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AOL To Finally Switch To Mozilla?
pitabutter writes "Sounds like AOL is joining the list of companies making the internal switch to Linux, taking their default browser choice along with them. Oddly, second article in a short time linking AOL and Red Hat. " As with all things with AOL/Mozilla, I'll actually believe it when the darn thing ships - but the internal switch to Linux is something that I've also heard from people.
It's definately a step in the right direction. Remember all those suckers that use AOL may not mean anything to us, but that number of people not using MSIE is sure to change the way the web looks to those of us who also hate MSIE. Web pages that work in the browser that we use by default.. Won't be long before other ISP's that ship their 'own' browser switch over to a Gecko based browser - And without any real stats, i'd guess that 80% of internet users think that they have to use the browser that comes on their ISP's CD or else it won't work. So how long till MSIE uses Gecko, and claims it as their own? MSIE 8.0?
Don't Tread on Me
"Woohoo, one more big company using the penguin !!"
:). For the average home-user this might go by unnoticed ot they will fear the change.
I like Linux and I am not to keen on Micros~1 and I like to see more Linux-use like this, but as with most large companies which switch to Linux AOL already was using UNIX and is replacing that with Linux. It's another step in the right direction, to bad BillG isn't loosing any money/customers here.
The AOL-client is switch to Mozilla, with which they are replacing MSIE
It seems to me like they're taking all of the benefits of Linux and open-source and giving NOTHING back whatsoever.
Yes, note this quotation from the piece:
Now, should this control be established, AOL may still give something back, but I think that one quotation cuts to the heart of the real matter: control.
Didn't AOL buy Netscape? Hasn't Netscape
contibuted most of Mozilla code?
So I think AOL gave Mozilla back.
I am sure that when they do switch their internal browser, they might mention 'new and improved AOL 8!!', but that's about it. The end users (especially AOL users), don't care what rendering engine they are using to view web pages. And they certainly don't care that AOL is making an internal switch to linux. AOL marketing is smart, that's why they are "#1" :P
The main reason to care is this - if AOL does go to Gecko instead of IE (which would be a very smart decision for a number of technical and business reasons you'd know about if you read the article) then 30% of web users will no longer be using MSIE - and those bastards that write their webpages in MSHTML are going to be scrambling to fix their pages.
Now that would be freakin cool!
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
it truly would be nice to have an AOL client for Linux. But they really only have two options:
1. support ONLY UNMODIFIED RPM-ONLY REDHAT BOXES (or xxx other distribution)
2. build an all-in-wonder static library that has the dialer, gecko, vpn client, and everything all built-in.
no linux user really wants either option, but it does sound off a big reason why companies are reluctant to bring desktop-software to linux: there are too many variables.
There is a good reason that "Reinstall Windows" is in the 90th percentile of all support responses. It's a simple answer, and by having nobody who can actually repair a broken windows machine, it's the best answer.
But linux systems can be repaired so long as they still kick (and sometimes: even past that point). So there's two options for us:
1. we can adopt some kind of sane configuration system. [i think freshmeat had an article about the unix configuration nightmare, so don't expect the answer to this to begin with the word "just"]
2. we can all adopt a single limiting platform for desktop use, and do all our hacking in every other system.
If people really believed point #2 was a possibility, I think we would have a lot more desktop presense already. But #1 has the most promise. If people weren't so angry as to say "configuration like XXX is too YYY" instead of saying "configuration like YYY is unreliable because ZZZ" we might actually key someplace.
And everyone would have to adopt it. Gnome moves somewhat forward with gconf, but don't think it's the end-all. we'd have to have dialup and network configuration, and X configuration and everything in a similar engine. In this case, we can ditch gconf completely, or we can build wrappers to do just this.
I dunno abour your predictions, but AOL switching to a Gecko rendering base will do wonders for web standards compliance.
And an AOL-linux client will be a big seller too, but at the OEM level. Grandma will buy a box set up to connect, with a user interface she would never know is linux if you asked her. It will have an AOL interface - and a linux engine.
Besides which, is funding Mozilla for nearly 4 years to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars nothing either?
Well.
.... and mostly unfriendly to mozilla/W3C) they will start to see that their projected visitors/revenue fall down because of lack of standards adherement.
From now on, for a website to be defined as "AOL friendly", they will need to be "mozilla friendly". If they are not (now they only need to be "designed for IExplorer"), AOL viewers will complaint about those "pesky webpages makers that cannot get a webpage done right" and will not use them (hint: think web-commerce, web-services....)
Because AOL users represent the biggest piece of the internet consumers pie (at least, in the USA), all those websites will need to adapt and become "AOL (mozilla) compliant" ( = W3C compliant?? ) or (economically) die.
