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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.
It's good to see that *someone* on the Internet isn't so willing to sell out. It certainly won't prevent him from working on kernel stuff, and AOL can buy their credibility somewhere else.
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!
Because if a major corporation buys a distro like Red Hat, or any other for that matter, it will reduce the elitist factor of Linux users.
Heaven forbid that a company with the clout to get Linux out to the masses get involved. Then Linux might not be just for the computer savvy anymore.
The ongoing hypocricy astounds me. Most Linux users don't seem to really want Linux to succeed. Having used Linux since long before it was 'fashionable' to do so, I for one hope that if this purchase comes to pass, it helps get Linux out to the unwashed masses of computer users out there.
Alan Cox develops a kernel for an OS which is exchanged on the Internet. The Internet was invented by Al Gore. Al Gore uses AOL. Who's your daddy?
Sure they do. They just want the core personnel to be independent of consumer-oriented behemoths like AOL.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
I wouldn't think AOL would move unless they had secured Alan for. So I would think this means it's a rumor. Who would by RH without Alan signing on at least for a while?
RedHat has no value other than the employees working for them. Employees are not something that you can guarantee to purchase in a corporate buyout. It's just like any other consulting firm. After the buyout, if the employees don't feel like they were treated well they'll walk... Soon AOL will be held holding an empty bag.
:)
This is the stupidest move AOL has made since the Netscape acquisition and seeing how they ran that one, a RH buyout is guaranteed to fail.
But then since I don't particularly like RedHat, I am 100% supportive of this decision! Go for it AOL!
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.
Not only will Alan Cox probably leave Red Hat, but much of the userbase will leave. While Red Hat is a for-profit company, it is generally respected within the open source community for being solidly supportive of the community. AOL/TW, however, despite its good works regarding Mozilla, has no such reputation. The TW side of AOL, in particular, is very much a part of the traditional copyright establishment; the same establishment that opposes open-source DVD players and is pushing for additional copyright protection measures that would exclude the possibility of open-source support.
So if Red Hat is bought by AOL, I expect much of their user base will move to Mandrake, Debian, and Suse.
If this purchase goes through, you better stick to the distribution you used before Linux became 'fashionable'--unless you want to be forced to install AOL Instant Messenger everytime you run rpm.
Jamie Zawinski left netscape, as shown here and here shortly after it was AOLized. Here are some highlights from those pages:
April 1st, 1999 will be my last day as an employee of the Netscape Communications division of America Online, and my last day working for mozilla.org.
I think AOL still has all the stigma that it always has, as far as image goes. My friends keep saying ``jwz@aol.com'' and then laughing uncontrollably...
AOL is about centralization and control of content. Everything that is good about the Internet, everything that differentiates it from television, is about empowerment of the individual.
I don't want to be a part of an effort that could result in the elimination of all that.
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.
It is now a brand. Like Coke, or Tommy Hilfiger.
Thank you, AOL, for pointing this out to us.
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).
If he does leave, he loses his chance to put the resources of an enormous company like AOL/TW behind the development and acceptance of Linux. To me this doesn't seem like the smartest move he could make.
There's plenty of time for him to leave afterwards if it looks like AOL/TW is going to do a Bad Thing, but up to and until that time, I think it's in his best interests, and Linux's best interests, to take advantage of the possible benefits of being backed by one of the largest, richest companies on the planet.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
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
The fact that Alan Cox would leave RH if bought by AOL/TW is not a big deal. RH != Linux. That is, he wouldn't leave the kernel project altogether to pursue a life as a skydiver or the like.
A good question is: who would pick him up?
I could definitely see IBM bending over backwards to get Alan, but would he work IBM, given IBM's overwhelming Linux support?
Mandrake might be a good fit, seeing as their distro is similar to RH. Then again, the fact that they have centralized their development out of France might not be a good deal for him...
Did I say I use Red Hat? I prefer Slackware.
I do have a Red Hat box, but it's a Sparc.
I also use Win2K, WinXP, OS/2, and BeOS. I'm agnostic. Operating Systems are not the stuff that religions are built on.
I'll just assume for the sake of argument, that the thread is genuine and that Alan Cox is torqued ... or at least appears to be torqued.
... considering AOL's deep pockets, it seems to me risky, but effective means of negotiating a hike in one's salary.
I mean after all, if I just bagged a nomination as the top young technology innovator by Technology Review, I too might make a fuss
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
Nobody ever said that sticking to your principles was painless.
It's okay to stand your ground Alan, but in this economy [nasdaq.com] even a kernel God may find alternative employment hard to come by.
I hardly feel as though I have to defend Alan Cox, but he's not one-dimensional. He knows much more than just the Linux kernel and as far as I can remember he didn't even work in the operating systems business before he started working for RedHat (was it telecom? I don't know for sure).
But how this post gets modded up is beyond me (and that's why I'm picking on it). It's obvious Alan is a very very good software developer. Who cares how bad the economy is, good developers can get a job anywhere.
It's the bad developers that need to worry when the economy goes sour.
----- rL
I agree. Additionally, I can't believe Alan Cox said he would quit if AOL buys RedHat. It will increase his job security and he'll probably get paid better. It would be a win-win situation for himself and for RedHat users.
more likely they would buy the guys behind one of the BSD versions. After all, they use BSD already on their servers (and they want everyone else using IIS...or maybe MSBSD;).
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
If slashdot could maintain "editorial independence" from VA Linux when they were bought, why couldn't Red Hat negotiate some kind of persistence of it's vision? If Red Hat kept it's vision and motivations, but had more money, why then wouldn't Alan want to stay?
Now I'm not naive enough to forget that with money comes advice but... let's say AOL wants to create version of Red Hat Linux more targeted for Windows lusers. So now Red Hat might have a product line like: Embedded, Standard, *Home*, Professional, Deluxe Professional, Data Center, etc.. How is this bad for the community and Red Hat in general? I know alot of people don't want to see Linux beginning to pander to Windows lusers, but does anyone in their right mind think that Linus & Co. would pander to Windows users or Red Hat for that matter? Is Lindows going to destroy our beautiful Linux and wonderful community? NO! Then why do people think that Red Hat will allow itself and it's goals to be destroyed by a lesser evil than Microsoft?
I believe the stability of Red Hat is important to the future of Linux becoming mainstream. One more thing.... necessity makes for strange bedfellows.
...that AOL/TW is a member of the RIAA and MPAA, which are organizations that are funding head-on assaults on our constitutional protections?
Alan Cox no longer feels physically safe in traveling to the United States. Should he willingly work for one of the forces that made this so?
it will reduce the elitist factor of Linux users
I don't know which elitist linux users you are talking about, but if the're like the ones I've seen then they sure as hell don't use Redhat.
Most Linux users don't seem to really want Linux to succeed
Let me guess. By "succeed" I bet you mean one or more of:
1) "Become more popular"
2) "Make more money for it's owner"
3) "Get easier to use"
In my mind linux is already a tremendous success and no one company (including either or both or RH and AOL/TW) can change that.
I just happen to want to see Redhat continue to succeed.
