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Alan Cox to Leave if RH AOL Buyout Happens?
According to MartinG,
Alan has posted to the LKML and said "Im
insulted that anyone believes I would continue working for RH if aol/time
warner owned them. " This of course refers to the
Red Hat/AOL
Buyout Rumors that we have been
talking about
all weekend.
Linux out in the open, with big company backing?
Or, are we going to start up with the "elitest want Linux to stay small"?
Linux (even the RedHat distro) has the GPL protecting it. Even AOL/TW's big lawyers can't break it. Why is it such a bad thing??
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I wondered, begining with the first rumors, how many key RH employees would stick around. Key develpers like this arent the 7 dollar an hour lackeys that would keep a job with anyone just because they cant afford to move.
It has seemed for quite some time the RedHat team has a certain chemistry not found elsewhere. As a RedHat user since 2.0 I can say it is by far my favorite distro, it has its shortcoming but they are they least where it matters to me most.
I can see it now, AOL buys RedHat the whole crew jumps ship and starts over again, AOL is left with a rotting hulk that smells, like......NETSCAPE
Charachter is something seldom seen in business anymore. Regadless if you like or dislike someone, it takes charachter to make a stand, This wouldnt be the first time Alan has done it.
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
but you forgot to give a reason.
AOL bought ICQ, AOL bought Winamp.
Did anyone notice that one of those products did really change to the worse (besides the ads in ICQ, which is ok I guess because they are not that annoying)?
No, no one noticed, because they didn't.
But what changed is that the coders of ICQ and Winamp got nice paychecks.
So, Alan where is your problem?
Don't like opensource OS coders who dare to make money?
Cuz the guy must be a star!
Seriously, I salute the man for standing up for his
principles, but I don't think his "pre-judgement"
should receive such an attention.
He already works for a corporation, if the new
parent company promises to continue supporting the
spirit of the old company, and remains commited to
open source, then ACs comments are unjustified.
Atleast in my humble opinion.
AOL/TW is up there with Microsoft in terms of average Linux community member, for even if most people don't outright hate them, they think of them as the haven for the spammers and the clueless.
As I said it's a matter of perception.
Now, while AOL/TW wouldn't care one bit about all the Linux users ceasing to use RedHat products (their goal in buying the company, after all, would be to use its knowledge to create a AOL-OS) it cerainly could help on RedHat's end, as they'd lose any and all goodwill that they have from the community.
And when a significant amount of work is saved for a Linux company by having the community on your side and contributing various things, this certainly would be nothing but a pain for them.
Sort of reminds me of Jamie Zawinski leaving Netscape a while after the AOL takeover... I'm not sure I disagree with Red hat being bought out, but it seems to me once a big time corporation takes over that they would probably lose focus. (On the other hand Winamp seems fine {unlike ICQ} so maybe things wouldn't be so bad).
CNN was reporting this morning that AOL's intention is to possibly create an AOL-only OS. Is it possible for them to create a new branch of RedHat that supports only AOL Internet service? Possibly a home user desktop only distro?
http://www.askthevoid.com
AOL can get RH for free, it's all GPL'ed.. why not do what Corel tried with Debian and just create their own distro based on RH..
They're not getting guys like Cox, so why pay out the cash for something they've got for free anyway?
Before I start off here, I know many of you may be familiar with my comment history, journal entries, etc. But I please ask before you start your trigger happy -1, Troll mods, look at the following objectively.
Linux is very popular, and moving into the mainstream and we all need to get over it. I realized this the day it finally hit 1.0. The success of it was inevitable. No one complained back then. The Linux community is bringing it on themselves, the better we make it, the more popular it will be.
The more popular it will be, the more people there will be who will want to make money off of it. This was confirmed when Redhat went public. We all can't be elitists. With the success of any popular operating system, you will have large companies seeing this as an opportunity to make money. This is called Capitalism, and it works. This is why I can post comments such as these and not have to worry about getting a knock on my front door at 3am by a bunch of men in trench coats and sunglasses.
If you have a problem with this, then perhaps you should consider being either an anarchist or a socialist. Theres plenty of them in France.
I live under the bridge, in a pile of feces.
If RH is acquired, then you better believe that AOL/TW would drive RH to become a company that supported the AOL/TW initiative (i.e. world domination by AOL/TW).