Now, with many websites turning into paysites, if AOL people cannot see your website in a proper and appealing way (font types, font syzes, table rendering, html extensions.... all those things that makes a website "designed for IExplorer"
So, I say that this is good for us, W3C-compliant browsers (mozilla, Konqueror...)
Think about it. Microsoft is a mortal enemy of AOL. If AOL discovers a crash bug in IE, how much effort do you think MS would put into fixing it? At best I bet the bug would end up in a big pile of other bugs from other big customers and no particular effort would be made to fix. Hell, I bet MS could turn around and say they won't fix it.
Now think what the situation would be with Gecko. AOL can modify their own copy of the source if they need but they also have a direct line to the Netscape developers. It means the action time on bugs is going to be dramatically less than with IE and more bugs will be fixed.
"A browser shift by AOL is going to leave an awful lot of companies that assume their Web sites only need to work with Explorer scrambling to rewrite their code so that they don't lose AOL's 30 million-plus subscribers, or about 30% of all U.S. Internet users." I think this is the first real effect we'll notice from all this. Standards compliance means fewer times that I have to say, hmm, doesn't work in Konq...lets try Mozilla...no, hmm...let's try Opera...no, hmm... darn now I have to go get my Windows computer.
Following standards is not 'retarding your code'. When this switch occurs, a large portion of web pages will have to switch from sloppy MS-only HTML to W3C compliant HTML. Are you honestly saying that this is a bad thing? Is it just because you are lazy and don't want to have to fix your old code?
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
probably asking for it by saying this but, why doesn't AOL just release an AOL dist. of linux? If they had their out dist. they could support AOL on linux and would not have to worry about supporting umpteen thousand linux distros. They would support their own (it could just be a customized version of RH etc..) with the AOL access built in. No reason to sell stripped down "internet appliances" there are probably millions of old pc's that would work great with a stripped down version of linux installed. So when your parents/grandmother is looking to get on the net so they can use email just toss in an AOL-linux cd and install an old box that was replaced by a newer system and poof! grandma is on the net for short $$ and AOL gets another customer. Or they could partner with these companies you see selling $399 boxes at bestbuy etc. to preinstall their AOL client OS instead of Windows and cut back the cost of a new pc even further by not cutting MS a check for each box they sell. (they could almost give these boxes away if they got a 3 years of AOL usage contract signed) Sounds like a win-win to me.
AOL already mails out millions of cd's to everyone and their brother so getting the dist. out would not be a problem. And if a user calls in with a problem on their pc you could have a very simple fix/restore procedure that would fix corrupted files etc right off the cd (or off a main AOL server since they would have the source). I dare say it just might be a support person's dream. Possibility of getting files destroyed could be minimized because the user would never use the box as root.(root would only be used during upgrading or support fixes, not normal use)
This of course would not be a distro for most that read slashdot. but for someone that really does not care what is inside the "funny beige box" I think it would work out pretty good. And they could release the source to the client that gets embedded so if somebody really wanted to use AOL on their own Linux box they could hack away but get no support of course.
probably never happen...
Until Gekko can play as fast and loose with HTML as the IE rendering engine...
HTML is a standard, playing fast and loose with a standard is a bad thing, not a good thing, ask anyone who builds bridges for a living. So the fact that Gecko fails to render non-standards compliant HTML is a good thing. The only problem I have with Gecko is how slow it is compared to the old Navigator 4.x engine...
Al.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
I'm a die-hard Linux advocate, but as soon as AOL 8.0 is released, I'm going to begin strongly recommending AOL to Mac and Windows people who need a dial-up ISP. AOL is pushing a standards-compliant browser, and that's good for the whole of the Internet. AOL also continues to push RealPlayer, which isn't all that great, but it's better than the alternative (Windoze Media everywhere) and will at least keep the market divvied up until an open standard for digital media can be adopted as well.
As the webmaster of xiph.org so elegantly wrote, "The Internet exists today and continues to move forward despite, not because of, corporate self-interest; critical mass passed the point of no return long before Microsoft and Netscape tried to salt the earth of their rivals. " Open standards are very important, and it's good to see that someone as big as AOL is going to cause the Internet to be a bit more standards-based. Obviously they're doing it to suit their own ends, of course, but they're doing it.
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Personally, I think it'll be some time before AOL delivers a client program for their service that uses a web browser derived from Mozilla 1.0 code--at least for Windows users. The reason is that given that Internet Explorer has been tightly integrated into Windows since Windows 98, putting on another browser may end up causing customer confusion, to say the least.
However, that could be different if the final settlement in the US v. Microsoft case requires a Plain Jane version of Windows XP. In that case an AOL client that uses Mozilla 1.0 code makes way more sense.
