[cobalt-users] The Linux by Dr. Seuss.

["Charles Williams \(CEO\)" <hosting.mailing.list.account@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Linux

by Dr. Seuss


At the far end of Redmond

where the Grickle-grass grows

and the wind smells slow-and-sour when it blows

and no birds ever sing excepting old crows...

is the Street of the Lifted Linux


And deep in the Grickle-grass, some people say,

if you look deep enough you can still see, today,

where the Linux once stood

just as long as it could

before somebody lifted the Linux away.


What was the Linux?

And why was it there?

And why was it lifted and taken somewhere

from the far end of town where the Grickle-grass grows?

The old Gates-ler still lives here.

Ask him. He knows.


You won't see the Gates-ler.

Don't knock at his door.

He stays in his Lerkim on top of his store.

He lurks in his Lerkim, cold under the roof,

where he makes his own software

out of vapourware poof.

And on special dank midnights in August,

he peeks

out of the shutters

and sometimes he speaks

and tells how the Linux was lifted away.


He'll tell you, perhaps...

if you're willing to pay.


On the end of a rope

he lets down a tin pail

and you have to toss in fifteen cents

and a nail

and the shell of the great-great-great-

grandfather snail.


Then he pulls up the pail,

makes a most careful count

to see if you've paid him

the proper amount.


The he hides what you paid him

away in a musty compartment,

to keep it away

from the Justice Department.


Then he grunts, "I will call you by Whisper-ma-Phone,

for the secrets I tell are for your ears alone."


SLUPP!

Down slupps the Whisper-ma-Phone to your ear

and the old Gates-ler's whispers are not very clear,

since they have to come down

throught a snergelly hose,

and he sounds

as if he had

smallish bees up his nose.


"Now I'll tell you," he says, with charisma of grey,

"how the Linux got lifted and taken away...


It all started way back...

such a long, long time back...


Way back in the days when flying toasters were cool

and a floppy could hold

your entire system install,

and the Mir satellite was still up in space...

one morning, I came to this glorious place.

And I first saw the PCs!

The custom PCs!

The bright-coloured cases of the custom pCs!

mile after mile all lined up in THREEs.


And, sitting at keyboards, I saw the consumers

Growing in numbers with revenue rumours

The chances of riches all ripe like satsumas.