And in case you're wondering what I mean by "succeed" I mean:
1) continue to create products based on what their users want not based on the interests of some other division of the corporation
2) continue to allow the employees the free creativity they require to achieve that (and other) goals.
Judging on past experience I have no reason to believe for a second that (1) will happen, and judging by Alan Cox's comment, he perhaps would agree with me that (2) would be more difficult after any AOL buyout.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
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.
Way to go, Alan. Rather than make sure that Red Hat REMAINS what you've strived to make it, you'd pack up your bags before you know what AOL's plans are. You'd rather leave than be associated with the company. You'd help contribute to RedHat FAILING under AOL rather than make it what it SHOULD be.
Standing up for your ideals is one thing, but by leaving, you're tossing those exact same ideals out the door.
I'd much rather suck up my pride and tell people that I was employed by AOL, but trying to make it better, then tell people I gave up rather than try.
IF this happens I hope that they don't fade away like Netscape did. Now that I got that out of the way, AOL buying RH might work out. If Linux is going to have a chance in the desktop war with M$, then the leader in the industry has to do just that...LEAD! If Linux is going to fight for market share against M$, they will need resources. AOL has plenty of cash for research and product development and Steve Case has no love for Bill Gates.
"is it possible that RH can just say no?"
That depends on whether or not RH still owns 51% of itself.
This is not a troll, just something I wanted to get off my chest. I don't work for AOL (heh, or Red Hat) or use AOL.
I'll post anonymously, and nobody will see this unless it gets moderated up. Moderators, this post is at your mercy.
AOL has done a lot for the net by getting a lot of people online in places that would not otherwise have had access. Sure, many of these people are lamers who ask stupid questions. But they learn. And then they can come to contribute. Diversity is a GOOD thing, but in order to have diversity, we do have to put up with a bit of noise. That's life. The real problem with AOL is not the users, but the fact that AOL builds a kind of fake internet that tries to contain its users inside a mall full of commercials. But give them a break. Noone else has as many dialups for the little towns out in the boondocs. In that respect they are doing a great thing. Even if they are making money at it.
Well, if you think Alan Cox would find it difficult to find another job, God help the rest of us!
I'm sure he would have companies lining up to employ him. (IBM, SUSE, Mandrake...)
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.
I don't understand these who are bitter and say that "in no case we can allow money to flow in some linux distro". I think there are also some morale decisions every time you accepts someone's money. Its like not buying wares produced in sweatshops or trading with countries supporting terrorism. If you cannot identify with the ideas your employer stands for, then taking just the money really makes you into a whore.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Now I'll be getting Redhat at least three times a week in my mailbox...
They have market share, they have revenues, they have contracts. These all exist outside of the contributions and dependencies of individual employees.
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,
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.
Its not like Microsoft has Bill coding the kernel all day long all by himself, and they sure as hell don't have one person making fixes.
I'm sure of AOL buys up redhat, they could afford to do what they wish. Infact I bet the AOL purchase would force Alan Cox out to begin with. I can't imagine a company of such keeping someone onboard who hates the companies idealogies 100%. I hope Alan quites and starts his own company or goes over to Mandrake.
Capitalism.
They're not getting guys like Cox, so why pay out the cash for something they've got for free anyway?
This may come as a shock to you, but Alan Cox isn't the only competent employee of RedHat.
What if Microsoft did express an interest in acquiring RedHat? No, really. Let's think about it for a second.
/. community would do/say if Bill & Co. popped up and say something like:
Take off the anti-MS-colored glasses for a second and let's imagine what the
"Microsoft intends to purchase RedHat and use Linux technology and methods to better our products and the computing experience of end users. We will use our highly-developed sense of marketting to make Linux a household 'gotta have it' product in every nation. We will use our extensive research into UI usability testing to bring an easy to use approach to Linux without removing any of the 'hardcore' factors that allow enthusiasts to tinker with things. We will aggressively push Linux in the corporate community. We will keep the source open and abide by the GPL. We will use the best of both worlds."
Now, improbable as that might be, let's assume that MS actually said it and meant it. I would imagine that millions of Linux users around the globe would STILL oppose it. The anti-corporate mentality here is deep, way too deeply rooted for the community's own good.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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.
Who cares how bad the economy is, good developers can get a job anywhere.
That's simply not true. I've recently found myself in a situation where I was forced to either accept a promotion at my present job or hit the street. I don't consider myself middle-management material, and I don't particularly want that job, but my efforts to find another job have gone nowhere. I'm not a great programmer, but I'm good, and several companies told me that they'd be happy to make me an offer just as soon as their executives lift the hiring freeze.
Don't be arrogant enough to think that just because you're good at your job you can find employment in bad times. More likely you'll be unpleasantly surprised.
My solution? I'm taking the promotion. Better hours and a lot more money, but more responsibility and I don't get to do the fun stuff any more. But it goes down on my resume while I keep looking.
Really. Who cares?
Alan works out of his house. He'll still be working on the Linux kernel.
The only thing that would change here is one of his email addresses, and not even the main one. Oh, and his paychecks will have a different logo on them, and probably be a touch larger.
Big whoop. Why are we arguing about it?
Anyone notice that the URL linked points to alaska.edu?
I wonder how big a pipe Alaska has as a whole, this could bring down the whole Norther Slope.
*chuckle*
Yes, this could be a corporate dilution of a community-supported company. But it might also be an awesome opportunity to expand Linux's presence infinitely.
Certainly a corporate giant such as AOLTW is not a philanthropic patron, but maybe they will support Linux the way they have supported a profitless project like Mozilla for years. Not for charity, but enlightened self-interest.
Ever hear someone who develops the HP-UX or AIX kernel blast of a bunch of half baked political rants?
1. The AIX and HP-UX kernel devel lists probably aren't open for public view, so we really don't know what they talk about.
2. Some of the programmers probably do make political statements -- who doesn't? -- but they don't get much attention because they're not as well known.
3. If you look at Linux as the equivalent to Sun or IBM, Alan is about at the same level as Bill Joy or Larry Ellison over at Oracle. They make political statements all the time. Alan is employed by Red Hat partly because of his skill and also because of his status in the Linux community. They could hire someone just as talented, probably, but they wouldn't have the same priviledges when it comes to working on the kernel. Red Hat can't buy that priviledge -- it has to settle for hiring someone who has it, or submitting code to someone who does.
4. If you disagree with Mr. Cox, that's all well and good -- it wasn't his choice for someone to report his statement on the mailing list. He's discussing something in his usual forum. The fact that it's been widely reported and speculated over is not his fault, nor do I really think he's trying to call undue attention to his opinion.
Obviously, many people do care what Alan thinks -- why does that bother you?
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.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. So many slashbots are quick to condemn AOL/TimeWarner and MS for seeking profit, but even quicker to overlook that their Noble Heroes earn a paycheck just like everyone else, I.E. profit from their labor. Slashbots drone on about the virtues of Pro Bono Programming... at least until they move out of their parents' garages and find out that earning a buck is necessary if they want to continue playing Diablo II over their cable modem all night.
