“Sir Clive Sinclair is thinking of re-entering the computer
market with a low cost machine based on GNU/Linux, the operating
system offered free on the internet and modified voluntarily by
users.”
“This news won’t shake Microsoft whose operating systems reside
in 95% of the world’s personal computers but it’s a good idea.
Commercial interest in exploiting web-friendly Linux is growing.
Sinclair reckons that with a combination of Linux and cheap
(perhaps non-Intel) chips he could undercut rivals. Whether Sir
Clive can make a comeback is debatable. But no one should write him
off. Even if his credibility is at a low ebb, his long term
influence on Britain’s IT industry is enormous. A generation of
games programmers cut their teeth on the Sinclair Spectrum. If he
doesn’t go for Linux, others will. Indeed, why doesn’t the internet
community devise its own specifications for such a computer just as
it has for Linux?”