[humorix] Bloated Open Source Projects Receive Surprise Grant Money

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

Bloated Open Source Projects Receive Surprise Grant Money
April 22, 2003

SILLYCON VALLEY, CA -- In a major coup for the Linux
community, Enntel Corporation has agreed to give $20
million worth of grants over the next three years to
various open source projects that rely heavily on CPU
power.

"Right now there's little incentive for people to rush out
and buy computers with faster CPUs," explained CEO John
Enntel.  "But if bloated, CPU-intensive, eye-candy-enhanced
projects like Mozilla or GNOME become popular, then our CPU
sales will skyrocket.   This $20 million is not an act of
altruism -- it's an investment."

John Enntel came up with the idea after talking with his
mother one day. "She keeps telling me that her 200 Mhz
Enntium I machine works just fine for running Word or
playing Solitaire," he explained. "Last month she told me,
'The only thing good about an expensive three gigawhatever
machine is that it  crashes more quickly!'"

"I had nightmares every night the following week," Enntel
admitted. "What if millions of mothers and grandmothers
were thinking the same thing?  What if they refused to buy
new computers with our state-of-the-art Enntium IV and
Qualeron I?  Oh the horror!"

Investing in open source, however, neatly solves the
problem. "You try to run Mozilla on a vintage EnntiumSX
processor from 1997 and it's going to run about as quickly
as molasses on Pluto. Even an Enntel Ennside Pro chip from
'99 struggles to run GNOME at a reasonable speed..."

A spokesperson for the Mozilla project was ecstatic about
the news. "For years people told us that Mozilla was too
bloated.  'Who needs a fscking chat client in a web
browser?' critics would scream. Well, now that bloat is
paying off.  Our efforts have helped to spur demand for
faster hardware, and that in turn is helping the economy.
The din of a million keyboards can't be wrong."

It's not clear how the money will be distributed, although
John Enntel points out that he doesn't really want it to be
used for optimizing code. "The last thing I want is for
GNOME to hire some genius that is able to speed up the
whole system 30% by inserting a single line of code.  That
would defeat the whole purpose.  Instead, I want more
bloat, more eye candy, more kitchen sinks, more...
everything."


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