Wake up clueless hordes: Your slashdot editors "g0t 0wNx0r3d" by VA, and I'm pretty sure they really don't mind an awful lot having a check every second Friday for what's got to be a killer fun job. Your heroes do not subsist upon GPL alone.
And this is exactly the biggest danger of AOL buying a company - and in one sense, it IS what happened with Netscape.
Don't worry about AOL taking an established, successful company with a real future and running it into the ground. Hasn't happened yet. (Netscape, GNN, CompuServe were already dying when we bought them. CompuServe is a relative success, GNN couldn't be saved, and Netscape has a new lease on life now that the MS contract is dead.)
Don't worry about AOL taking open stuff and making it proprietary. Hasn't happened yet either. (Everything that's proprietary at AOL started that way, and has slowly, if much-too-slowly, grown more open.)
Don't worry about TW's influence on the AOL side. There isn't any. Steve Case and Bob Pittman run the show.
Worry, instead, about people who simply don't want to be associated with AOL, cuz it isn't cool. Is it immature and short-sighted? Probably. Are geeks known for their maturity, social competence and rational decision-making? Not particularly.
Too bad, because when AOL buys a smaller company, that's usually what they're really buying - the brains behind it. Redgate got us Ted Leonsis. WAIS got us Brewster Kahle for a while. Netscape got us hundreds of net-savvy software engineers. Ditto CompuServe. Medior got us Barry Schuler - well, can't win them all.
It's stupid for Red Hat employees to announce they'll leave simply because they don't want a triangle with an O above their main entrance, but if they do, then THEY will have killed Red Hat, not AOL.
I'm not a great programmer, but I'm good, and several companies told me that they'd be happy to make me an offer just as soon as their executives lift the hiring freeze.
I don't think we're talking about the same caliber here. Alan Cox is Alan Cox and his technical reputation preceeds him. He writes code that is publicly scrutinized down to the last byte.
It may be arrogant of *me* to assume that hiring freezes don't apply to him, but I don't think I'm far off. People make exceptions for exceptional people.
----- rL
AOL purchases RH = RH talent leaves, RH distro turns to garbage, looses $marketshare. 200 million homes will receive AOL v7 and Linux disks in the mail. RH fades into history like Netscape.
MS won't purchase RH...Linux is open source, so it can't be stolen or summarily driven out of business, so they have no interest in it.
Alan Cox founds a new company, and calls it Crimson Fedora.
Life goes on.
that the deal is about Red Hat's Linux assets, anyway?
Red Hat has some pretty nice embedded stuff going on, and a big name in the market. AOL may very well want Red Hat to provide some type of embedded Internet appliance that will allow them to bypass M$.
Think about this:
AOLinux/Red Hat appliance that uses a Mozilla front-end (like the OEOne device) to connect to Sun Liberty Alliance systems and utilizes Sun's Star Office and stores files on AOL servers (powered by Sun or Linux...).
Alan doesn't figure highly into such a plan, but eCos and other Red Hat technologies would.
Do I like AOL/TW? Of course not. I think they're a bunch of left-leaning liberal hand wringers who would sell you out in a second if it made them money
Yeah, cause if they were right-leaning conservative hand wringers, they'd stand up for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, and never sell out the Linux community just to make a quick buck!
The Free desktop that Just Works
Here are 11 reasons why AOLTW might be considering buying Red Hat.
Sure AOL bought Winamp, ICQ, and Netscape and left them mostly unchanged... but that's the problem! Can anyone honestly think of any real improvements made to any of these pieces of software since AOL bought them out? Winamp added that useless browser and that's it... ICQ added "cute" icons and turned into the first spam IM service... Netscape, how long did it take to come up with a new browser that still can't compete with IE? AOL also bought out the cable companies and look what's happened there. Prices are going up. (Read the $230 a month ./ story from last week) Service levels are going down. AOL\TW will just use Redhat as leverage against Microsoft, they aren't going to bring Linux to the desktop! Get real people! As far as I'm conserned AOL is a MUCH bigger threat then MS ever was.
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.
AOL/TW (The TimeWarner part is very important, this isn't your daddy's AOL anymore, where elitest-non-AOL-attitude might be the primary driving force in Alan's decision) is not just any old large company.
As I mentioned in another post (a reply, actually), if the company considering buying AOL was Microsoft, nobody would bat an eyelash about Alan Cox saying this stuff. Well guess what? AOL/TimeWarner is just as bad, if not worse, than Microsoft. Not only are they wanting to control computer use as much as Microsoft does (just doing a poorer job of it), but they want to control virtually everything you do! Do you have any idea how much of everything you see at the movies or on TV or on the web is eventually controlled by AOL? In many ways they are much more powerful than Microsoft has ever been.
AOL/TW (again, TW being important) is directly involved in much of the backassward technology & lawmaking that Slashdotters decry every day: DMCA, copyrighted CDs, SDMI...
If you REALLY disagree with those laws and the very idea of huge media conglomerations controlling everything we see, how could you possibly suggest someone should just shut up and be happy working for AOL/TimeWarner?
I'm one of the people who often attack Linux users and programmers for their stupid elitest attitudes, but in this case I say bravo, Alan.
AOL will not be happy to have competing version of Linux and they will do what is needed to "standardise" Linux after they have bought it.
And that will be their attitude - they will not act as if they've bought just one distro. Think about why they want to buy RH. They know that, to the extent that the public know about Linux at all, they think of RH (at least in the US). So they are, in the eyes of the general public, buying Linux. For god's sake, how many posts have there been on /. over the years complaining about people equating RH and Linux!?
With this approach, what do you think AOL's attitude to SuSe and Mandrake will be - a spirit of healthy competition? Does they sound like AOL/TW to you?
AOL's one worry in the world is losing the content control war to MS. They will want, and try to make, one, standardised, non-MS, copy-regulated, platform for their content and that is why they want Linux - because they can't have Windows. Standardised means not letting "little guys" do their own Linux and they will do what it takes to get rid of them.
Do not fall into the Charybdis of AOL just to avoid the Scylla of MS!
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Red Hat is a corporation. Ergo Red Hat exists only to separate you from your money. If you haven't given any money to Red Hat, that might explain why they are being bought out. Ne c'est pas?
That depends on who you call Red Hat. The management? No, they cannot prevent that (unless they still own more than 50% of the company), they can only try to convince the shareholders to not sell to Red Hat. But even if the management opposes the takeover, the shareholdes are free to sell anyway (that's what is usually called a hostile takeover).
If with Red Hat you're referring to their shareholders (i.e. the owners of the company) they can certainly prevent a buyout by simply not selling. But the current stock price is like, uh, ~$10? And I suspect there are some shareholders who've purchased at a higher price, so if AOL Time Warner makes a good offer (like $20), I'd doubt too many shareholders would decide against taking the money. Especially large, corporate investors from the non-Linux world certainly won't.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
AOL buys RedHat, then Microsoft offers a whole lot more than RedHat is ever going to make to have AOL deepsix it. It's a gross antitrust violation, so expect it -- and expect the inJustice Dept to let them get away with it by hiding those contracts as "trade secrets", too.
