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AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat?
bstadil sent in this rumor. The Washington Post isn't exactly a rumor site, so there's probably truth behind it. Wow. It would make a great deal of sense for AOL/Time-Warner to acquire an operating system for leverage against Microsoft - same reason they bought Netscape.
Isnt this the beauty of the GPL, AOL already has the full source to RedHat.
-- the computer doesn't want any beer, no matter how much you think it does. NEVER, EVER feed your computer beer.
It's interesting: AOL has bought almost all of the coolest stuff on the Net: Netscape, ICQ, WinAMP. Don't forget that Gnutella came out of there, too.
And they've let all of them, so far, mostly be their own companies.
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AOL won't really use Linux, just like they don't really use Mozilla, but it will give them something to hold over Microsoft. "If you don't intergrate us into Windows, we'll stop using it and take a few million users with us." Microsoft isn't stupid enough to let that happen. If there's one thing they're good at it's preserving their monopoly and they'll do what it takes to keep AOL from switching to Linux.
Think about it...to many people AOL IS the internet. How many of those people would by an AOL PC? Give them a machine that runs AOL, a basic word processor and spreadsheet, and what more do they need? To the great unwashed masses, it would be the ultimate information appliance.
Remember the days when people didn't want "PC Compatible", they wanted "Lotus 1-2-3 Compatible" and "Microsoft Flight Simulator Compatible". The problem with the various attempts at internet appliances has been that the target audience knows what they want, and what they want is AOL.
In a straight comparison, IE kicks Netscape's ass now.
Netscape 4's perhaps, but with regard to IE 6 vs. Mozilla 0.9.8 (effectively Netscape 6.3; 0.9.8 is due to be released in a week), I have to hand this round to Mozilla. Mozilla starts faster than IE, supports more CSS, supports XHTML (as opposed to IE just bailing and dumping the XML tree), allows for Opera-style tabbed browsing (which saves Windows user and gdi resources compared to the one window per page paradigm of IE, especially on Win9x/ME where user and gdi heaps are only 64 KB), works on platforms other than IE's Windows, Mac OS, Solaris, and HPUX, and even comes with a rudimentary IRC client (which IE+Outhouse does not).
What does IE 6 have that Mozilla lacks (other than market share, which can change once the next version of Concept Virus hits)?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Alan Cox works for AOL?...Dude! You've got patches!
I can't believe all the negative feedback from this. What is so bad about AOL? They aren't for you and me, it is annoying having to delete them off a new computer for someone, and they sugar coat everything, but who cares? If there is one thing that could dramatically change the history of computing and put power back into YOUR hands, this is it. Quit compaining about the best thing that could realistically happen to computing right now.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
...oOOo..'(_)'..oOOo...
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Richard Stallman will go on a shooting rampage when he hears about this:
It's not GNU/Linux anymore! It's AOL /Linux!
Maybe that's why AOL wants to useLinux, for tech support reasons.
Customer: I'm having trouble doing X...
Tech: Just a minute:
ssh client.aol.com
~# `fix problem X`
~# exit
Tech: That should do it. Thank you for using AOL.
There is no way for AOL to destroy the modular design of Linux/GNU software. To do so, they would have to custom modify and maintain far too many packages. Why would they go to such effort and cost? The average AOL user never ever bothers to venture furthers that far, so "digital rights management" and advert cramming will be maintained by default, just like they are on M$ platforms today. AOL useres actually use AOL's client and browser there and they will under Linux. You will still be able to replace bogus packages and use the ones you want.
What this is going to be, is AOL being able to send out a shiny new CD when M$ breaks their customer's machines. The customer can sit happy knowing that they won't have to buy a new computer and that they can get the things they expect from AOL. My mom is a good example. She has used her computers for three application and only three applications. She has used AOL, Word Perfect, and Quicken. I'm not sure she uses Quicken any more. She uses AOL's instant messenger and email. The rest of her computer means nothing to her, and could be running anything. When ME meets it's two year obsolescence and her flaming nice PIII laptop starts spitting chunks, I hope AOL sends her a nice Red Hat CD. The other stuff, like Netscape, Electric Eyes, Gimp .... might have her actually use her machine some more and definatly enjoy it more. If AOL bought Correl, she would be very happy indeed.
