Posted by
timothy
on from the sighs-of-relief-or-disappointment dept.
Several readers have submitted word (this one comes from n8twj) that "CNet News is reporting that AOL Time Warner apparently is NOT making a bid to buy Linux manufacturer Red Hat, said sources familiar with the matter."
Why would this be a bad thing?
by
kwj8fty1
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
So, I honestly don't care if AOL/Timewarner purchases RH. RH is not a distro I use. Having the backing of a huge media giant may help the linux cause. Sure, it will drive features *IN Redhat LINUX*, but not in the other distros. Long term, yes, it may effect the marketplace. But having Timewarner promoting linux would be a GREAT thing. Talk about adoption in the marketplace. Linux needs more credibility, and this may be a good way to get it.
It doesn't say that the merger is completely out of the question. Here is what the article had to say:
Sources familiar with the situation emphatically insisted the two companies are not near an acquisition deal, nor have they discussed one.
and then...
An AOL Time Warner spokeswoman, as a matter of company policy, would not discuss the merger rumor, and Durham, N.C.-based Red Hat could not be reached for comment because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. A Microsoft spokesman also declined to comment.
I agree, it sounds like the merger is a farce, nothing more than a ploy to rile up people and boost some stock prices tomorrow morning, but you never know...
-- --Chag
I'm not buying it...
by
lkaos
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
So the Washington Post says that people close to the companies report that there are acquision talks but then CNN says that people close to the companies report that there aren't.
I'm not buying any of it until one of the companies makes a press announcement or until one of the companies discloses a source.
What I find funny though, is that when given the reason why each company (MS, AOL, RH) is not commenting, RedHat's excuse is the Martin Luther King Holiday weekend.
They sure aren't going very far if they are taking this many holidays... I thought RH _wasn't_ a dot-com company. They should of atleast had people working Saturday and Sunday...
--
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
Re:Woohoo!
by
I.T.R.A.R.K.
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
Wouldn't it be something if in ten years, Redhat were in the same position of power as Microsoft is today?
Anything is possible. Look at AMD, afterall. Look how far they have come against the behemoth that is/was Intel.
--
"Adequacy.org: Where congenital stupidity is not an option, but a requirement."
Sounds like the HP-Compaq merger
by
josquint
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Didn't get get the same line with the HP/Compaq deal?
First it was a big rumor that it was going to happen.
Then HP 'backed out' and denied it...
then it was back on in a week...
hmm... Funny this happens right after Cox says he'll leave under AOL.
I wasn't really directing my ire per sae. Slashdot really doesn't do much more than post links to news posted elsewhere and allows people to comment on it. Yet, if not for slashdot's post, even with a newspaper as big as the Washingon Post, the coverage would have been significantly less.
Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. Its perfectly acceptable to speculate. And like I said, there's always the chance that its true to some degree and the PR people at AOL aren't aware of it.
My point was, that for a great many people, geeks in particular, slashdot is accepted as a credible source of information. And in most cases, this is true. And sometimes they drop the ball. We complain rather viciously when other news agencies don't do so much as pick up a phone to attempt to verify the validity of a news source, yet when slashdot does exactly the same thing, we generally accept it as par for the course. This is fine if slashdot is a rumor site or if it only reflects news reported elsewhere. However, if it wants to reflect known accurate information, then it needs to make some effort to assure that while information may not be completely accurate, at least someone who is an authority on that information has verified it as accurate.
When articles are posted multiple times, or article summaries contrast greatly with the actual content of the article linked to, the credibility, or lack there of, of slashdot is brought into light. They will make the occasional snafu. It happens. It can't be completely avoided. But they need to make at least SOME effort to avoid the obvious ones. That
way, when they only reflect on the poor quality reporting of some other news agency on rare occasions, then ire WOULD be misplaced.
Re:I see the ploy
by
JoeBuck
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
This kind of thing is actually a common Washington
(DC) manouver called a "trial balloon". If the
president's staffers have an idea they aren't sure
about, they leak it to see what the pundits and
the customers, um, I mean, the campaign contributors
react. If people hate it, then they deny that it
was ever a serious proposal in the first place.
If people really hate it then they deny
even having discussed such a disgraceful thing.
If they like it, everyone competes to pretend he
or she thought of the idea in the first place.