So what? There are lots of other distros. But if I worked for Redhat, the mere suspicion that this could happen would be enough reason to look for another job.
The best that could happen: (1) MS makes that offer, and gets caught. (2) The resulting brouhaha makes it impossible for AOL to continue bundling IE; the new AOL CD's offer Netscape, Mozilla for Windows, or RedHat Linux with Mozilla, you choose. AOL still sucks, but your Aunt Minnie is trying to install Linux, and making angry phone calls about missing drivers. Hardware companies start putting equal priority on Linux and Windows drivers. Installing all the other distros becomes much easier.
What else does Linux actually need? Oh, yes, autosetup and instructions that Aunt Minnie can actually follow...
What a strange assumption I keep reading, that AOL-Time Warner actually have any interest in Red Hat Linux in particualr, or GNU/Linux in general. What advantage would that give them, distributing an OS that actively encourages its users to get a clue and consider alternatives?
What I'd expect to see is for them to buy up a bunch of developers (Red Hat or any other) and set them to work in the bowels of the AOL/TW Death Star producing something based on a Linux kernel, with most of GNU stripped out, no daemons, no package manager, no compiler, a brand new GUI, AOL-only apps with built in copy restrictions and automatic billing (already got your credit card number), and a daemon that hunts down and kills non-AOL approved processes, all for your security and convenience. I expect it to ship branded as "AOL", not "Red Hat" or even "AOL Linux". Possibly "Secure Linux" if they want to resell it as a perfect Son of SSSCA compliant implementation.
Impossible, you say? How much would it cost to develop? Ten million? Twenty? Fifty? A hundred million? A billion dollars? To control the desktop and the distribution and billing of content before Microsoft get in there first with Blackcomb and Homestation, that's pocket change.
They don't need any particular distro to do that, they just need developers. So run Alan, run for the hills, and take as many as you can with you.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Somebody mod this guy down instead. Everything is political and only assholes think it isn't. Politics is what decides what you can and can't do. Bugger this, I want a better world.
development.lombardi.com
Alan Cox doesn't need to look at who puts food on the table, because he puts his own food on his own table. Any number of Red Hat competitors would be happy to compete with each other to hire him. And if Red Hat's managers are such idiots that Cox's remark could cause him to lose (not "loose") his job, well, then they deserve to lose him (clue: they aren't).
If you, on the other hand, think so little of yourself as to believe that you must put up with a boss you don't like, I'm sorry for you.
IANAlan Cox, but what 99% of the people in this discussion fail to realize is that this probably has nothing to do with the future of Redhat/Linux, but with the principles involved.
Fact: Alan Cox has serious issues with the DMCA, both practical and philosophical.
Fact: AOL/Time-Warner, being an industry leader in the area of movies and such, is a proponent of the DMCA and other similar laws.
Alan, being a man of principle, probably feels that the merger would be a bad thing becuase of this, and his working in the resulting company would comprimise things that he believes in. Unlike many people in this world (and, it seems, on slashdot), he feels the finding a new job is the proper course of action in this case.
As an aside, the non-Alan consequences of this are interesting - AOL/TW owns RH, in order for RH to play DVDs (which is an important feature of a modern desktop OS) it needs to violate the DMCA, AOL/TW supports the DMCA. So with AOL/TW owns a product that endorses breaking the DMCA, or they give RH (and by that, perhaps all of Linux/x86) a "legal" (if not open) method to play DVDs.
_sig_ is away
Who cares how bad the economy is, good developers can get a job anywhere.
... so long as they are under 35.
:^D
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Don't be stupid, sell out and leave with $$ and continue elsewhere, jeez, are you that rich?
2 0
I thought this was hella funny btw.
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=200201
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
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)
Business is business is business, and when Redhat went into business, they went into business which means things like this buy-out can happen. Alan Cox is just whining because he's a geek and he doesn't want to deal with capitalistic reality. He can make all the complex, serpentine, philosophical excuses he wants to make -- but in the end he's just a whiner.
Let him whine. I'll still use Linux, with or without the support of Alan Cox. One man does not an operating system make (not even Linus).
provides API (though not the nicer one) for writting your own client
Sure, if you want to write a crippled AIM clone to rope a larger set of users into AOL's IM network. If you want to actually create a compatible alternative to AOL's network, expect to be blocked at every turn.
Damned shortsighted fools. If the rest of the internet worked like this we'd still be dialing in to BBSes.
OK, I know that's extremely naive, but as long as someone keeps a close watch on their licensing activities having a big company like that own Red Hat just might lead to better software development for linux. I know, AOL sucks, it really does, but I don't think they'd fire the entire Red Hat staff, so having that sort of backing would just make them better at their job, or at least that's what we all should hope for...
~ now you know
Are geeks known for their maturity, social competence and rational decision-making?
But is anyone really known for that?
Do you walk down the street with your friends, and suddenly recognize a former co-worker, and point him/her out to your friends and say, "That's so-and-so, a mature, competent, rational decision-maker."
I doubt it.
Most people are able to make rational decisions. The problem is, that in order to do so you must remove all emotion, and have every piece of relevant information. Since that will never happen, don't expect perfectly rational decisions out of anyone.
Geek or mortal, all make decisions based on emotion and imperfect information.
How long do you think AC though about voicing his opinion on AOL/TW's buyout of RedHat? Do you think he tried to think how they'd react when he made his statements? AC might think that he's taking the high road, but I guarantee it's leading away from RedHat. No manager would keep AC around (assuming a buyout) after he made such statements... AC might claim he is quitting, but think of it as a mutual firing.
Everybody wants a paycheck for themselves but God forbid that anyone make a dime from Linux.
Goddess, I'm getting tired of hearing this. Please show me one comment (actual comment, not an obvious troll) where someone has said that nobody should be making money off of Linux.
What people have been saying is that there are more important things than money. I know this is a shock, but for some of us, it's true. If you want to make money from Linux while not imposing restrictions on any of the freedoms that allowed it to grow in the first place, great! More power to you! In fact, I'll even help you if I can... I'll at least send bug reports or patches, because that gets me a better product too. We both win.
However, if you want to take something that has been given to you for free, lock it up in a box, and then only let people use it if they give you money, please fsck off. Contrary to what you and a great number of other nonhackers seem to think, nobody owes you a profit. Yeah, I get paid to code closed-source software. I also code open-source software in my free time. Am I supposed to choose one or the other? Why can't I give my code away if I want to? Because it keeps you from making money off of your product? Too bad. You'll actually have to do some original work for a change. I have no sympathy for you at all.
- fader
The subject is exhausted! Dead. It's nothing more to be said before something more gets out. Then, we can start it all over again.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
...of linux as we know it. The RH distro will be dumbed down, commercialized, and proprietized (is that a word?). It has to be--the only marketing AOL knows is to send 17 copies on cd to every address in the country. Dumb, commercial, and proprietary equals three strikes in the game of open source, and the volunteers will bail out and move on to the next geek toy. AOL will pour enough money into making RH (by that time, RH==Linux) a competitor to Windows to keep it viable in the marketplace, but its value to most of us will have been lost.
