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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.
Now, I don't mean to be a troll or anything... but such an obvious typo is infuriating. Whatever happened to the high quality of reporting/editing of Slashdot? "O'Reily" is an unforgivable error... you guys have to pay attention and proofread before you post; this would be unacceptable in any other major news source, internet or not.
He doesn't adress the most plausible scenario, in which AOL is mearly picking up another weapon with which to threaten Microsoft. Like Winamp, Redhat woudl probably be let alone to continue development, but AOL could say, "Look BIll, we would like to see some AIM and AOL integration with Windows. We don't need your cheeseball OS, we can take our ball and go home."
Apparently, AOL hoped to capitalize on the Netscape home page, which most Netscape users left as their default when starting up their browser. That's about the flimsiest grounds I can think of for purchasing a whole company--along with the commitment to maintain and enhance its products.
Perhaps. But as many have pointed out before, one of Netscape's biggest corporate weaknesses was that they didn't capitalize on this, which virtually guaranteed an immediate and huge subscriber base for whatever on-line service they chose to offer. The fact that Microsoft chose to build a competing browser from the ground up and give it away for free, largely to do the same thing, vindicates this strategy. Remember this was when the dot-com upswing was well underway, and everybody and their uncle was turning their site into a portal ...
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
- They buy Netscape for millions, and turn around and use Internet Explorer
- They buy Mirabilis and keep using their own featureless IM client
- They buy Nullsoft and, well, don't do anything
What do they plan on doing with Red Hat? (insert punchline here)
What's the best that could happen? They give Bill Gates a good, swift kick in the balls.
Sounds good to me.
Find free books.
i have to admit that i myself have large reservations about capitalism as it is applied in North America, particularly in the freedoms whihc it allows to Corporations. But still, Open Source is about Information, not about little guys VS. corporations. It justhappens that the single largest opponent of Open Source and the GPL is also the single largest corporation(I don't have to say the name of the Beast, do I?).
As a community, we have to be careful about who we decide our enemies are. Linux has benefitted in the past from corporate involvement: Corel for Example. Red Hat(also Mandrake) has been held up as the flagship product of the Linux Community many times in terms of winning over the Windows/Apple user who doesn't want to take the time to understand all of the 'computer tech complexities' that they believe Linux involves. But we have to ask ourselves: If a large number of ex-Windows users get won over by AOL/RedHat Linux, have we really lost? It seems to me that a Linux user is a Linux user and that one more Linux user is one less customer for Bill and one less pocketbook supporting closed source.
Perhaps many of us would personally like to see AOL fall on it's face for unrelated reasons, but if they want to swing some of their weight around to back the Red Hat project, I don't think that we should necessarily get up in arms over it.
lysergically yours
For all the discussion about whether this would be good or bad for RedHat, linux, open source software, etc. an important point has been neglected. RedHat is a public company. It has an obligation to its shareholders.
If AOL offers enough money, RedHat is obliged to accept, even if they believe that being bought by AOL will mean the end of the RedHat distribution.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
If it were a sale to AOL there wouldnt be anything to worry about there, but Time Warner?!
The Movie Company? The Magazine Company?
Now, They do sell content, and they do sell services.
Which side are they on?
AOL sells services, I can imagine them supporting Open source even faster than I can imagine IBM doing it.
Time Warner however, is dangerous, isnt Time Warner a part of the RIAA? Their influence in Linux is what would worry me.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
One thing to keep in mind: Nullsoft was bought by AOL. RedHat would be bought by AOL-Time-Warner. Big difference, big implications.
The problem is that AOL and RedHat want different things. RedHat has been working the corporate markets, but AOL thinks of themselves as a media company.
AOL wants to control the most eyeballs that it can. That (currently) means millions of users and simple, simple, simple. This is a total mismatch for RedHat and would kill them (as we currently know them).
Be afraid, be very afraid.
-Dan
Suppose AOLTW bought Red Hat and took the software into Closed Source? Could they try this? Yes. Would they get away with it? One supposes that might depend upon what your definition of "get away with it" means. Who could afford to sue them back into compliance with the GPL? Would the GPL prevail? (It's never been tested in court.) Would tying a lawsuit up the courts for 5-10 years mean they "get away with it" win or lose?
If AOLTW took Red Hat closed source, Mandrake and other Red Hat based distributions would be up the creek. Mandrake (the slickest desktop Linux now) would have to change their base distribution, at great cost and delay. The resulting loss of momentum would surely hurt them and might even stagnate and kill Mandrake. This wouldn't be good.
