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Unsupported rapid oxidation

everybody loves eric raymond episode 67 strip

I received this e-mail and thought it might be interesting to the ELER readership. I paraphrase a little:

I am certain you will be surprised to receive this e-mail from me, indeed, I sincerely apologize for the embarrassment this might cause you. However, I wish to state, that it is sincerely necessitated by my present plight and I pray you will readily be of tremendous assistance. I am Mr. JONO BACON, from WOLVERHAMPTON and having consulted with my colleagues and based on the information gathered from the WOLVERHAMPTON chambers of commerce and industry, I have the privilege to request for your assistance to transfer the sum of £5.00 (FIVE ENGLISH POUNDS STERLING) from your account to purchase a ticket for LUG RADIO LIVE 2007.

LUG RADIO LIVE 2007 will commence precisely on the 7th and 8th July 2007 in WOLVERHAMPTON, UNITED KINGDOM which will be hosting AWESOME FOSSY RELATED speakers, only a small percentage of them employed by LARGE FACELESS CORPORATIONS.

I went to Lug Radio Live 2006 and it was great fun. I’m speaking at LRL 2007 about ELER and tribal leadership – come along and say hi. I’ll be the scruffily dressed geek with the laptop.

72 replies on “Unsupported rapid oxidation”

For even the slightest possibility of this screwing Microsoft, we’d have to at the very LEAST see a link on the front page of Dell’s home page to computers that have Ubuntu preinstalled. It’s hard enough to find a computer that still has XP on it from Dell’s site.

I like MS just about as much as the next guy who follows ESR, but don’t expect big things to happen overnight. This is a small step. Chances are, Dell won’t have the balls to go the next step.

This is a step in the right direction, but what self-respecting power uses Dell desktop machines? I just hope this forces some of the larger players (Nvidia and ATI in particular) to open their specs…we’ll see.

I’m not holding my breath for anything new other than crappy Dell boxes to be supported better by Ubuntu.

I think it’s supposed to be a random package, at least that’s how I read it. Any newbie who has ever needed help on a *buntu-box will know that seemingly random commands will work as long as they start ‘dpkg’. =)

$ apt-cache show libcomerr2 | tail -n5

libcomerr is an attempt to present a common error-handling mechanism to manipulate the most common form of error code in a fashion that does not have the problems identified with mechanisms commonly in use.

When ESR left Fedora, one of the packages he force-removed was libcomerr. Hence the punchline.

Ah, thanks anon.

Perhaps not Leach’s finest work. I shall mail him some turds.

Au Contraire, I got the reference immediately and frankly I think this is one of his best. Made me LOL.

ysth@raven:~$ DPKG –REMOVE –FORCE-ALL LIBCOMERR2
bash: DPKG: command not found

Mike seems to have as much trouble speaking in lower case as MR. BACON.

Yeah, I love the way the ESR/fedora joke is rolled in with the Dell tech support reading-from-a-script joke, and the whole “Michael Dell runs Ubuntu” thing. Plus the HUGE phone!
Best strip in a while. OTOH, it’s the only strip in a while, but hey.

I’ll be the scuffily dressed geek with the laptop.

Surely this should be “scruffily”?

Haven’t Dell signed the same agreement with Microsoft that Novell did?

If so, why aren’t the also getting a bolocking? In fact if it is the case, then why does Shuttleworth bolock Novell but kiss the hand of Dell?

I’m confused.

Chris, one factor is the -direction- a company is moving. Dell is, on the whole, moving forward. Novell was, on the whole, moving backward.

No, Chris, Dell did not sign the same agreement with Microsoft that Novell did. We can therefore disregard your “if so”. Next question.

Tidy admins use –purge, too, but I don’t think ESR has ever demonstrated any particular concern over doing anything right.

Great comic!

It’s been almost exactly a year since I got my Dell laptop and I haven’t had any problems with it. Ubuntu has been running fine for the last several versions and almost all of the functionality works as it should.

I think it’s great that Linux is starting to get better vendor support – a few people I work with are starting to look at Linux more seriously now that they know they might be able to get it pre-installed on their PC.

I do have just one problem: bring this to Australia already Dell!! :)

Yeah, ok this is funny (not really hilarious as some claim), but funny nonetheless. Now, this is my first time here and I’ll say I am a lil’ bit offended. Isn’t it a bit racist that the ^regular^ M$ Dell support engineer is ‘Vineet’ and the ubuntu ^specialist^ is Michael. Don’t try and tell me that was unintended or added to the humor in any way. It would have been just as funny without the jab at dell support coming from India.

steve:

Firstly, I don’t say he comes from India. He might have been born in the USA.

Secondly, call tech support at 5 random large corporations and tell me how many non-native English speakers are answering first line. The strip just reflects the real world (for once). I could blacken up Richard Stallman’s face if you’d prefer ELER to be more politically correct.

Thirdly, it says nothing of the guy’s ability or intelligence, just that he doesn’t specialise in Ubuntu. The joke only works if the call is handed over to Michael Dell.

Fourthly, guy’s name “Vineet Bandhu” translates to “Knowledgeable Helper” – carefully selected to convey the idea that he’s clever and well meaning. Michael Dell on the other hand clearly isn’t (in this strip) either.

Fifthly, I’ve not done a strip in weeks so I really shouldn’t be spending all this time replying to comments.

By Post Author

“Michael Dell on the other hand clearly isn’t (in this strip) either.”??

He immediately recognized esr and decided to patronize him; how more on the ball can you be?

For fucks sake, keep the political correctness off this comic.

Steve is obviously humorally impaired.

John: Great one, very funny :) !

Now it’s time for another one, and I’d bet I know what it will be about, but won’t comment. I don’t want to spoil it :D

its just a great comic. there wasn’t even a need to justify its political correctness. this is the last thing on the planet i can expect to be branded as an instance of ‘racism’.
as an aside, vineet = polite/humble, bandhu = friend.

“Haven’t Dell signed the same agreement with Microsoft that Novell did?”

They agreed to distribute Novell-MS’s coupons for servers..that’s all (although maybe it’s part of the MS strategy to control workgroup server protocols and thus information gates). Whatever it is, it’s fallout on Novell’s side solely.

PS:

the dell ubuntu thing is doing well. the only side effect i think is that dell are getting free community support for it. if they’re making money selling the ‘dell’ brand, shouldnt they be putting something back into the community… should they not also at least put some money into the mirror service?

does dell think that the added users will create a storm of creativity for the ubuntu project? i don’t know how this balances out… but up till now linux has been fulled by programmer types who use it as a tool, not so much as a email/web terminal like a modern desktop. we shall see.

ubuntu refused a patent immunity agreement with ms recently… that’s quite amusing, and how about this:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2007062209235346

“if they’re making money selling the ‘dell’ brand, shouldnt they be putting something back into the community… should they not also at least put some money into the mirror service?”

Yes, they should, but it’s even essential that they not be required to.

I miss ELER… A whole month and no update! I’m having withdrawl symptoms here.

AGH!!!!!!!!

> normal service will be resumed next week sometime.

Ok, scrap that revenge then. Glad to hear you’re still going strong! =)

Oh really praise the lord – kde 4 will come, m$ will die and _we_ get a new eler-comic!

“normal service will be resumed next week sometime.”

I’m taking the overs as my lock of the week.

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