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Devil's advocate time! What's to keep Dell from heavily customizing and releasing / packaging a version of Ubuntu in the same vein that apple customized, relea

Devil's advocate time! What's to keep Dell from heavily customizing and releasing / packaging a version of Ubuntu in the same vein that apple customized, released, packaged nextstep as OS X? The only thing I can think of would be "talent at the company". And I know next to nothing about the internals of dell, let alone what they've done since being repurchased and privatized. Kind of a fun thought, even if it's a little far fetched.

danwakefield 12y ago
HP have an mostly internal linux distro hLinux[1]. Right now it is just used as an OpenStack base but it could be expanded. [1]: http://blog.mikebrito.com/?p=114 http://blog.mikebrito.com/?p=114
SwellJoe 12y ago
Dell is historically monumentally incompetent at software. Michael Dell's own book discusses the epic failure of a large software project they embarked on many years ago now. That's not to say Dell has to remain incompetent at software...with a will to do so, and enough money and competent management (which Dell does seem to have), they could theoretically build a top-notch software engineering organization.
- endlessvoid94 12y ago
  Are you referring to "Direct from Dell"? (I haven't read, but want to add whatever book you're talking about to my reading list).
  - SwellJoe 12y ago
    Yeah, that's the one. It's been at least a decade since I read it. I didn't find it all that good, honestly. I wouldn't push it to the top of your reading list, anyway. It might be more of a "skim it" title.
skynetv2 12y ago
Long ago, Dell initially had plans to develop their own version of Linux, hired a bunch of Linux developers. Most of them are still there and things like DKMS came out from that team. But Dell will never ever have their own customized OS and definitely not like OS X. Dell focuses heavily on Profit & Loss for each team and that drives the investment. Their focus is to keep OpEx as low as possible. Unless the company culture changes heavily, which I dont see happening, esp. with Michael back at the helm, things wont change. They make good cheap hardware and thats about it. Everything else, including some hardware, they push work upstream to vendors.
- endlessvoid94 12y ago
  Good insight, thanks.
tpeaton 12y ago
Nothing? Isn't that the point of open source software?

danwakefield 12y ago

HP have an mostly internal linux distro hLinux[1]. Right now it is just used as an OpenStack base but it could be expanded. [1]: http://blog.mikebrito.com/?p=114 http://blog.mikebrito.com/?p=114

SwellJoe 12y ago

Dell is historically monumentally incompetent at software. Michael Dell's own book discusses the epic failure of a large software project they embarked on many years ago now. That's not to say Dell has to remain incompetent at software...with a will to do so, and enough money and competent management (which Dell does seem to have), they could theoretically build a top-notch software engineering organization.

endlessvoid94 12y ago
Are you referring to "Direct from Dell"? (I haven't read, but want to add whatever book you're talking about to my reading list).
- SwellJoe 12y ago
  Yeah, that's the one. It's been at least a decade since I read it. I didn't find it all that good, honestly. I wouldn't push it to the top of your reading list, anyway. It might be more of a "skim it" title.

skynetv2 12y ago

Long ago, Dell initially had plans to develop their own version of Linux, hired a bunch of Linux developers. Most of them are still there and things like DKMS came out from that team. But Dell will never ever have their own customized OS and definitely not like OS X. Dell focuses heavily on Profit & Loss for each team and that drives the investment. Their focus is to keep OpEx as low as possible. Unless the company culture changes heavily, which I dont see happening, esp. with Michael back at the helm, things wont change. They make good cheap hardware and thats about it. Everything else, including some hardware, they push work upstream to vendors.

endlessvoid94 12y ago
Good insight, thanks.

tpeaton 12y ago

Nothing? Isn't that the point of open source software?