the community, giving back as required) and distribute his Dell PC's with his Dell Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
He's thinking the same way about Linux as he thinks about WIndows. You build the hardware, and then buy the OS from someone else. What he should be doing is rolling his own distribution for his hardware. Indeed, all of the hardware manufacturers should roll their own distributions, but in the meantime, maintain binary compatibility with the greater community. Dell should pick his favorite distribution, assemble a team to create the Dell distribution (keeping it up to date with what's in the community, giving back as required) and distribute his Dell PC's with his Dell Linux.