This is my fear, anyway.
No offense to Alan and the rest of you but i think its amazing that a 3 line quip giving a personal opinion generates so much discussion!
I hope (and expect) he takes all this with a pinch of salt cos if not he'll never fit his head through the door.
I imagine everyone here disagrees with AOL/Time Warners legal shinanigans (im assuming his main exception is taken against their stance with DCMA, Gnutella and such). The fact that a main proponent of open source should hold the same view is hardly news!
Its admirable that he would go so far as to leave his job, but I dont think many people expect this buyout to happen anyway.
You are fantastically mistaken. The reason Parsons was given Levin's job instead of Pittman is precisely because the AOL side of the business is now being reevaluted and reconsidered on the bottom line. Simply put - TW is contributing more to the bottom line than AOL. Much of the hype of technology/content integration hasn't panned out and now they are looking for a no-nonsense executive who will push the intellectual property of the company (Harry Potter, LOTR) over online access, as they see more money coming from this.
Pittman has in essence been downgraded at AOL/TW, for exactly the opposite reasons you think he is in ascendancy.
That's just plain and simple narrowminded.
I hate AOL as much as the next person, but for all you Netscape fans out there, if it weren't for AOL, netscape would not be around. (This would actually have been a blessing to those of us developing websites.)
AOL has a lot of money. Who's to say that they won't offer Alan an agreement such as, "We won't interfere or tell you what to do, we'll simply keep paying your bills."
Maybe even give Alan more resources than he currently has to get things done.
I thought linux was suppossed to be for the openminded person who can think past windows. Shouldn't the development be the same way?
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Alan implied that if he had any knowledge of any deal in the works, he would have quit already. Rob, your headline reads "Alan Cox to Leave if RH AOL Buyout Happens?" That seems to me like he threatened to leave. He hasn't done that.
It's like what many say (and needs to be said) about Microsoft; now that they're a huge company and monopoly, they shouldn't behave like a startup, screwing people whenever they can. Likewise I don't feel bad about holding the /. editors
to a higher standard now that they're
so successful.
So, anyway, this is all rumour. You guys are all skewering each other over a sensationalised (by our /. editor friends)
rumour.
If I had to argue though, I would argue
against a buyout.
And I could argue for pages
before I even got to any idealogical
reasons.
KLAATU, BORADA, NIh*ahem*
As far as I know, there were more than 30 different nationalities represented inside Mandrakesoft in 2000/2001. Furthermore, I know that internal language for communication inside Mandrakesoft is English because only half the company can speak French.
Er, no. A corporation can't own itself, since the part of itself it owns is just owned jointly by the peiple who actually own the other part.
Now, it's possible Redhat's founders still own a big chunk, but I doubt it's 50%.
I think people are taking the evil way out of hand.
Evil:
*Owns Time Warner. Time Warner helped buy the DMCA.
Will I retire or break 10K?
All I can think about is the movie Pirates of the Silicon Valley when Steve Jobs is about to call out Bill Gates to speak at the Mac product release and the new versions of Windows are showing up over seas. The one guy says to Bill that Steve always thought IBM was the enemy, but Microsoft was really who the enemy was.
Linux is sort of like democracy. As users and developers of Linux, we have both a say and a responsible in the future of Linux. Alan Cox is making a responsible decision that I have a great deal of respect for. This is the moment when we see who is going to sell their souls for a chance at making money.
Is beating Microsoft really worth selling out Linux? Besides, since when was Linux about beating anyone?
AOL aquiring RedHat doesn't mean anything to Linux. What will matter, is if the Linux community supports this buyout by continuing to purchase and develop for RedHat if AOL takes it in a negative direction.
I guarentee that you will see a bunch of closed source software be released if AOL acquires RedHat. RedHat may even feel pressure to insert copyright protection software which is something that goes against the fundamental beliefs of Free Software.
So, the devils here offering to buy your soul, what's your asking price?
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
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.
Novel Unix System V
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Slashbots drone on about the virtues of Pro Bono Programming
Never capitalize "pro bono" unless you support the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You're asking the wrong question. The question that you want to ask is "If RedHat was bought by TimeWarner/AOL, wouldn't that be good?"
The answer is HELL NO.
AOL/TimeWarner is already pushing content control schemes across the board. These schemes are in opposition to RedHat's vision for Linux.
Look at what TW/AOL's has been doing to their owned companies have been doing since the merger-
Some of their companies have been forced out of their market not because they weren't making a profit, but because they weren't making *enough* of a profit. Across the board of TW/AOL you see the dumbing down of quality in the name of greed, you see the explicit compromise of journalism to advertisers, and ads, tracking, and spam all over their tech products.
AOL/TW is a company with no soul, a company that has compromised every product they had of any worth. What future do you see for RedHat in this environment? I see the best known Linux brand installing AOL, AOLIM, and all sorts of shopping junk, advertisements, spam, and tracking bugs onto the default desktop.
The GPL doesn't protect about that. They want to subvert the RedHat brand to push their crap.. it's has nothing to do with the technical qualities of the distribution, which will soon suffer.
I have a friend who works at a company owned by AOL/TW. Since the merger they've been forced to create products more suitable for walmart than their target market. They had their groupware replaced with a custom, more restrictive version of AOL mail, which comes complete with SPAM from AOL from day 1, and *requires* you to be logged in to AOL/IM in order to check your mail.
There's reason AOL would want to buy RedHat instead of partnering with them is if they wanted to subvert the brand. Wake Up.
A lot of us don't know why it is an insult to think that you might continue working for RH if AOL/TW buys them out.
That means it probably isn't an insult so much as an educational opportunity.
It's actually pretty easy to see reasons why you would want to stay, depending mightily on what AOL has in mind with such a purchase.
After all, your chance to influence the computing world at large and do many genuine good things would now be backed by a whole new level of resources.
Even the Mozilla fiasco seems to be rounding into shape now. The AOL folks may have learned a few things about Open Source software and Open Source ways.
So, Alan, please don't be insulted. Explain to us the problems you have with AOL. Let people know the dangers you see and why the negatives are important enough to send you seeking employment.
You're not obligated to do anything of the sort. It's really none of our business.
It might do some good, though.
It's interesting to see how many geeks really care about this political, idealistic stuff. Isn't it more fun to just code?
The copyright industry wants to take away the existence of machines on which we can "just code" by having the hardware trust an encrypted BIOS, which trusts the kernel, which trusts the apps. At this rate, we're heading toward a future where after SSSCA and Son of SSSCA have passed, all computer systems will be closed systems. (Read More...)
Will I retire or break 10K?
For Alan, and other people who make the effort to pay attention to issues beyond their paycheck, there's more to life than getting paid.
Think about what TW/AOL does. Think especially about their leading role in content control legislation, UTICA, and the DMCA. Think about how they've compromised all the software they've absorbed with unsolicited advertising, user tracking, shopping portals and the like.