What follows is a repost of a comment I made on Kuro5hin.
On Slashdot the news of potential purchase of RedHat by AOL has mostly been received with much rejoicing at the potential demise of MSFT's monopoly power.
I am curious as to why people don't fear AOL/TW. From where I sit they already own too much and already influence the perceptions of millions of people with their ownership of Netscape, Nullsoft, ICQ, Time magazine, CNN, WB television network, Time Warner records, Warner Bros. movies, and a lot more that I can't remember right now.
Microsoft may own the OS that most people run but AOL/TW controls the news magazines they read, the music they listen to, the movies and television shows they watch, and how they connect to the Internet as well as most of what they view while online.
Interestingly I'd like to see how a user modifiable OS like Linux interacts with AOL/TW's music and movie divisions that would like to see DRM support implemented in all software from operating systems to browsers. This should be interesting (kinda like NullSoft releasing Gnutella only for AOL to get mad)
- embeded linux for handheld emailing
- linux on internet pcs
The "problem", well for AOL atleat, is that they can't decide what OS the user has. Since the average AOLer uses windows they can't make much of a difference there. What they could do though is along with redhat make a new side distro or whatever you want to call it that mimics windows in use and setup. This is though a double edged sword, sure this could help take a piece of the OS pie from MS, but it could also led to the downfall of redhat.Carpe meam simiam!
The Linux communitie has a histoiry of innovation and openess which stands starkly in contrast to the average Americain grande corporation. It would be a pity to see that openness be suppressed.
What history, the Linux history is of copying Unix and hacks of all the Unix tools.
Maybe you think hand editing configuration files, multi meg core dumps sprinkled randomly throughout your hard drive and painfully slow window systems are innovative.
No thanks to you, AOL. I am much happier with my KDE systeme
I have a cyrix 333 and even with a multitude of tweaks, KDE is barely usable. My c=>64 running GEOS was faster. A 333mhz processor and 320 mb's ram should be more than adequate to run a window manager. Both Windows 98 and XP run great on this machine as does BEOS. Hell i can run an Amiga emulator and multtask the Amiga emulator under windows 98 faster than KDE runs native apps.
the only innovatiosn which have come out as a result of Linux is Rogaine to assist linux users in reqrowing their hair after they pull it all out trying to get linux to work properly..
One good thing that will come of this, no matter what happens, is that GNU/Linux will attain greater visibility. "Hmm, if AOL/TW is interested, maybe I should be looking into this..."
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Banish any thought from your head about open-source, about GNU, and even about Linux. AOL doesn't know about it (much), doesn't care about it (much) and has become large, rich and influential without it.
AOL wants it for two reasons:
1. So Microsoft can't buy it
2. So they can become larger, richer, and more powerful, which would be partly stymied by #1 above.
Let me explain. AOL/Time-Warner knows its business quite well, and its business has nothing to do with software and everything to do with charging people for access to content they desire.
They can't do that if Microsoft, through MSN, is charging people for access to THEIR content instead. Therefore, they must counter or thwart every attempt by Microsoft to eliminate other options by which consumers might get to ATW (not MS) content. Since Microsoft pretty much owns the desktop, and with the sellout of the Justice Department effort against them has pretty much a clear shot to extend that domination into online content.
And not just web content. We're talking interactive messaging, video-on-demand, online commerce and a bunch of other potentially-moneyed pursuits that AOL wants to have or keep for itself.
I think AOL realistically looked at it and realized that (as a piece I read on CNet the other day pointed out) most consumers online in Murka are not the techs and geeks of the old days, they're just McCitizens who (a) don't know about and (b) don't care about "the desktop," "the operating system," or even the hardware. They just wanna send pictures to their Aunt Edith, buy some stuff off Eddie Bauer, check out some choice pron, or watch "Sudden Impact" for eleventeenth time.
How they do it, they don't care. In the 1930s, nobody knew what tubes were in their Philco radios, they only wanted to hear Jack Benny. Or how about now -- can you name the theatre chain in which you saw "The Matrix?" Do you really care? What color was the wallpaper?
