Also, like I said in my article, I didn’t see any advice from Shuttleworth, only observations. Maybe devil’s advocate was a bit harsh but you get my point: I didn’t like the negative spin on his article.

In fact, this is probably true. People won’t request GNU/Linux on their computer unless they are familiar with it, or are very daring and cheap like some college students. At work, for example, we want Dell to support GNU/Linux in their diagnostics tools so that we don’t have to stick a CD in the tray and reboot — also, it would get us slightly less runaround when trying to convince Dell that there is in fact a problem if they explicitly supported GNU/Linux.

W.r.t. “he’s chosen himself to play devils advocate in this discussion”:

Not really. He’s trying to give Dell advice about how to market Linux, and what their likely audience will be. When you’re addressing a different audience, you have to bend a little and try to meet them halfway.

Most people in fact do choose the cheapest package regardless of the OS and this is where Dell’s made most of its money. Right now, I think the biggest market for Linux on Dells will be companies who don’t want to make the jump to Vista. It’s too resource intensive and will force a lot of companies to buy new computers. With Linux, they will still buy new computers (if not Dells) but they can get cheaper new computers without the Vista expense overhead or keep their current computers (if they are Dells) and have Linux supported on them.

Also, like I said in my article, I didn’t see any advice from Shuttleworth, only observations. Maybe devil’s advocate was a bit harsh but you get my point: I didn’t like the negative spin on his article.

In fact, this is probably true. People won’t request GNU/Linux on their computer unless they are familiar with it, or are very daring and cheap like some college students. At work, for example, we want Dell to support GNU/Linux in their diagnostics tools so that we don’t have to stick a CD in the tray and reboot — also, it would get us slightly less runaround when trying to convince Dell that there is in fact a problem if they explicitly supported GNU/Linux.

W.r.t. “he’s chosen himself to play devils advocate in this discussion”:

Not really. He’s trying to give Dell advice about how to market Linux, and what their likely audience will be. When you’re addressing a different audience, you have to bend a little and try to meet them halfway.