Linux CDs in the mail?
by
cosyne
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Think about it. Why wouldn't it be a good thing for everyone in the US to get a CD with the AOLinux distro on it every month or so? I just popped in a CD off my spindle of AOL CDs, and it had like 200 megs of blank space on it. They could leave the windoze (and macintosh?) clients intact, and use the other 200 Megs for a compact linux distro. There's no reason they need to use redhat- people like my mom just want to be able to email, surf, write letters, and print. Throw in an MP3/CD burning suite, and you've got just about everything covered. (If AOL wanted to, they could even make DVD playing software that the MPAA, and thus the average consumer, is happy with). I'm sure AOL could fund their own team to put together a little distro which is reliable and secure and targeted to towards people with compaq, dell, hp, or gateway systems that they got off the shelf at frys or compusa (think of it like a PC-to-internet appliance conversion). Ignoring, for now, the implications of having AOL in charge of your operating system (what, like that'd be any worse than M$?), it could be beneficial to the average luser to have a single monolithic system installed on their machine in which all the applications they want are designed to work directly with the OS. From AOL's point of view, it could be nice to have control over the OS that their client is runnig on, and not having to worry about what little component of the system microsoft botched this week. And from the/. perspective, it could be good to expand the linux user base to some signifigant fraction of AOL's. Plus, once you get a bunch of family PCs out there with linux, their 13 year old kids can start using linux to run more than just the AOL client.
Just a question.
HOLD ON THERE TIGER. What is NOT shown in that number is that MSN has purchased many of those users. Take Qwest (Q-worst?) for example. I was fat, dumb and happy using Qwest DSL and qwest.net. Then the BORG, Redmond division, came in and purchased the Qwest.net subscriber base.
We were told of this marvelous "Upgrade" to the garbage that is MSN. I work from home and have had as many as 5 machines (Linux, Solaris and a windows box) networked and connected to the net at a time.
I now pay $20 more a month to remain a qwest user so I can actually use the service.
/rant
Sorry, blood pressure rose there for a moment... The point is that MSN BOUGHT many of those users, or there were people foolish enough to USE the 6-month free MSN subscription with their new computers.
AOL Time Warner apparently is not making a bid to buy Linux manufacturer Red Hat, said sources familiar with the matter.
If there is no matter, then how could these sources be familiar with it? Am I the only one who has a problem with this? Even if the author meant "highly placed sources," I'm not sure I would take them at face value.
On the flip side, predicting that AOL will never buy Red Hat is like predicting the end of the world--no one cares if you're right, and everyone just makes fun of you if you're wrong...
-- "It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
Alan's golden parachute ...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
I imagine that Alan Cox has a nice block of stock options that are likely to vest immediately in case of a corporate buyout.
So sure, he'd leave AOL/RedHat, and he'd have enough money to stop working for money, and then he could work on whatever he wanted for the rest of his life.
Slashdot Mirror
So, I honestly don't care if AOL/Timewarner purchases RH. RH is not a distro I use. Having the backing of a huge media giant may help the linux cause. Sure, it will drive features *IN Redhat LINUX*, but not in the other distros. Long term, yes, it may effect the marketplace. But having Timewarner promoting linux would be a GREAT thing. Talk about adoption in the marketplace. Linux needs more credibility, and this may be a good way to get it.
Sources familiar with the situation emphatically insisted the two companies are not near an acquisition deal, nor have they discussed one.
and then...
An AOL Time Warner spokeswoman, as a matter of company policy, would not discuss the merger rumor, and Durham, N.C.-based Red Hat could not be reached for comment because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. A Microsoft spokesman also declined to comment.
I agree, it sounds like the merger is a farce, nothing more than a ploy to rile up people and boost some stock prices tomorrow morning, but you never know...
--Chag
So the Washington Post says that people close to the companies report that there are acquision talks but then CNN says that people close to the companies report that there aren't.
I'm not buying any of it until one of the companies makes a press announcement or until one of the companies discloses a source.
What I find funny though, is that when given the reason why each company (MS, AOL, RH) is not commenting, RedHat's excuse is the Martin Luther King Holiday weekend.
They sure aren't going very far if they are taking this many holidays... I thought RH _wasn't_ a dot-com company. They should of atleast had people working Saturday and Sunday...
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
Wouldn't it be something if in ten years, Redhat were in the same position of power as Microsoft is today?
Anything is possible. Look at AMD, afterall. Look how far they have come against the behemoth that is/was Intel.
"Adequacy.org: Where congenital stupidity is not an option, but a requirement."
Didn't get get the same line with the HP/Compaq deal?