It's more difficult to stand up for what you think is right than wallow in apathy. We should all support Alan and those like him for refusing to support an organization that acts directly against his core beliefs.
AOL is a closed source company, what is so hard for you to understand? AOL buying RedHat is almost like MS buying RedHat.
At least Alan proved that he's not a hypocrite.
I know that as a Linux enthusiast and part time advocate, I will not recommend a TimeWarner/AOL distribution.
Who could?
Who could give money to an organization that actively props up UTICA, DMCA, and a whole network of proprietary standards full of ads, user tracking devices, content control schemes?
Only someone who didn't care, and shame on you.
Is getting financial benefits, in and of itself, really selling out?
No, but who you are getting the financial benefits from does matter. Many slashdotters have sgort memories as is evidenced by the fact that one day a story on how evil the MPAA is being by pursuing the SSSCA and the DMCA can run and the next day a movie review gushing about the latest overpriced, overhyped crap from George Lucas or one of his cronies is run.
AOL Time Warner is directly responsible (via lobbying) for laws that restrict the freedom of their customers to utilize the products they have bought in a means which is generally considered to be fair (the DMCA). They are responsible for cops breaking into a teenage hacker's home (Jon Johansen's) and treating him like a criminal for writing a program that would make viewing DVDs under Linux easier. They are responsible for proposing laws that would force all electronics and computers to ship with copy protection (the SSSCA).
Given the fact that the actions of the Time Warner branch of AOL/TW are orthogonal to the beliefs of anyone involved in Free Software I am stunned that people on Slashdot can question Alan Cox's decision. I guess that the adage "be careful when you fight monsters lest you become one yourself" applies in this case with regards to Slashdotters looking for a way to defeat MSFT by any means necessary.
While most people are expressing their concerns over the future of their desktop, I get the feeling that the buyout could be much worse for Linux than the possible loss of a good desktop.
Red Hat is (in North America) a huge presence in the market for large scale server deployments, Linux support, development, and embedded tools. They own a lot of unique and valuable IP, like CCVS and Cygnus. They fund the development of GNU libc, GCC, and a lot of kernel development.
Red Hat has done a f*cking excellent job of supporting the Linux community, and furthering the development of Linux. I hope that nothing changes their direction.
You guys are criticizing Alan Cox and siding up with AOL? Now I've seen it all. At least Alan isn't a hypocrite. It would be stupid for him to say : "I use Open Source but I work for a closed source company. I don't like monopolies like MS but I don't mind if AOL becomes one."
I, personnally, prefer and use closed source because of the fact that I need the money. But Open Source also have it's advantages. I would like to see its usage expand in education and research institutes.
Besides, AOL will want the RedHat OS to become more convenient, easier to use and they'll sure as hell would want to keep some of their source code close. This will make the RedHat distribution less secure. If you guys are looking for a Windows clone, use Windows. If you're looking for a secure, decent OS with a good geek community, use Linux. Enough said!
Sigh. The GPL grants rights to copy that ordinary copyrights don't. If the GPL does not hold no copyright holds. The GPL has been defended and no one has dared go to court because they knew they would loose.
Furthermore, the important part of Red Hat are not protected by the GPL. Neither their name and credibility, nor their customer base is GPLed. (In fact, I don't even know if all their software is - AFAIK SuSEs Yast is closed source, e.g.)
As far as I can tell, you have never used Red Hat or looked at any of their source. Most is GPL. Show me one "important" piece that is not.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"AOL buys RedHat" is a blockbuster headline, but doesn't really mean much without the rest of the story.
We don't know why they want it yet!
Certainly, the scenario you mentioned is possible, but probably not accurate. Look at how little happened to WinAmp, once it was bought.
RedHat is like a machete. Most kids in Panama know how to use a machete safely, and do daily. It's a kitchen tool to them. (I saw many kids with machete wounds while I was there!)
But, we're about to see a machete be passed to someone who can be irresponsible. They say they have a good use for it, but we don't trust them.
If RedHat becomes a newbie's OS, I'll still be happy. We'll watch in disbelief as diehard AOL customers will point and click their way through installation of their new OS, and call AOL with any tech-help questions they have. But, the good stuff will remain. If you want, you'll be able to install RedHat as a "desktop OS w/ developer support" and all the dancing zebras will disappear.
So, it's too early to make such judgements. I'm waiting until something official is said. Then, as if on cue, I'll release my flaring emotions. Right now, my emotions are too confused for me to release them yet.
Free unix account: freeshell.org
Even if he leaves, .... so what? As long as he chooses to work on Linux, his work is GPL'ed. And as such, AOL will pick up the fruit of that labor. No, they can't charge for it -- but, they're not charging for the millions of "FREE AOL" CD's they ship now, either (and let's all hope and pray that the FREE AOL CD's of 2003 will contain Linux!)
Unless Alan does a complete Atlas Shrug and give up on Linux totally, the chances are that the "big bad capitalist AOL" will ship his kernel to millions of homes worldwide. Hmmm...
Thank you, Richard, for the GPL. It allows AOL to shackle guys like Alan so efficiently.
Part of the Second American Revolution!
That after the merger AOL Time Warner seems to be backing out of that stuff?
AOL does have alot of influence, they are connected with time warner, but theres 2 groups, the AOL group and the Time Warner group.
I'm guessing the AOL group wants Redhat.
Whats the worse than can happen?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Aol Cox and most of the other big time talent will go somewhere else, all the real linux supporters will support another company.
Its not a big deal because theres nothing for us to lose, Redhat isnt the only company.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
So why do so many people still use Mozilla? If anything, their license has improved since AOL purchase. Sometimes companies can get it. Let's hope the Time/Warner side of the house gets pulled in the right direction. Red Hat still works well, and is very friendly. Frindly enough to hand out on an AOL disk.
So if Red Hat is bought by AOL, I expect much of their user base will move to Mandrake, Debian, and Suse.
I doubt it. It's amazing how little software that works is replaced, not that a movement of people to Debian would be bad. =:>
Now let's look at the chorus of bunk below you.
cp somehting random sezRemember that there's a large number of people who are running Red Hat on servers because it has a reputation for being user friendly -- many (most?) servers are run by people who really haven't a clue.
I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few people (gasp!) return to using Windows.
What can be said about that flame, besides it's ugly and doubtful. Anyone who has been free of M$ for a while would gag on a Windows install, be horrified at all the adverts and the poor features and performance God, all the things you never want to remember again. Even AOL users, such as myself notice.
Outhouse has I know that as a Linux enthusiast and part time advocate, I will not recommend a TimeWarner/AOL distribution.
Who could?
I don't know, who would recomend a TimeWarner browser? OK, I would. I like Mozilla. We shall see what kind of tool Red Hat becomes. Stranger things can happen. IBM, another big IP place, might just recomend and put money into free tools.
Oh well, I have to get back to work now. There seems to be no end to the hyseria here, but I can't have fun forever. By the way, did Mr. Cox even write that letter?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Please mod the parent post down to oblivion. It is obviously some elitist fuck.