AOL/TW is an 800lb gorilla.
MS is an 800lb gorilla.
The RH acquisition would be like giving one of them a dart-gun: while it may hurt, it would stil only be a little weapon.
As a consequence, RH's gameplan would change from Red Hat Domination via Linux to AOL/TW world domination. Linux is dropped from the big picture, and only becomes a little piece of the puzzle.
Having Alan leave for a company that would support the World Domination thru Linux initiative (like Mandrake or SuSe, or Debian) would be a good thing for Linux.
That's precisely what I'M thinking.
AOL CANNOT BUY LINUX, they can only buy Linux COMPANIES, and DISTRIBUTIONS.
Let's see them try to coax Debian into going closed source...
No big deal guys, it will mean either more funding for cool shit or one less player in the Linux distro market.
I've overclocked my brain!!!
No, your right. Linux will be the transparently embeded operating system that runs the next generation in hi-tech stupidity boxes (super television). People will not know, nor care that its linux or any other operating system, they will just know that they can find out whats on 2 hours from now, and that they can stick a smart card/national ID card into a slot next to the couch and purchase some neat shit they saw on an infomerical.
Wow! What a coup for the linux crew. Linus must be proud that he has come so far. You can bet that this is the right direction to take to get linux to the masses, just as long as they don't thave to think about it.
I for one applaud Alan for his commitment to not playing ball when one of the top 5 media giants is considering buying the company he works for. Go Alan. Its good to see someone stick to their ideals and not become some pavlovian idiot at the first sniff of profit potential (ala VA whomever they are)
YAY Linux.
Let's inject a little realism here. While I admire Alan's sense of "walk it like you talk it," his employment at Redhat wouldn't affect a deal one way or another.
1. There are a lot of good kernel hackers. Alan just happens to be a really good one.
2. Who's to say that Alan will not continue to work on Linux, just not as an employee of Redhat?
If there is a deal to be made, I'm all but certain they wouldn't consider Alan's employment status at RH as even a minor deal point.
That said, Alan rocks.
Cheers,
AC
If AOL is making a push into the desktop OS market, like some leaked memo's said before, why RedHat? Someone else mentinoed reading about AOL pushing into the web appliance market like the WebTV boxes.
In either case, why are they looking to buy RedHat? They could very easily hire 1/2 dozen talented admins and programmers to put together their own distribution in 6 months or less. I'd personally be more than happy to be collecting a nice steady paycheck from a company I know is going to be doing well no matter what.
The scenerio we've come across that seems to work logically is that RedHat is having financial problems, and they're looking for a buyer. If this is the case, Alan is screwed anyways.
If they don't find a buyer, he's out of work.
If they find a small buyer, he'll take a paycut, or potentially loose his job anyways.
If they find a big buyer, he'll cry that a big company got him.
I think Alan is trying to cry like JWZ . He doesn't know how to handle the whole thing, so he knows another hacker cried about the same type deal years ago. Not saying JWZ was right or wrong, but that was years ago with a different scenerio.
AOL adopting Linux is a great thing. He should recognize and embrace it. I'd rather see them develop their own distribution though. The more big companies that start working with Linux the better. That's how Micro$oft got into the market, they got everyone to start working with them.
The point here is that AOL wants 1) an established Linux name 2) a solid base for their own interactive OS that can be web-enabled and coupled with their service 3) a product written in a language that many can already program. They don't give a shit about Alan Cox or current Linux users and, frankly, they shouldn't. The existing code is GPL'ed anyway, so we have nothing to whine about - they can't kill Linux. My guess is by the time AOLLinx or AOLos hits the streets it looks and feels nothing like Linux and doesn't even attempt to compete with Linux as we know it today.
How would that be selling out if Alan stayed on with Red Hat? Look, I really hate AOL with whats left of it after you take away my Microsoft hatred. But as long as the company stays the same and gives the quality of a disto I'm game. Alan and the rest of the Red Hat team could be making a big mistake if they jump ship. Not only would they have a bigger financial backing, but also a better opportunity to really make themselves BIG competition for Microsoft. If in the event they do get sold, and the distro changes for the worst because of it, screw it. There are a million distros out there. Like I said, if they get sold and stay the same, good for them and good for their bank accounts....
