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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.
..surely.
He'd have to get a haircut for a start.
Ma and Pa Kettle on AOL don't know who Alan Cox, Linux Torvalds, Theo de Raadt, Jordan Hubbard, or any other GPL/BSD software luminaries are. AOL is a brand to which Red Hat may make a nice addition with its products. If Mr. Cox thinks AOL or Red Hat will pass up a deal because he might leave, I would suggest he will be in for a shocking reality-check.
Trolling is a art,
Somebody mod this guy down as OT, please. This isn't a political discussion, but he seems intent on making it one.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Just so I'm following...
You left *TIME WARNER* because you didn't like *AOL's* philosophy?
I'd love to hear more about that, in private if you like.
To put it another way, if there are any RH staff who would seriously consider putting together a startup with me, to market a generic Linux distribution and provide optimized distributions on-demand, I'd be interested in hearing from you.
The end of "Red Hat" as an independent, free-agent need not be the end of Linux from and within the US.
RH had a good business model - it's the most successful Linux company to date - but I think that there were areas it could have been improved on.
Had? Could? Sure. If Red Hat gets merged, AOL will take what it wants and will spit out the pips. That's what happens with these types of takeover. And I don't see much hope for Red Hat declining the offer.
Why would anyone be interested in gambling on a startup, right now, in the middle of a deep depression, especially on the unproven ideas of some strange geekazoid on the Internet, who nobody knows?
Because the alternative for many, right now, is flipping hamburgers. I'd like to think my idea of a distro-on-demand offers a little more hope & light in the world than that.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
> Just so I'm following...
> You left *TIME WARNER* because you didn't
> like *AOL's* philosophy?
I had no problem working for CNN (which was owned but not managed by Time Warner). CNN was committed to providing unbiased news, and I felt they delivered on that promise.
I was there from 1998 to 4/2000. CNN employees felt like Turner employees, not Time Warner. You would have had to have been there to understand that. CNN was like a family.
Well before AOL even began to talk "merger" (which is what they told us it was), we were in talks to provide them with news feeds (CBS's contract was expiring). I got a glimpse into their idea of technology working as a developer on that project, and it was truly frightening how bass-ackwards they did things. The project eventually got canned and I gained some insight into their management during that debacle.
When the deal was announced I was wary of working for AOL, but I took a wait-and-see attitude. When I started seeing the changes they were making before the merger even went through, I saw all I needed, and I left in April 2000.
If I look at the CNN web site today, I feel it's worse today than it was 2 years ago when I worked there. I blame the acquisition by AOL for those problems, and I am glad I don't work there anymore.
As to your implication, the DMCA did not exist back then. The RIAA was not making headlines. From my perspective, Time Warner was mainly a company that made movies, DVDs, CDs, and books. I did not associate a political philosophy with them. I'm not sure if I would feel the same about them now (but maybe I would). AOL on the other hand is just as bad as Microsoft when it comes to dirty business practices. They're just not quite as good at it.
- Vincit qui patitur.