"Information wants to be paid"
Like most real people, I'll use whichever I like the most, provided it doesn't cost more above the alternatives than I'm willing to pay for its advantages over the alternatives.
Unless I have a strong personal objection to the behavior of the specific company involved, I'm not going to reject a technical alternative based on generic anti-corporate political drivel.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
It looks like some of the RH higher-ups are dumping some stock in preparation for this buyout. Check out the restricted shareholder report at Yahoo! They've been dumping a couple million dollars worth of stock. I wonder how long ago they knew about this.
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
I challenge you to point each and every one of them out.
AOL has never put any company that I know of out of business, So tell me about these dirty practices that puts them on level of Microsoft?
Oh right they have a monopoly.
They actually earned their monopoly as far as I know, They do offer good products, AOLIM, Mozilla, Winamp, ICQ and although they didnt make these products if not for AOL they wouldnt have funding to keep exsisting after the
AOL is big yes, and all big companies are threatening, but do you really want to compare them to Microsoft?
Time Warner on the other hand, well they are control freaks.(DCMA,SSSCA,MPAA)
AOL from what I've seen has been a fairly honest company, They advertise and sell a service which people pay for, then they fund applications which people like in response using the money generated so they may provide a better service.
Microsoft would leverage their OS to sell their products, I dont see AOL selling its products by forcing all who have cable TV to subscribe to AOL.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
It doesn't mean he'd stop supporting the linux community, although he might not find as many lucrative offers to pay him to do what he loves doing. But still, thats what principle is all about. Don't let a simple thing like money and job security stand in the way of what you believe. At least he's willing to put something on the line.
We might not agree with it. AOL has not exactly been the best neighbor in the internet community. They've been responsible for putting a lot of people on the internet that were better off never discovering it. This could be good or bad depending on how you look at it.
They've provided me with an almost endless supply of free coasters.
I can think of worse companies that could buy Redhat out with far more nefarious intentions, although in AOL's case, I feel they're better refered to as the better of two evils rather than a helpful benefactor.
Alan's decision may not be a good one, but its his to make. And if Redhat will be detrimentally affected by his leaving, then its an issue they need to consider.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
It was good for Mozilla and Netscape 6.x when jwz left. It was under him that the project scope kept changing, the notion of scheduled milestone releases went out the window, and most of the good longtime coders left.
It was after he left that the team began releasing frequent milestone builds, stopped adding major new features to the project plan, and.. showed signs of having a plan.
The Mozilla/Netscape 6 project is still a mess, with bug fixes and addition of missing features slated for a given milestone pushed off to infinity on a regular basis. But without jwz, it at least resembles a project and has produced what is now a decent browser and mail/news client.
Mr. Zawinski is now running a bar, and the world of software development is blissfully free of his project management "skills".
Alan Cox--who unlike jwz is a really sharp coder and a good project leader--is showing himself to be just as much a child, spoiled and twisted by too much time spent in academic computing, shooting his mouth off before he's got a real situation to evaluate. Hey. If AOL turns Red Hat into an unpleasant place by changing its focus in distressing ways, or by engaging in massive, traumatic waves of layoffs, of course he'd be right in leaving. If Red Hat lets him pick his projects and AOL instead wants him to port the AIM stock ticker to KDE or sit in meetings all day, of course he'd be justified in leaving.
But this knee-jerk aversion to a parent company just because it's a big company? Or because of AOL's commitment to actual ease of use that Cox, jwz and RMS all abhor?
What if AOL is trying to assemble all the pieces necessary to go after Microsoft with Free Software? Doesn't Red Hat also employ some Postgres maintainers? If they bought Staroffice/Openoffice from Sun, they'd be on their way to something mighty compelling. If an AOL-owned Red Hat lets him continue working on low-level kernel pieces and device drivers while they fund an aggressive desktop-oriented Red Hat, why wouldn't he want to come along for the ride? Because they also own an old-line record label and film studio with rabidly protected intellectual property? Okay.
I wish the best of luck to any company, school or organization that wants these guys on its payroll.
Did they leave them unchanged? There were a few reports that pointed to the rift in cultures between Netscape and AOL. And in the end, AOL management managed to drive out much of Netscape's talent. Their attrition rate skyrocketed (50% was described as "conservative" with the observation that HR were swamped with termination notices as they, themselves, were being hit). Business processes were interupted and otherwise halted. Netscape was effectively scuttled - dead in the water.
Something to consider here is that this didn't just involve the browser. In fact, development of the browser continued under the Mozilla project - one could argue Open Source saved the browser. Netscape's entire business infrastructure was disrupted from partners to their plugins program to their Netcenter portal which was considered Netscape's greatest asset.
AOL certainly had a grave effect on Netscape. And we know of it because Netscape was a large, highly visiable company. One has to wonder what little intrigues went on at Nullsoft and Mirabilis.
Wow, what a way to diss a group of nice programs. What do you want winamp to do, viseo drawings?
Netscape, how long did it take to come up with a new browser that still can't compete with IE?
Ahh, there we go, a stupid MSIE troll. Mozilla rocks. It's free, fast, stable and secure. MSIE can only be mentioned here to inflame people who know better. Move on.
they aren't going to bring Linux to the desktop! Get real people! As far as I'm conserned AOL is a MUCH bigger threat then MS ever was.
Sure, M$ is our frind, Linux, BSD and the ozone are dying.
We shall see what kind of threat AOL is. Has it ever occured to you that content providers like Time-Warner consider Micro$haft an asshole in the middle to be eliminated? AOL does not provide the best ISP, granted, but it's no worse than M$'s and the deal has remained the same or gotten better over the years. Contrast that to the deal that M$ has given everyone, in it's typical late commer fashion.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Look, the point is not whether Alan Cox believes he is taking a principled stance, and whether anyone believes he should rather be apathetic.
The point, for me, is that it would be preferable for Alan to do what is possible to help Linux be a real success. It seems to me that AOL/TW buying RH would go a great distance toward convincing potential *paying* customers for RH Linux that RH as a company will continue to exist. That can only help Linux's adoption by real-world companies.
UTICA and DMCA have very little to do with Linux's success.
There is sometimes a fine line between principled stance-taking and immature whining. If Alan took a stance "I'm not working for AOL/TW because the CEO bought his wife a fur coat. They're animal killers!" it would be counterproductive.
Does this stance give a potential PAYING customer more or less confidence in Alan Cox's ability to deliver a robust, stable kernel for enterprise software?
I'll mention again, though I have already mentioned it, Mozilla.
It is an Open Source project largely funded and developed by AOL, even if it makes you feel better to say Netscape.
If you read what I wrote, you would notice that I take no issue with Alan's opinions of AOL. The only question is why he should assume that we know what they are. If we don't know his issues, he has no basis to Alan's potential departure as an educational opportunity, not the basis for an insult.
ElcomSoft President Alexander Katalov
You can't handle the truth.
I use open source, but I work for a closed source company. Does that make me a hypocrite? No. There is a place for both. Your argument doesn't make any sense.
Besides, AOL will want the RedHat OS to become more convenient, easier to use and they'll sure as hell would want to keep some of their source code close. This will make the RedHat distribution less secure.