In my personal opinion, the most likely place that AOL may try to use Mozilla 1.0 code as part of the AOL client program is on the Macintosh, where Apple at least since the late 1990's has offered the choice of Netscape and Internet Explorer as your default web browser. I wouldn't be surprised that AOL cuts a deal with Apple that on new Macs if you install the AOL client the web browser based on Mozilla 1.0.x code becomes the default web browser for the whole system.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
How many penquins can I buy for the price of an apple?
Basically, many webmasters are ignorant, or even arrogant enough to ignore standards compliance. Those who fail to see that standards compliance is the way forward, will have painted themselves into a corner. The cost of completely re-doing a site which has been carefully written specifically for IE and all its non-standard extensions and quirks, could potentially lead to more dot.com deaths. This is a good thing! People who don't care enough to inform themselves don't deserve to do business. Am I being harsh? Perhaps, but being an avid user of alternative browsers, I am tired of fighting with arrogant web designers who don't understand what they are doing.
Finally, we will see who has the foresight or the insight to survive this.
Grim predictions aside (I may have been a bit negative above), this naturally benefits users of alternative browsers. Mozilla and Opera will both be able to display more pages than before, and their user base will probably grow rapidly because of this. After all, the feature sets of these browsers are far superior to IE from a user's point of view (disclaimer: This is a personal opinion based on my personal preference. Ok? Please, no browser wars).
Note that I am not even bashing IE here. The good news is that this can be cheaper for online companies in the long run, since it will pay off to write standards compliant code, rather than writing specifically for only certain browsers. MSIE 6 has decent standards compliance. The problem is the proprietary extensions used so extensively instead of the W3C counterparts.
This becomes even more important now that handheld devices are becoming more and more popular. We will see a significant increase in the number of devices used by consumers, and these devices will be using alternative browsers as well.
It basically boils down to this: The browser market is diversifying, and if AOL decides to go with Gecko, this will speed up this process. It will not be a nice transition. Many may find that they have major problems due to "IE-centric" code on their sites.
AOL may not be doing this because they desperately want to get rid of IE or because they want to support alternative browsers (who knows, there may be many reasons, perhaps these play in as well). Nevertheless, for once, it would seem that the consumer - the user - benefits from such a drastic move.
If AOL are indeed planning to move from MSIE to Gecko, that is...
Clever signature text goes here.
I am sure the open source community sees nothing wrong with this? If AOL puts millions of dollars into anything, it will be proprietary and they will own all the rights. Amazes me how so many of the so called open source supports simply don't see that they would be merely changing one monopoly for another.
Yeah, just like AOL made Mozilla closed source and proprietary after putting millions in development costs into that.
Oh wait, never mind.
I would imagine that this is a lot closer than anyone would care to think:
I imagine a 15" flat panel display with a keyboard and a mouse. The display base houses 56K and G.lite modems, 10/100 ethernet and mainboard. The whole thing runs on a low-end x86 platform off of a ATA flash disk. It runs a customized Linux kernel with the AOL software as the only environment. As a bonus a printer can be connected and they include some truly basic AOL apps, a word processor and a checkbook program.
The likely hurdle is the cost of 15" LCDs and the tanked out economy, although the latter should be helping the former. I imagine an Asian manufacturer could build them for about $350 each and AOL could probably sell them at cost w/3 mos. free AOL.
It's basically WebTV with a good display, and I know tons of people that would buy it because all they want is web+email, they don't care about all the other crap. It fits on that little "desk" by the phone in the kitchen, requires no configuration and cuts AOLs tech support costs significantly.
It hasn't worked before because the people doing it were trying to provide a generic solution. Coupled with AOL it *has* to work, and AOL will need to do it anyway since MS will be bundling XBoxen in the future as web terminals connecting to MSN.
AOL is *not* going to release a nicely packaged Linux client.
No. Period. It doesn't make business sense for them to encourage people to switch operating systems and deal with the flak that'll result.
So, what I'm predicting is AOL looking into building its own custom distro - definitely the AOL client, which, I am told, already exists on a Gateway 'internet appliance' machine, probably a stripped-down-to-the-bones base system and KDE, and a hacked-up version of StarOffice or KOffice with perfect MSOffice compatibility.
They'll offer this as a standalone OS solution to OEMs. *Not* retail; the people who go out and buy their own OSes aren't AOL's market. AOL's market are the people who buy a computer for light web surfing, IMing, and word processing - sure, they wouldn't mind if every geek in the world used their product on Linux, but we're not their primary market.
They can tout their OS as being 'Linux-powered' in the same sense that Mac OS X is touted as 'UNIX-powered', hype the stability, etc, etc. They have the advantage that this is an almost entirely closed software platform, so they'll be able to achieve stability greater than that of AOL on Windows. They'll advertise innate security, and so on.