And what's to say they couldn't do the same thing with RH?
AOL/TW didn't get to be a huge megalithic company by purchasing niche companies and destroying them. If there's one thing that you can be sure of, one thing that AOL/TW can be honest about, it's that they're in business to make a profit. If they perform an action, it is in some way related to increasing profits or the potential of increasing profits later on down the road. People give capitalism a bad name, but it does guarantee predictability: companies will usually do what is in their best interests first and everything else second. And if I worked at that company or was an investor in same, that's exactly what I'd expect.
If AOL/TW acquires RH, it will be to put pressure on MS, pure and simple. They'll market the hell out of it and pump all sorts of marketing info into RH for product development, but if they have a goal it's to push RH and make money with it. As long as the core principles of Linux don't get compromised (and "hard to use so it remains elitist" isn't a core principle of Linux), the expansion of the Linux market is something everyone here should be rejoicing about, not condemning.
Alan does a disservice and shows a bit of immaturity by making the statement he did. It is not principles he's sticking to by saying this, it's politics, the same thing he condemns other for "on the other side of the fence".
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
...honestly though, my only real beef against the entire inbred megacorporation is their cable division. I don't believe that "utilities" which are granted government monopolies should have any ties to outside industries from inside that utility. If you hold government-granted control over a certain crop of power lines, you shouldn't be able to push for a patented power outlet that directly links you to other products you produce.
Remember when Time-Warner cable said "Disney took your ABC away?" in New York... Those problems will only get worse as AOL Time Warner push more of their own content down "their" pipelines.
I get on very well with my boss.
I regularly grab a beer after work with him.
I also often tell him to fsck off if he gives me work I don't like.
It's a good thing and its based on honesty and mutual respect.
If you don't have that, then you have to realise that many bosses will do whatever they can to exploit you as far as possible, and that old bullshit "putting the food on the table" is one of the buggest reasons It keeps on happening. Can't you see that if people weren't such cowards as to cave in to the "but how am I gonna pay the bills" argument then bosses would be forced to do more of what made their employees happy. All you "food on the table" bods are part of the problem allowing companies to become greedy and exploitative in the first place.
If your employer knows that you fear leaving them, they are suddenly in an extremely powerful position over you.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
i asked a someone i know who works at aol about this , and this is what they had to say :
aol is sick of spending money on expensive sun solaris and hp-ux software & hardware. they would like to convert to linux, however they aren't confident that any of the current linux companies have the stability to provide the service and support they require long term. so they are going to buy a linux vendor to ensure they have the support and service infrastructure they require.
they don't give a toss about releasing their own desktop operating system or internet appliance.
How many of you are employed?
How many of you are employed in the tech sector?
How many of you are employed in the tech sector, in a company that is heavily reliant upon the internet?
How many of you are employed in the tech sector, in a company that is heavily reliant upon the internet, an internet that has been popularized, regardless of how they did it, by AOL, who lowered the barrier to the point where your mother, your grandfather, and your pointy-haired boss could use it?
(And how many of you are whiny, sniveling little college students -- if that educated -- with little or no real world experience?)
If your employer knows that you fear leaving them, they are suddenly in an extremely powerful position over you.
Let's not forget, though, that the majority of workers are underqualified for their job, don't understand their job at all, or are completely incompetent. Now put yourself in their position and see if the "food on the table" argument makes sense. If they lose their job are they likely to be re-hired? And let's not mention the fact that not everyone is saving a portion of their income each month for that "rainy day" when they decide to tell their boss to go to hell. There is a time for standing up for yourself, and there is a time to realize that you're not the decision maker.
Yes, if you work with them, probably. I'd guess they sometimes chat about politics in their offices just like anyone else is doing.
The office of Linux kernel hackers is the internet. So, when Alan chats with his co-workers, everyone on the net can see that. This doesn't mean he's arrogant or feels like a mighty political figure or something. This impression is created only by the free software world's tabloid press (i.e. Slashdot). It's not like Alan asked for this story to appear on Slashdot, did he?
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
TimeWarner is a big DRM player, they own one of the most popular MP3 players (winamp), so it's only natural to assume that Winamp is full of DRM.
Only it isn't. And there don't seem to be any plans to cripple it. So while I understand the worry, it's not supported by the evidence.