Humor: Santa Considering Move to Linux (fwd)

[Kara Pritchard <kara@luci.org>]

http://www.bbspot.com/News/2002/12/santa_linux.html

Santa Considering Move to Linux
Icy Negotiations May Lead to Penguins Inhabiting North Pole
By Brian Briggs 
North Pole - Citing concerns about security and licensing costs, Santa Claus is 
considering migrating his computer systems from Microsoft Windows to Linux.
With several thousand computers and the largest database in the world, Santa's 
Workshop is one of the largest and most important clients for Microsoft. It is 
expected that the software maker will do whatever it takes to keep Claus in 
their corner.
"If some naughty kid was able to break into my systems and change his status to 
nice than the whole integrity of the Claus empire would be called into 
question," said Kringle. "I also have to watch out for the Easter Bunny. He's 
always trying to muscle in on my territory. If he were able to compromise my 
database and get access to my client list, then we might be celebrating 
Christmas in April."
"IIS couldn't keep up when Slashdot posted a link to that web-interface I made 
for turning Rudolph's new LED nose on and off. That was the last straw," Claus 
continued. "I'm entrusting the entire holiday of Christmas to a company that 
can't even make a reliable web server?"
Microsoft feels that the issue isn't security but the new licensing agreement 
currently being negotiated with the North Pole giant. "You think he's all 'Ho 
ho ho' but Santa is one tough negotiator," said the Microsoft sales 
representative responsible for the North Pole region. "Behind that beard is a 
shrewd operator. He's managed to stay in business for centuries while giving 
his product away for free. Even the best Internet entrepreneurs couldn't 
sustain that business model."
Santa has more leverage than most of Microsoft's customers said one 
analyst. "He's made some veiled threats about Xboxes falling off the sleigh 
while he's flying over the Atlantic. I also heard he threatened to move Gates 
and Ballmer to the Naughty List."
Santa dismisses Microsoft's claims that his threats to move to Linux are 
nothing more than a negotiation tactic. "I agree with the philosophy of the 
Linux community. I give all these toys and goodies away for free, I think that 
the software I choose should be supporting those sort of ideals too."
Linux would be a good fit for Santa on both the server and the client 
side. "Linux has strong server choices and as far as the workstations the elves 
don't use them for anything other than to listen to Christmas carols and to 
open up the occasional Christmas list that some geek sends to us on CD.
Sources say that Red Hat Linux remains the front runner if Santa does decide to 
switch.


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