And it will work, unless MS strongarms the hell out of all the OEMs; in light of the continuing antitrust trial, that would not be in their own interest.
It's not a victory for Linux - though that's a practically meaningless phrase - it's not a victory for 'Open Source' or 'Free Software' - ditto. It *is* a *small* victory for open standards, which Gecko complies to quite well.
Don't get any hopes up about AOL replacing its proprietary protocol suite, though, or about them releasing source. They know exactly what they want - a closed software platform that they're not dependent on archenemy MS for, and if they do what it seems they will, they'll get it.
It occurred to me that such a closed platform would be an excellent way for AOL/TW to enforce DRM on their platforms. Without a way to install new apps besides 'AOL-certified' ones (you bet there won't be any other way - why the hell would they include a terminal app? Their market doesn't care about a CLI), it'll be easy for them to enforce copyright. Not spinning conspiracy theories, just found that interesting...
-- Veni, vidi, dormivi
And AOL also funded Mozilla development coordination. Many of the top Mozilla developers and coordinators were paid to do this by Mozilla. When everyone was jumping up and down on Mozilla for taking too long for the re-write, AOL continued to support them.
AOL isn't a dedicated member of the community, but they sure are a supporting member! They may be (are!) doing this for their own reasons, which we should attempt to understand, but for the last several years some reasonable fraction of their purposes have been in synchrony with our needs.
It is, of course, also true that AOL is not a separate company. That's why some people write it AOL/TW, and the TW half is dominant at unpredictable times (of its choice). Even were AOL to be composed of comitted GPL supporters, the TW management could issue a directive, and that would determine the direction. So don't hang you hat or heart on them. But they supported Mozilla as open source before Konqueror was working at all, and before Gnome was usably stable. So don't sell them short, either.
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I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This line in the article is probably going to benefit the 'ordinary' Linux user most:
We hear that every hardware vendor who approaches AOL is now being asked, "How is your support for Linux?" before they are even allowed to make a sales presentation
This could force hardware vendors to provide good Linux support. If so, then we should thank AOL for this, regardless of what we otherwise think of them.
HH
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So much to discuss!
Everyone seems to be looking at this as if it is a major corporate war. I'd like to point out that AOL has had Netscape for a while now, has owned ICQ for a while now, and is owned by Time Warner, who supplies cable modems to their customers. They were talking about buying Red Hat a while ago.
Well...it sounds to me like there must be some locked doors that say "Confidential" on them somewhere in the AOL/Time Warner hierarchy.
Answer a few questions here, and intentions become clear.
1)Is AOL switching over their desktops to Linux? Or is it only their servers? Or...was there any mention of switching to linux at all? I propose that if they switch to Linux internally, and in specific ways it is to develop a "pilot project" for AOL on Linux.
2)Combine these three elements in a mixing bowl and hand it to a bunch of developers. a)high bandwidth b)AOL-idiot friendly philosophy c)The ability to distro Linux on a single cd. This, folks, would imply the ability to create a pseudo-network computer out of almost any old 80x86 machine out there. (NEW AOLinux! Install it on your old PC! Just install, run and be online!) If the developers at AOL can automate the Linux install they might try to make it transparent. ie: Install Linux and AOL in one fell swoop. Automate the patching process utilizing high bandwidth. They would not even need to specifically ally with hardware vendors, just say that new components should be Linux compatible.
3) As for the switch to Mozilla...IF IF IF it does happen then yes, it is a shot fired at MS. AOL knows that they need to slowly make MS look more and more buggy and inconvenient, and this is one way to do it. Already it will be hard for people to obtain cheap/free copies of MS with XP's new licensing. Many people brought MS home from the office (making it FREE, not pirated *wink wink*). By taking AOL's enormous user base away from IE compliant browsers they will force a shift in browsing habits and web design methods.
Will AOL/Time Warner start a full fledged war against MS? No. The consumers wont stand for it. It'll be too confusing for them. There's not enough alignment among the Linux players and not enough consumer products (read: Games, home office, video editing) for a full scale war for consumer hearts. Time-Warner is doing something else though, the are setting up MS for a fall. They are moving quietly, slowly. Like ninja. They are obtaining the properties, developing the technology, and shifting the terrain while microsoft is fighting anti-trust. If TW/AOL is interested they will need to release and idiot-proof, AOL ready Linux that is Linux-in-the-wild compliant.
That product, distro'd cheaply, and as a replacement for XP could mean something.
Heh, of course, then imagine AOL hackers at work. hey folks? If AOL does support linux in the above mentioned manner, please, dont hack 'em. Linux on the desktop could use the support they could give.