First it was a big rumor that it was going to happen.
Then HP 'backed out' and denied it...
then it was back on in a week...
hmm... Funny this happens right after Cox says he'll leave under AOL.
.
I wasn't really directing my ire per sae. Slashdot really doesn't do much more than post links to news posted elsewhere and allows people to comment on it. Yet, if not for slashdot's post, even with a newspaper as big as the Washingon Post, the coverage would have been significantly less.
Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. Its perfectly acceptable to speculate. And like I said, there's always the chance that its true to some degree and the PR people at AOL aren't aware of it.
My point was, that for a great many people, geeks in particular, slashdot is accepted as a credible source of information. And in most cases, this is true. And sometimes they drop the ball. We complain rather viciously when other news agencies don't do so much as pick up a phone to attempt to verify the validity of a news source, yet when slashdot does exactly the same thing, we generally accept it as par for the course. This is fine if slashdot is a rumor site or if it only reflects news reported elsewhere. However, if it wants to reflect known accurate information, then it needs to make some effort to assure that while information may not be completely accurate, at least someone who is an authority on that information has verified it as accurate.
When articles are posted multiple times, or article summaries contrast greatly with the actual content of the article linked to, the credibility, or lack there of, of slashdot is brought into light. They will make the occasional snafu. It happens. It can't be completely avoided. But they need to make at least SOME effort to avoid the obvious ones. That
way, when they only reflect on the poor quality reporting of some other news agency on rare occasions, then ire WOULD be misplaced.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
This kind of thing is actually a common Washington (DC) manouver called a "trial balloon". If the president's staffers have an idea they aren't sure about, they leak it to see what the pundits and the customers, um, I mean, the campaign contributors react. If people hate it, then they deny that it was ever a serious proposal in the first place. If people really hate it then they deny even having discussed such a disgraceful thing. If they like it, everyone competes to pretend he or she thought of the idea in the first place.
Think about it. Why wouldn't it be a good thing for everyone in the US to get a CD with the AOLinux distro on it every month or so? I just popped in a CD off my spindle of AOL CDs, and it had like 200 megs of blank space on it. They could leave the windoze (and macintosh?) clients intact, and use the other 200 Megs for a compact linux distro. There's no reason they need to use redhat- people like my mom just want to be able to email, surf, write letters, and print. Throw in an MP3/CD burning suite, and you've got just about everything covered. (If AOL wanted to, they could even make DVD playing software that the MPAA, and thus the average consumer, is happy with). I'm sure AOL could fund their own team to put together a little distro which is reliable and secure and targeted to towards people with compaq, dell, hp, or gateway systems that they got off the shelf at frys or compusa (think of it like a PC-to-internet appliance conversion). Ignoring, for now, the implications of having AOL in charge of your operating system (what, like that'd be any worse than M$?), it could be beneficial to the average luser to have a single monolithic system installed on their machine in which all the applications they want are designed to work directly with the OS. From AOL's point of view, it could be nice to have control over the OS that their client is runnig on, and not having to worry about what little component of the system microsoft botched this week. And from the /. perspective, it could be good to expand the linux user base to some signifigant fraction of AOL's. Plus, once you get a bunch of family PCs out there with linux, their 13 year old kids can start using linux to run more than just the AOL client.
Just a question.
HOLD ON THERE TIGER. What is NOT shown in that number is that MSN has purchased many of those users. Take Qwest (Q-worst?) for example. I was fat, dumb and happy using Qwest DSL and qwest.net. Then the BORG, Redmond division, came in and purchased the Qwest.net subscriber base.
We were told of this marvelous "Upgrade" to the garbage that is MSN. I work from home and have had as many as 5 machines (Linux, Solaris and a windows box) networked and connected to the net at a time.
I now pay $20 more a month to remain a qwest user so I can actually use the service.
/rant
Sorry, blood pressure rose there for a moment... The point is that MSN BOUGHT many of those users, or there were people foolish enough to USE the 6-month free MSN subscription with their new computers.
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
On the flip side, predicting that AOL will never buy Red Hat is like predicting the end of the world--no one cares if you're right, and everyone just makes fun of you if you're wrong...
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
I imagine that Alan Cox has a nice block of stock options that are likely to vest immediately in case of a corporate buyout.
... that would be cool ...
So sure, he'd leave AOL/RedHat, and he'd have enough money to stop working for money, and then he could work on whatever he wanted for the rest of his life.
Fuck yeah