Warnings to Red Hat about AOL Buyout

andyo from O'Reilly submitted linkage to a report he wrote over there where he urges Red Hat to think twice about letting AOL eat them. Talks about GNN, as well as Netscape. I'm sure this isn't the last word we'll hear on this subject either.

Comments

That's a long way off

[Ars-Fartsica]

Don't get too excited, AOL is still dependent on Microsoft and will be for some time to come.

Firstly, even the most clueless AOL users still use the web in general. I don't buy for a minute that they all stay firmly enclosed in AOL la-la land. In such a case, IE and plugins still matter.

Secondly, Microsoft is way ahead on device drivers. Users aren't going to be too happy when their new digital camera doesn't work with AOL-OS. There is more to a user enviroment than their online service. Unless AOL is able to make a substantial investment in device support, I don't see what there is to get excited about.

Re:That's a long way off

[Graymalkin]

AOL wants to buy mindshare. Just like they did with Winamp. They figure it is the most popular Linux platform and people will continue to use it no matter who owns it. AOL isn't and can't buy fucking source code. Have you ever built your own system from scratch? Most of the important tools work by stin and stout. There isn't a whole lot of "making stuff work together" required. Red Hat doesn't make Linux fucking friendly. It is still a bitch to maintain unless your sole purpose in life is to maintain it. AOL buying mindshare isn't going to get anything accomplished in the world of Linux. They can either 1) keep up RH's support of all the OS projects they fund for the small fee of advertising and including some AOL software in their distro or 2) nix all of RH's "money wasting" projects and force them to become an AOL distro. Hardware vendors also will not give a fuck. They make shit margins on their products. They aren't going to spend beaucoup cash to increase their patronage by a fraction of .24% by making Linux drivers. They won't spend the money to increase their patronage by a fraction of 10% to write Mac drivers for their hardware. Even if all AOL users were Linux users there'd be few drivers for all the hardware because first and foremost the users are AOLites. AOLites only need enough hardware functionality to use AOL's software. Most AOL users do not need a full fledged computer for using AOL yet have one just in case they need to type something up or AOL upgrades their software. The majority of periphrials available anywhere are not needed by these folk and thus would be avoided by most periphrial manufacturers for surer markets.

Re:i do agree

[Anonymous DWord]

Hahahahaha. Richest how? Biggest discrepancy between rich and poor? Highest infant mortality rate for a "developed" nation? Or do you mean most TVs and nuclear missiles per capita? Your cherished capitalism isn't the be-all end-all of civilization you know. Especially when your people are starving and your culture is non-existent.

Re:i do agree

[ncc74656]

It justhappens that the single largest opponent of Open Source and the GPL is also the single largest corporation

Hmm...since when have these guys ever said anything bad about anything pertaining to open source? They're not even in the computer business!

(Just because Microsoft's market cap is bigger than everyone else's doesn't make it a bigger company. There are no doubt other companies besides GM that "outweigh" Microsoft.)

Linux is NOT a BRAND

[B0zzLightyear]

Linux the OS can't, Linux the brand can.

Like you are so wrong.
RedHat != Linux
Linux != Brand

And losing those few Lusers that can't install anything else than RedHat won't hurt. For everybody else there is SuSE, Debian, Slackware and so on ad infinitum

Re:AOL involvement

[DickBreath]

if AOL involvement is limited to randomly placing AOL links somewhere on the desktop which today's Linux users surely steer clear of anyway, I'm all for it.

You're all for it, if it bother's other people, but not yourself?

I would be all for it as long as AOL's involvement is limited to systematically placing AOL ads into /etc files, /bin directories, and other places which today's Linux users steer clear of anyway. (Unlike yesterday's users who steer clear of the desktop.)

Offended yet? Or should I continue?