This could kill Microsoft. It's one thing for my mom to have some friends and her son using Linux, it's another thing when she gets it, it works and does everything she wants it to. AOL has 100 million clients, think of the change in perception the world will have if just 1% revive their dead machines this way instead of buying a new $1,000 computer. AOL users, the scorn of M$ elitist derision having computers that work and cost less. Supposedly the most clueless computer population on earth suddenly having tools and stability M$ loosers pay big money for but never recieve. Surely word of mouth will sweep the world, and M$'s already weakened position with hardware makers will collapse.
Reasonable hardware standards may yet see light of day. Without M$ to hord up ever changing API's and that magic flag on the box, we may see hardware maintains stable open interfaces. I am trully filled with hope today. This is great news.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
1) Red hat AOL user (aka RHAOL...pronounced RAH-OOL) fires up the AOL security check and hears "you got owned".
2) Just when you think it can't get any worse, they place ads on TV with Scooby Doo as the spokes 'toon saying "Red Rat Ray-roh-rel rits rumber run!'
3) The Red hat on the Redhat symbol gets down to the "chin level" to hide its shame.
4) A vulnerability in sendmail allows a script kiddie to parse all the email from AOL thru the "borkinator" script (inserts Swedish Chef comments into text)...oddly enough, no one notices for 2 years even when calling tech support and "this is (insert name of tech) how may I BORK! BORK! BORK! Help you".
5) World-wide several BSD and Slackware users are hospitalized for asphixiation from laughing so hard they could not breath for several minutes.
Just a few thoughts.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Everybody who has posted this obviously didn't read it correctly. It is said soon after the author mentions an AOL product for Sony's PlayStation 2. Thus the sentence "Linux also runs the Sony product" means "Linux also runs AOL's Sony product" which I assume is factually correct seeing as how the product they are referring to is an AOL for the PS2 running Netscape under Linux.
So it seems AOL may actually have a method to its madness. It seems they are interested in buying up as many technologies as possible to drive their online subscribtion service.
People, this makes /so much/ business sense. AOL is in the business of getting repeated revenues. Every month they get $23+ from almost every subscriber. They offer a service that many computer users find usefull. Usefull enough that they are willing to part with over $20 a month for it while other ISPs tried to price compete and most are dead.
When AOL bought Netscape everybody groaned. JWZ left and everybody said good for him, fuck working for AOL. But AOL didn't care. They had no rush to get the new version of Netscape out. They didn't fall into the trap of trying to get as many people as possible to use their free (as in price) software like MS did with IE. No instead what they did is basically sat on it while they continued to make buckets of cash (did I mention revenue at over $20/month for almost every subscriber).
Now they've got a bunch of subscribers, mostly inexperienced computer users, who mostly use their computer for running AOL and probably MS Works (not Office, just Works, plus maybe plain old Word without the rest of Office). These are the people that are easy to move to a different OS. These are the people who don't care as long as they can get on AOL and they can type up some stuff in a word processor. It's never the OS that people care about, it's always the applications.
The only thorn in AOLs side is that all of these subscribers must have MS Windows and MS Internet Explorer to do this. But wait.. they bought Netscape a few years ago and do you think that reports of them using Netscape in some internal betas were just leaked mistakenly? Think again.. that was a big fuck-you to Microsoft. The only thing left is to replace Windows with something else. What worked before will work again... so go look for a company to buy. Let's see.. who has an OS with small but somewhat increasing market share and has the technical know-how to make it work right... hmm.. how about Red Hat. The people here saying they should have gone after Mandrake are forgetting that (I hate to say this and start a flamewar) Mandrake blows. Remember that article earlier about moving from RH6.2 to Mandrake 8 saying that the kernel 2.4 that Mandrake uses just wasn't stable for production use. RH is very active with this. RH knows their kernels and employs several developers who know what they are doing. I don't mean to say that Mandrake is a bunch of morons either. But from my experience Red Hat has had a more quality product (if even only slightly).
Also, to you people who think that AOL is gonna attempt some coup d'etat with MS... think again. Believe me they'll keep their current customers happy. But at the same time they'll hype the hell out of their new improved product that just boots you directly into AOL. Also, don't think they won't test this first. What do you think the whole PlayStation 2 thing is about. That looks to me as if it is blatantly a testbed to see how customers will respond to basically just running AOL on their computers.