This means AOL has "network appliance" in their heads. They've watched the stuff being done with embedded Linux (like the DVRs that aren't all that popular yet but they work). They looked to see who was the big cheese, the Biggest Name In Linux, and it was RedHat. They buy RH, they can have them develop an AOL Network Appliance, basically a box you turn on and it delivers... AOL and Time-Warner content. No Microsoft anywhere to be seen, which means no chance for Microsoft to hijack future revenue streams.
I personally think AOL is torqued off about the whole go-round with Instant Messaging and vowed never to get dicked by MS like that again.
This is not the end of Open Source. Anyone who thinks so radically overestimates the influence of RH on the Linux world. Yes, it's a big influence, and a lot of the way things are can be traced to them, but if RH vanished tomorrow, someone else would step up. I wouldn't be surprised, as a matter of fact, if AOL didn't slurp up the company, then spin it right back out after working out some very favorable licensing deals and pulling in key development staff.
Their track record is strange: they pretty well fouled up Netscape by forgetting there are non-AOL users of the tool, but they left Nullsoft alone and they're as fine as ever. But the strength of open-source is... we don't "need" any one distribution. If we did, we'd have been hosed long ago.
Turtle
---------------------------------------
Rotate the pod, please, HAL....
How could AOL control Linux?
Imagine a future where many people run AOL-RH Linux in a fairly standard setup. They're running a version of Linux with strict DRM etc. There'd soon be plenty of 'modkits' available to change settings, disable DRM software, etc. (Remember: all those AOL customers would be essentially running the same Linux distribution.)
Also, there are plenty of other distributions out there. Of course, I'm not expecting the average 'Joe Sixpack' to install Debian, or even know about Debian.
I don't think it'd be that disastrous, actually.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Look, it's not the most obscure reason in the world why Time Warner (think MPAA) and AOL (think screwing end users) would want to buy Linux (last bastion of freedom)
What is the one and only real objection to the SCSSA bill at the moment? It's that Linux will never accept digital rights management, and even if they did, we'd all work on it from outside America, leaving the US wallowing in a technological vacuum.
So what do we see now? We see AOL buying redhat, and installing digital rights management on it. We see longtime redhat supporters (especially businesses) buying it anyway, and even better, we see it given to all the clones running AOL at home.
Think ahead. It's going to become socially acceptable to lock down and license every piece of electronic equipment, unless the public can see where they're being led, and what they can do about it.
1. Most of the software people use is either private/non-Open sourced, or its the open source software that makes up the huge chunk of what we think Linux is.
2. Even the Redhat specific software (the RPM system, for example) isnt going to change, why would they acquire a company w/ the most popular Linux distribution and then change it up so that it doesnt work w/ previous releases (the same reason you can still run some 16-bit code on WinXP)
These people know what they are doing, they're professionals at acquring other businesses...and the whole deal about Time-Warner being part of the RIAA, that's as about irrelevant as you can get.
Think before you post, folks.
Beer, now there's a temporary solution -- Homer Jay S.
AOLinux would be a different distribution. Use the expertise within RedHat to make AOLinux simple, safe, secure. Keep RedHat making and supporting RedHat Linux for the corporate markets.
Making it simple is not easy.
Imagine your Grandma getting the new AOL 10.0 CD in the mail. Grandma is excited to get on the Internet, as that's what everyone was talking about down in the geriatric ward at the local hospital, when she was there because she fell and broke her hip. She takes out the beverage coaster, with its shiny, sparkly, reflective surface and puts in into her WindowsXZ computer. She is given one of two options "Switch to AOL for this Session" or "Install AOL Operating System." The interface has more information about how the new AOL Operating System is easier to use, faster, free, and has all the same type of applications that she is use to in WindowsXZ. It also mentions that it makes AOL and the Internet easier to use. So she decides to go with the AOL Operating System. When she presses that fateful button her hard-drive is reconfigured. XZ is deleted like the infestation it is, while the new AOL Operating System converts her NTFS partition to ext3. When her computer boots up, she gets the friendly "You've Got Mail" chime, and when she checks it, it's an email from the Linux Counter project asking her to go signup. She's now just entered a world only 3 years ago dominated by pretentious youth and opinionated technical professionals. Go Grandma. But the thing is she doesn't know it. Not only does she not know it, if said pretentious youth, and/or opinionated technical professionals looked at her computer initially, they don't see GNOME 3.0 or KDE 4.0, they see America Online, with it's handy yet somehow amazingly lame ART format and colorful pictures arranged in a cluttered yet somehow aesthetically pleasing way.
