Dell Censors IdeaStorm Linux Dissent 228
thefickler writes "It seems pointless to seek ideas and feedback if you're going to ignore and delete the opinions you don't like. That's exactly what Dell is doing with its IdeaStorm website, which the company set up to solicit such ideas and feedback. Dell deleted a post linking to an article that criticizes its handling of the 'pre-installed Linux' issue."
Ideas or Criticism (Score:5, Insightful)
If I asked for some ideas, I would be open minded about what I received. If I got complaints instead with no ideas (not sure if the link gave suggestions or just complained), I would also remove them to try and stop the forum from becoming a flame war.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Overstatement (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, does asking for opinions imply that you agree to follow and publish every one of them? They might have had a different kind of feedback in mind, like new models with a different hardware feature set.
You know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Overstatement (Score:4, Insightful)
YRO should be changed to URF (Score:2, Insightful)
Right place, right time (Score:5, Insightful)
You can imagine my surprise when they delivered a mash of ground beef and some wretched oil-soaked fries on the side. I said to the waitress, this isn't what I ordered. She was unmoved. I demanded that I talk to a manager. This little pissant 20-something comes out and asks me if there is anything he can help me with. I shoved the order in his face and asked him if he thought it was a steak, medium-rare.
No, sir.
Then why the hell did you serve it to me? Are you telling me I can't order my meal the way I want it and expect a modicum of service?
Sir, this is Burger King. You can have it your way, within the bounds of our menu.
I suppose I should have gone to the steak restaurant if I wanted steak.
Justification for Deletion (Score:3, Insightful)
Again, didn't see the deleted post.
Dell laptops cost MORE w/ no OS than w/ Windows! (Score:5, Insightful)
The laptop loaded with Windows XP [dell.com] costs $699, while the same laptop and configuration loaded with no operating system [dell.com] costs $747. Note that you must change the following two hardware options on the web page showing laptop without an OS so that they match the hardware options found by default for the Windows laptop: Hard drive=60GB 5400RPM and Modular Bay Optical="8X DVD".
So it seems that Windows has a negative price tag as far as Dell is concerned! It looks like Dell is still subsidizing Microsoft for every Windows-free laptop they sell. I'm getting my laptop from System76 [system76.com] -- they sell excellent quality Linux laptops, desktops, and servers. They also have a great support team [ubuntuforums.org] that cares about Linux and open source.
troll (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe it's pointless but everybody does it all the time. Half the time, if I say, "hey, what do you think of X?" I'm looking for, "X is really great, you did a good job on it." It's psychological, don't tell me you don't do the same.
Dell deleted a post linking to an article that criticizes its handling of the 'pre-installed Linux' issue.
Sounds to me that they deleted a post linking to a whiny bitch. Let's try this little summary mixer;
"It seems pointless to submit ideas and feedback to Dell if you're going to write a whiny article because they don't do exactly what you want."
Besides, Dell is a huge corporation. They're investigating a process to get their hardware approved by Linux distributers. For a huge corporation, that's a major undertaking... I'm sure whoever wrote that whiny article was looking for, "yes sir, we'll have those on shelves tomorrow!" as a response.
Re:Right place, right time (Score:5, Insightful)
The red juice from a steak is not blood.
Uh, yeah it is. What the hell do you think it is?
If you are trying to cast Dell as analogous to Burger King then you're gonna have a hard time convincing anyone. You may not like the taste of Dell's "food" but they made of living off of "made to order" configurability. Dell pioneered that.
His analogy's spot on. Burger King's motto, as he put it, is "have it your way." Now they at least assume that what you might want is at least roughly the same as most of their other customers, so if you come in and want anchovies on your burger you're SOL. Same with Dell. Yes, they do configure it for you, but there are limits to it and one of the limits they've chosen to set is they're not dealing with Linux for consumers. Quite frankly, I don't blame them.
So I'd say the original analogy is correct. If the company in question simply doesn't sell what you want, buy from someone else. I really don't get the furor, it's not like Dell is the only computer manufacturer. And any Linux geek worth his/her salt is going to want to install their own thing anyway.