AOL seems to me to be doing business the right way. Get lots of repeat customers and keep those customers happy and continue to get lots of repeat revenue. Also: diversify. Own as much different shit as you can. This will keep your profits stable. The company I am working for now (no it's not AOL) follows the diversification strategy. Any good company does. My dad has drilled this into me. He worked for an electric/gas utility company and always pointed out that the best thing they could do was keep it as both electric and gas because that means pretty much no matter what happens they got the bases covered. They also had a company which installed generators into places of business which wanted to generate their own power and not depend on the utility. Basically in direct competition with themselves but.. hmm, wait.. that means they get the money either way, especially considering they weren't just selling the product, but the expertise with maintaing it (on a recurring basis of course). ;-)
Just remember, money and self-interest are not all bad. When balanced properly with ethics capitalism makes the world go 'round.
Who is spreading FUD here??
:before pseudo classes and "content" attribute?
As someone else have already pointed, may be you should try to validate your CSS.
And "Fully Compliant XHTML 1.0 Transitional", means nothing,
you aren't supposed to make new pages using Transitional,
try to make it compliant with XHTML 1.0 Strict...
Anybody that knows a bit about CSS and HTML will tell you how much better
support for them Mozilla have.
Does IE already support CSS1?
I remember when some one from MS said that they would never support
100% CSS1, because "no body really want it", that one was funny..
And how much of CSS2 do they support?
:after,
No
All the table formating options?
No
etc..
I have a big respect for you, I have read some very interesting comments written by you,
but I think you should check your facts better before spreading this kind of FUD, you may
prefer IE, but it's an accepted fact that the standards support in Mozilla is very superior
to IE. (and I don't mean that Mozilla is perfect, I should know, I helped to run hundreds
of CSS test in Mozilla a while a go)
Best regards
\\Uriel
P.S.: Please, let me know when IE is ported to
FreeBSD so I can look at your page, or may be you will fix it first?
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
A few people have touched on this, but if put together, the strategy becomes clear, and simple.
AOL needs to fight MS in every way it can. AOL's known this for years, which is why they partnered with Sun & Netscape, and why they're buying strategic projects. Think about the most visible points of contact with MS software.
* MSN Service, IM
AOL's got these, always have. But picking up ICQ was a quick way to buy up a bigger userbase. MS is actually the ones fighting back on this front, partnering agressively with broadband providers like Qwest to push MSN-branded net access.
* IE
AOL has used IE as long as they've had a browser, but you can be sure it's not because they liked the idea. There just wasn't a viable non-MS browser out there. You can be sure they'll switch to NS6 as soon as they feel it's ready.
* Media Player
A biggie. Especially with the changes made in XP. MS wants to push WMP as the RIAA-friendly media, figuring if they can get support from the labels, it won't matter what the users want, because WMP will be the one that has the copy protection the RIAA will support. AOL picked up WinAmp because it was the player with the best chance of pushing back against WMP.
* IIS
All three partners in the deal, AOL, Sun, and Netscape, went in with one goal in mind. Fight MS. Did it work? Eh, not really. But they've still got a lot of NS server software available for use at some point, if they can find a good use.
* Windows
So, picking up a Linux distro is perfectly logical for them. They're trying as best they can on all the above fronts, so why not pick up an OS and push it as an alternative? Imagine what a company with AOL's media control powers could do with RedHat. Build AOL services right into the desktop, stick it in a set-top (To fight WebTV).
This could turn out to be a good thing for Linux. Why? AOL can infuse their vast resources of capital into the one thing Linux sorely lacks, namely a decent set of true-type fonts.
:-)
X11R6's default font set is so atrocious it's no surprise it repels PC users weaned on Windows' splendid set of TT fonts. Fund the development of a LGPL'd set of core fonts [similar to Microsoft's Core Web Fonts] and you have cleared one of the biggest obstacles in the way of Linux's widespread adoption.
I'm sure the zealots wouldn't mind this too much either
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
If anyone has been looking for a good example of why the GPL's anti-proprietary protections make it superior to the BSD license, here's a great one. (from a community perspective at least..) Imagine if Linux and associated GNU software used the BSD license instead. AOL could buy RedHat and then release a proprietary kernel, libc, etc. with DRM integrated throughout, backdoors as desired, phone-home capability to reap marketing data, forced advertisements, and other horrible evils. With GPL, the worst they can do is include a proprietary version of Mozilla and perhaps a DRM kernel module, which both can be easily removed. So if AOL ships out GPL'ed software, you can be rest assured that it is the real thing or at least come with full source to document any potentially undesirable changes. With BSD, we'd be screwed.
Saying that the GPL is less free than BSD is like saying the US is less free without slavery.