[Gllug] Is my cheapo router really caching DNS?

Alistair Mann gllug at lgeezer.net
Sun Aug 31 21:42:09 UTC 2008


Chris Bell wrote:
> On Sat 30 Aug, Alistair Mann wrote:
> 
>> I've seen a twelve-quid router use linux, 
> 
>    Why not? Try buying the components used to build that router, without
> counting manufacturing costs. Still think it would be worth using any other
> OS?

You're saying Because Twelve-quid, Ergo Linux?

I can imagine WinCE as the basic OS in a strategy that involves 
free-as-in-beer licensing, risk transfer and co-op branding being 
directed at the home-infrastructure market ahead of a later push both 
into business-infrastructure, and into premium-charging for a now 
popularly-desired commodity: WinCE-branded routers. If I were an oem of 
said routers, such a program from MS would actually be /cheaper/ for me, 
in the next few years, than Linux. And cheaper for me means cheaper for 
the consumer.

I could (we all here could) rattle off reasons it won't happen. Instead, 
let me point to precedent: Intel. The above stratgey is more or less 
what happened after they couldn't trademark "386", and they went on to 
wipe the floor with 'cheaper' AMD.

A price can be lower than free. Fortunately, the value of Linux is not 
in its price.

Cheers,
-- 
Alistair Mann

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