When posed the question "What is wrong with this?" I have to answer nothing at all. As a matter of fact this just did the one thing that we as a community have been trying to do for the last 9+ years. It has gained legitimacy for *our* movement. Sure it was at the cost of selling our souls, and giving in on what we thought was right, but hey, Now WindowsXZ has a run for its money. Even though when you boot it up, you start to fly around your room with Madonna. How can throwing our ideals out the window be good?
Remember my friend, Linux is not an operating system. It's an operating system kernel, and a way of doing things. By grandma running AOL Operating System based upon the Linux kernel, all that hard work that Linus has been doing for all those years has just hit the real mainstream. We're talking major support for devices, we're talking mass distribution the likes Linux hasn't seen before. That's because by this time, everyone has a computer. No I don't just mean those pesky white middle class folk, I mean everyone. See the government has pony'ed up and bowed to the pressure that the internet was a racist/bigoted/insert bad term here because the lower class individuals couldn't afford the equipment required to let them on the Internet. And Tom Dashill has decided that's America's fault. But enough of that. See these poor internet users can't afford the $200 license fee that M$ is now charging for Windows XZ Home. And instead of being anally raped by the Business Software Alliance, they choose to install the AOL Operating System. Get it?
Now on to the bad side of things; It's somewhat ironic that *the* company that bought all my favorite little companies may be bought by AOL. You see they went out and bought Hells Kitchen Systems, they made my credit card processing software CCVS. And then proceeded fuck it up beyond believe. Customer service became a thing of the past, and as soon as their contract allowed them, the developers got out of RedHat faster than a husband falls asleep after pulling out of his wife. But wait don't stop there, RedHat next on its acquisition trail through my technical life bought C2Net. ISP turned commercial Apache vendor. Having been a long time fan of C2Net for their commercialization of Apache, which benefited me greatly in my business I made good friends with much of the staff, of which a few remain now that Stronghold is a RedHat product. RedHat then in its next stage of becoming the M$ that the stock market wants them to become saw a hole in their enterprise level strategy, which was the RDBMS area. To compete with M$ they needed a database that could compete with SQL Server. Now, based upon the previous history you would think that they were ripe to pick up the PostgresQL startup Great Bridge. After all Great Bridge had 2 things going for it. One, their primary investor was the primary investor in RedHat when it started. Two, they had members of the PostgresQL development crew on staff! But instead of pursuing something to acquire Great Bridge, RedHat decides to put them out of business. In the summer of this year, less than 6 months after the announcement of the "Red Hat Database" which is PostgresQL, Great Bridge closes its doors. And my friends at Great Bridge are looking for jobs.
All that being said, why am I unhappy about the thought of AOL buying RedHat? It's pretty simple actually. In my head it lowers the already borderline esteem I have for the distribution which commonly gets referred to solely as "Linux." RedHat, for all its history, is primarily responsible for the legitimization of Linux in the business community. RedHat has been the torch bearer for our trusty UNIX variant. They've paid for open source programmers to program open source projects, they've co-sponsored conferences, and events. RedHat has, in fact, done for Linux, more than most other Linux related companies have done. Who's to say what their focus will become when they are more concerned about Grandma's ability to send email to her grandchildren then they are about making reliable, secure by default operating systems?
...with builtin copy protection, etc. AOL/Warner would own your linux box and control a good part of what you did with it. If legislation passes (the SSSCA or whatever it's called) then Redhat, with AOL at the controls, would become the only valid version of linux in the USA (and other contries the USA bullies into passing similar laws) because it would have that builtin copy protection crapola.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Since no one has mentioned this option yet, it must be extremely brilliant or extremely dumb. What about AOL using Linux as the base for a Windows clone running all Windows programs but not owned by Microsoft?
.NET. Microsoft may soon be able to muscle in on bank transactions, credit card companies, eBay, Sony Playstation, AOLs ISP business and everything else that involves a computer. The only logical thing to do is for everyone to come together and offer a free Windows clone.
The whole world is scared of
It would be extremely difficult for AOL to get Linux for the desktop going. It would face the same chicken and egg situation that Apple and Linux have always faced. Why would developers write all their apps for a platform with few users? What about total compatibility with Microsoft Office and all their other apps? I just can't see AOL attempting to take this on. And people are used to Windows. They don't want to learn new software.
