"Toilet Vortex" Produces Red Hat 10.0
January 1, 1999 (Happy New Year of Linux World Domination!)

Bob Hutzfield has put a dozen copies of "Red Hat Linux
10.0" up for auction at eBay.com.  He claims that his
toilet is the portal to a "temporal vortex singularity" and
that the toilet periodically spits out items from the
future.  Last week, a package containing twelve Red Hat
Linux 10.0 shrink-wrapped boxes materialized at the toilet
vortex.  Hutzfield is now offering them at auction with a
minimum bid of US$1000.

The following press release was taken from the eBay auction
page. Hutzfield claims that he found this press release
inside the package that emerged from his toilet vortex.

* * *

RED HAT LINUX 10.0
June 15, 2002
Press Release
For Immediate Release

RALEIGH-DURHAM, NC -- HypeNewsWire -- Red Hat, the producer
of the most popular Linux distribution with over 25 million
estimated users, is proud to announce the availability of
Red Hat Linux 10.0.  The latest version contains the new
Linux 6.2 kernel, the Z Window System 2.0, full support for
legacy Windows 3.x/9x/200x/NT software apps, and more.
Copies of Red Hat Linux 10.0 will be available in stores on
CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, or GNUDE (GNU Digital Encoding) disks
within the next week.

Compaq, Dell, Gateway, and several other large computer
manufacturers have announced that they will offer computer
systems with Red Hat 10.0 pre-installed.  "We can sell
systems with Red Hat pre-installed for considerably less
than systems with Microsoft ActiveWindows 2001. Overall,
Red Hat Linux's superior quality, low price, and modest
system requirements puts Windows to shame," one Dell
spokesperson said at last week's LinDex convention.

Some of the new features of Red Hat Linux 10.0 include:

* xlib7 support - Red Hat has fully migrated from libc6 to
the new xlib7 C libraries.  Meanwhile, other Linux
distributions such as Slackware are still using the ancient
libc5 system.

* GNUDE disk drivers - The 6.2 kernel has support for the
GNU Project's GNUDE disk format (with 1 terabyte maximum
capacity) built-in.  Full GPLed specifications for the
GNUDE drive and interface are available from the gnu.org
website, along with step-by-step instructions for creating
your own GNUDE drive out of inexpensive parts.

* Updated WINE program - RH 10.0 includes the latest
version of WINE with full support for all legacy Windows
applications except those written for the new ActiveWindows
2001 version.

* WordPerfect Suite v.10 - The latest version of Corel's
open source office suite with GTK+/GNOME support is bundled
with RH 10.0.

[Rest of the press release snipped for the sake of
brevity.]

* * *

Response to this news has been mostly negative. However, at
least one adolescent Slashdot groupie is quite excited. 
"Wow!  This is the coolest thing since Quake! I wonder if
that toilet vortex ever spits out any newspapers with,
ahem, stock quotes and lottery results from the future. 
I'd do anything for a copy..."

Overall, though, most observers are highly skeptical. 
"This Bob Hutzfield (if that's his real name) character put
up for auction a portable "fusion power" generator, which
he claimed had emerged from his toilet-thingamajig from
2017.  I won the bid of $512, but the item I received was
actually a plastic box filled with AAA batteries.  It was a
scam!  This person cannot be trusted."

One well-known Linux hacker noted, "I have a bad feeling
about this. After all, look how long it took to develop
Linux kernel 2.2.  Even right now it's not quite finished,
and the word "vaporware" has been used more and more. I
seriously doubt kernel 6.2 could be reached by 2002 
(unless, of course, Linus starts using a Microsoft-like
version numbering scheme).  Therefore, I think this whole
thing is a scam."

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Credits: James S. Baughn, http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux