Slashdot Mirror
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!
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Nobody ever said that sticking to your principles was painless.
...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?
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.
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.
I don't think anyone really likes their boss ... I mean you can get along with them, but you're not going to want to grab a beer after work with them and shoot the shit about all the pens you stole the day before from the storage closet because you're too lazy to take your kid school shoppin.
Then there's the wonderfulness of ... AOL HASN'T BOUGHT RED HAT YET ... and throwing out these kinds of attitudes can definantelly cause you to loose your job even if there is no merger.
AOL has yet to put massive controls on a company that they've acquired ... they're just looking for a solid investment ... AOL = online ... redhat = server ... these are just IT buzzwords ... and are recognizeable buzzwords ... hell I know quite a few people who will ask me if I run linux 6.2 or 7.1 ...
But Cox really needs to look at who puts food on the table ... I know if I had a nifty little job where I could do what I enjoy ... I'd work to keep it ... with or without slashdot's approval.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
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.
Is getting financial benefits, in and of itself, really selling out? In my mind, selling out comes when you actually start compromising your art for the sake of cash.
Whether or not it's selling out is something we can't really decide until we know what AOL's plans are for RedHat. If, for example, it's part of an effort to displace Microsoft, it's feasible that AOL might be content to just throw extra money at RedHat to get some of the classic Linux desktop usability problems solved.
On the other hand, it's possible that AOL might turn RedHat into one giant AOL ad. Just as they've done with ICQ and Netscape, they could coat RedHat in an annoying layer of ads designed to increase their user base.
Overall, though, I don't think it's fair to call it selling out just yet. It's possible for AOL to benefit from this action without compromising RedHat.
There are times when how much you enjoy a job depends on who's bottom line your contributing to.
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 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
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.
Would anyone bat an eyelash if the potential buyer is Microsoft and Alan Cox said this?
Well, many people feel that AOL/TW is just as bad as Microsoft... Microsoft is trying to control the computer OS and application space, AOL/TW is trying to control virtually EVERYTHING you see, hear or do ALL DAY EVERY DAY. Both have extremely questionable business practices, both abuse their positions of power. Which is worse?
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.
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"
It's crazy to think Alan is "cocky" for saying he would not work for AOL. I worked at CNN.com when AOL bought Time Warner, and I left before the deal could go through because I didn't want to work for AOL.
Lest you think I'm just another lunatic, about 15 of the 20 developers I worked with also left around that time. Of the developers that remained, only one of them was a developer of any quality, and he was big into MS tools.
My point is, working for a faceless conglomerate is one thing. Working for one with significant philosophical differences from your own is another thing entirely.
- Vincit qui patitur.
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.
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.
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
> 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.
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?
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.
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.