AOL is just one program and AOL users are not that pathetic that they can't switch to another ISP. If they have to give up AOL or every Windows program they now use they will give up AOL. Microsoft has everyone much, much stronger than AOL does.
So maybe the point is just to use Linux as a base and put the Windows API on top of it. They could sell it on an AOL PC and it would be cheaper because Microsoft wants to make $75 for each Dell sold, but AOL simply wants the user to use AOL and view whatever ads AOL puts in front of them.
Is the idea of AOL or other companies making a good Windows clone technically possible and reasonable? It seems like the obvious thing for the Fortune 500 to do to protect themselves from Microsoft.
But why this hostility to AOL as an investor? Their funding of Mozilla seems to have benefitted the open source community greatly. Without that, I doubt Netscape or Mozilla would still be around in any form.
If RedHat investors find it advantageous to sell the company, I don't blame them if they do. RedHat's business model never really impressed me, and it might well be better off as an AOL subsidiary, kept alive as a hedge against Microsoft. And given that Linux is GPL'ed and that AOL has been reasonably well-behaved in the past, I don't see a problem. Let's give these people a break.
You statethey pretty well fouled up Netscape by forgetting there are non-AOL users of the tool...
Posting from Mozilla on Debian, I have no idea what you people are talking about. Netscape makes fine browsers that are far from dead. There are enough people, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commision, www.nrc.gov, using their server software with good results for me to not understand that either. While Netscape is far from the "asshole in the middle" that some people might want it to be, the rest of us are happier dealing with the one sphinkter they we own and don't think of immitating it. Did AOL fire everyone at Netscape? Is that what I'm missing? While that would be sad, the remaining people seem to be able to continue providing an excellent bunch of software to the world using Open standards and free software.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
In my reading of this thread, one thing I do not see is that an AOL takeover of Red Hat threatens not only Linux, but UNIX, in general.
If I see correctly, Red Hat people maintain such systems software as gcc, glibc, automake, autoconf, and a few others (whatever was once available from sourceware.cygnus.com, and now from sources.redhat.com). This software was not developed specifically for Linux, it was developed for a wide variety of UNIXes, of which, Linux happens to be one. This software is so basic that one simply does not have a functional system without it or a replacement for it.
Consider, now, an AOL takeover of Red Hat. They would have then positioned themselves to control the software upon which a very large number of UNIX systems depend by controling those who maintain it. Given AOLs track record in such matters (prime example: Netscape), this does not bode well for UNIX. AOL becomes master of the world by killing off anything that runs well.
"But", you say, "this is all open source. We start from the last good version and develop alternative software." To this, I must say: How many of us have the time, energy, resources, and skill to write an optimizing compiler or a system library? How many remain once AOL requires non-competition agreements of Red Hat personnel?
This merger must not be proceed. It threatens the entire network by attacking its foundation.
...and no room for the little guys. Don't you see what could happen? The problem isn't another MS, or even two MS corps controlling the market; the problem is that two extremely large corporations will hold control of everything we see. AOL/Time Warner is a media giant in and out of the computer world. Microsoft IS the computer world and has its own media platforms in and out of it as well. The problem with AOL/TW buying RedHat is that this giant will get bigger. Better press, better distribution, and a good face; Mozilla and RedHat Linux would be platform examples of good community efforts ... that take focus away from the giant's control of what we see on monitors and televisions.
Here's where the American Dream(TM) dies: with corporations controlling everything, the amount a small firm can change lessens. By letting these two companies get bigger and bigger, we let the smaller guys get pushed around.
RedHat has a huge influence on the Linux/Free Software community, like it or not. If AOL/TW buys it, I guarantee AOL/TW will influence RedHat and therefore the Linux/Free Software community.
If you're watching AOL, and your intentions really are true (ie, get into the Linux world for a complete CD distribution/coaster), buy Mandrake, the 'easy to use' distro. Or perhaps Lindows, or some distribution of your own. Wouldn't the announcement of AOLinux be enough without needing to own the most influential of Linux pushers? Look at what IBM is doing! Look, no buyout; hell, they don't even have an IBM-brand distro (AFAIK).
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
This ignores one fairly important detail however - A large part of the barrier to adopting Linux in most coporations is the lack of a corporation to back it. Red Hat currently is that corporation for a lot of companies. Its destruction would set back coprporate adoptions of Linux. Although on the other hand, having AOL-TimeWarner backing a good Redhat would help our credibility immensely(How twisted is that?).
Why?