What do you base this claim on? AOL has done a very good job with Mozilla and even with their AOLServer web server (which is also open-source). Furthermore, since when is closed source inherently less secure than open source? Security has nothing to do with whether ot not the code is open or closed. Security depends on how well the code was written.
I tend to view this as a mixture of bad and good, like you said. On the one hand, the AOL users I know tend to be incompetent morons, but on the other hand, the Internet would not have developed as quickly as it did without newbie-centered online services like AOL, which brought the 'net to the masses.
Microsoft is much the same way -- without Microsoft, PCs would probably still be black boxes just like Macs, and if this was the case, the GNU tools and Linux would never have been developed.
> You don't have kids, do you?
Irrelevant. I have kids, but I also have savings to prevent my having problems if I should be unemployed for a time (six months, at my last calculation). If you can't save enough to support yourself if you lose your job, you need to spend less. And don't tell me you can't; I lived dirt cheap for a while when I was younger so I could afford to tell my employer to stick it if I hated my job. I have plenty of expenses, but I don't have more expenses than salary, and I never have. If you do, then you're making your own slavery. Disaster recovery is important for any work you do, and so it should be for your financial health as well.
Virg
Having a job for which you're underqualified is gambling. Not saving a portion of your inflated salary against the possibility of losing that job is just dumb.
Would you have any sympathy for a sysadmin that ran a mission critical application on underpowered hardware, without any disaster recovery plan?
If you're not the decision maker in any job you hold (in terms of keeping or quitting the job), that's your own damn fault. It'd make these peoples' lives (and the entire industry) a better place if everyone in this position would just fix it.
Virg
Debian is by no means a for profit company like Redhat, Mandrake, SuSe, etc... Debian is developed by people that do it for the love of the labor.
Didn't that Transmeta webpad thing AOL had (it flopped) run a Linux variant? Perhaps AOL could help Red Hat out and do cool things with it. I mean, I'm sure they don't want to buy Red Hat so they can destroy it or anything... let's not be so pessimistic about the whole idea. If Alan Cox wants to leave, that's his perogative. He will still come up with cool ideas no matter where he is.
:-(
Hopefully nobody gets screwed over and laid off. When the AOL/TW thing went through, I was still working at Netscape. They axed a TON of people there. I tried and tried to get myself fired or laid off, but all I got was more stupid stock options.
I guess me calling Steve Case and leaving voicemail expressing my anger over our missing espresso machine just wasn't enough.
If they opened up the "good protocol", you realise that people would block out ads and do whatver they want with it, on their largest platforms.
And God forbid they should be able to do that! Why, choosing to get an instant messaging account without having to watch AOL advertisements would be as bad as being able to get an ISP without seeing their ads regularly.
Oh, wait, we can do that.
PLUS (..plus mind you), you are using something that they provide for free.
No, I'm not. Their users are using something that they provide for free. I'm just sending those users messages, using a jabber server that AOL does not provide. Should I have to view an advertisement before I send email to an @aol.com address, too?
So before you critise them, think about what they are giving you, what you are paying for and what it costs to them.
"What it costs to them" is the direct result of them choosing a needlessly centralized messaging architecture (in order to make sure that their IM users remain trapped eyeballs), and that's not my problem. You'd think that after they'd successfully learned the "AOL users might want to send email to non-AOL users" lesson they might not make the same mistake twice.
That's just because the US changed the way it measures unemployment, and only counts people that are eligible, and have applied for unemployment benefits.
m en t/unemployment_definition.html
Not correct at all. Unemployment in the US is measured by doing a door to door survey of about 65,000 households. Those that are not employed but are actively seeking jobs are classified as unemployed.
What it doesn't count are workers who have given up looking for jobs.
http://www.swcollege.com/bef/econ_data/unemploy
Depends on how you look at things. AOL, AT&T, MCI MS are all big companies. But look at how all these companies act out towards their customers and other companies. MCI just likes screwing people over left and right. I'd want them shut down asap. MS is the same way. AOL/TW has the DMCA but not much else, don't you agree?
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
The poster forgot the proper ending line to this timeless argument:
"Workers of the World Unite".
I'd go a step further. If the DRM is really in hardware, it can be supported by open source drivers without compromise. Closed source kernel modules could be used to implement software DRM.
Jabber is just like AIM and Gnutella and ICQ, there's just a backbone you have to get on.
No, there isn't. If I want to send you a Jabber message, the only computers involved are my Jabber server, your Jabber server, my computer, and your computer. No central server involved. Lots of people have jabber.com IM addresses, but only because there aren't enough ISPs running IM servers yet.
Your IM server should be just like your email server - it needs to be on a computer that won't go down, otherwise you miss messages. I don't think Jabber has anything like the DNS-integrated failover capabilities that email servers have, which is a problem, but not a huge one. I don't recall ever seeing a jabber.com server outage, just regular Jabber transport outages as AOL's blocking policies change.
The big thing is that, just like email and Gnutella, nobody has control over the backbone. AOL can, at any time, decide "I'm taking my ball and (going home/forcing you to watch 30 seconds of ads before logging on/closing down the service because MSN beat us/whatever), and tens of millions of IM users are forced to follow suit. With Jabber, just as with email, you can pick your provider (or start your own server on a static hostname like you suggested), and if someone else's provider pulls something stupid it doesn't affect you a bit.
I do think, in the strictest libertarian sense, that AOL has the right to say who gets to play on their servers and who doesn't. But in a practical sense, it's an attempt to seize a monopoly, it's stupid from an engineering perspective, it's stupid from a business perspective, and it's just way too reminiscent of the bad old days when everybody wasted resources developing their own proprietary WAN and none of them talked to each other. AOL managed to beat out Prodigy, Compuserve, etc. in part because they were quick to become part of the internet and move past that stage. It's not pretty to see them testing those waters again.
"Well, at least you're not one of those "elitists" the parent post mentioned."
whattya like better TV or computers? I am not being elite, I think that television addiction is this nations (US) greatest mental health issue. Microsoft & cable monopolies vs AOL/TW are racing full steam ahead to build the worlds smartest TV.
Linux or no linux, TV's of this caliber will not be smart
I've seen Alan's code; Alan is an exceptional and prolific programmer. You, sir, are no Alan Cox.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Oh gosh, I can imagine what it is going to be like when my SO and I bring children into the world.
;) I prefer 'opinionated'.
Ugh.
I like TV, I make fun of it to its face, I think also, you can't deny kids watching it, cos then in the face of peers they end up slightly retarded:(YOU DO NOT KNOW SUPER WACKO NINJA ROBOTS? what is wrong *with* you?)
Yeah. So we do agree. While in some moments I do think there would be some positive outcome of AOL/TW and linux (funding), I dont trust, like, or want to sell my soul to any of those companies, except when I am forced to.
So I a bummed at the prospect of all of our old "information revolution" ideals about the good old internet and OSS becoming yet another product, like Britney, Myself, You and all of the kids here in America.
No offense taken on the elitist joke