If it's just about not paying the MS "tax," let's make that it's own issue.
Re:Seesh People.. better things to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's very rude of you. You ask someone to come over and give you their opinion for free, which you will then profit from by having a nicer house, and you kick them out because you don't like what they said?
Given our current property laws, that is certainly within your rights. It is also within my rights to stand at the edge of a property waving a large sign saying "Rude person lives here."
As always, freedom of the press only applies to those that own a press. Otherwise, you are free (for now) to go find a street corner and shout at passers by.
I get the feeling that even complaining about this issue pisses off a lot of authoritarian-types. It seems there are a number of people in the world who really, really want everyone else to stop complaining about anything that might hurt the profits of a business. We should all just lie back and think of England.
Businesses have a right to do certain things that piss us off. That does not mean that we have no right to complain about it. And the mere existence of other, larger problems in the world also does not remove our right to complain about this one.
Re:You know... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, you've hit the nail on the head.
I know this is going to get modded down but I'm being very honest: The Linux community is turning into it's own worst enemy. Have it shoved in your face with all the fanatical zest of a religious cult visiting your home at 6am on a weekend morning is going to turn many many people sour to the message before it ever gets told.
How many companies that are dealing with Joe Sixpack users really want to be aligned with a fringe group like the Linux community? Not many.
Re:Ideas or Criticism (Score:3, Insightful)
Amen to that. For example, on 2) how could Dell possibly give a timeframe on that without doing a huge job figuring out if there were drivers for all the hardware they ship. Perhaps there are many that simply can't do it, because there's no driver, there's IP issues and whatnot which means there's not going to be a driver unless Dell dedicates own staff to reverse engineer it. As for 1) and 3), why would they overload their support staff taking on a ton of hardware and distros all at once and for a market of unknown size? It doesn't make business sense or technical sense.
With all that said: The best way to make someone look a fool is to let them shout it from the rooftops. I wouldn't take it down, I'd rather let it stand as an example of irrational and unreasonable demands.
Re:Ahh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, of course they have the right to suppress whatever they want on their own stuff. In fact, we should expect this from most organizations run by humans.
But many of us would really like to know when this is happening. It tells us a lot about the trustworthiness of their information. If an organization (corporation, government, whatever) wants our trust, they should make their information handling "transparent" and visible to us. Otherwise, we'll just infer that they have something to hide from us.
Nobody with a grain of sense ever trusts any organization that hides or suppresses information about their inner workings. (And yes, this does mean that I don't trust very many organizations. We have words for someone who does. Words like "naïve" and "sucker".
Re:Dell laptops cost MORE w/ no OS than w/ Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ideas or Criticism (Score:2, Insightful)
Beyond that, it wouldn't be hard to have the basic hardware be stuff that works under Linux in general. The specific OS stuff is just a stall tactic.
The reason people are so pissy is because this got their hopes up, and now it looks like it may be postponed... indefinately.
Re:You know... (Score:2, Insightful)
I've been on linux mailing lists since the early 90s. Nothing has changed, yet linux still makes inroads. Since 93, for every response telling me to "RTFM", I've encountered constructive and helpful posts in orders of magnitude far greater than the RTFM'ers. The very same generalizations some would apply here to the linux base is no more different than countless Win related forums I frequent. Furthermore, companies are paid to appreciate _every_ customer from Joe Sixpack to Joe Suxtact. It's the cost of doing business, or doing none at all. There are no fringes here - only an equal mix of adults and children alike. Which by the way, are great customers!
Re:Dell laptops cost MORE w/ no OS than w/ Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I fear pre-installed Linux (Score:2, Insightful)
At least with Windows you can buy a retail copy and install spyware free. If they install some custom "Dell OS" it doesn't matter that's it's Linux and it's supported, if they find out you're running Fedora or Ubuntu or whatever they say "Piss Off." Welcome to the present state. Nothing changed.
The whole thing is we want something BETTER than the current "Install Linux and you get no support" situation.