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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.
that I'll be using the same browser that AOLers use. I'll be too ashamed and switch to Konqueror :)
True warriors use the Klingon Google
It's either that or forever be in bondage to Gates... it won't be long now I'd bet.
I don't suppose AOL will make a big deal of it when they do actually change over, eh?
I have to admit that i'm pretty keyed up on the IBM/Linux publicity. It would be pretty cool if AOL with throw a Linux shout-out in a couple of their infernal TV ads.
lysergically yours
As far as an AOL client for Linux, one Linux-using AOL employee says, "How many Linux people do you know personally who would sign up for AOL if we had a Linux client? I don't know a single one, myself. I have an account with another ISP I use at home with my Linux box, and probably wouldn't use AOL from home even if I could."
'Linux people'? It's no surprise that Linux won't make it onto the average desktop with that sort of attitude.
Their reckoning is that.. all Linux users are nerds so they don't need to use such a crappy ISP. That might be true now but if AOL doesn't offer a Linux client then they're implying that they think Linux will continue to remain a nerd interest.
With support like that from the biggest companies in the world, who needs enemies?
mogorific carpentry experiments
Well AOL could actually contribute to the Red Hat community that is still using 56k dial-up.
AOL could ship their CDs with the Red Hat distro on them so people will actually put them in their computers before toasting them.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
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
"According to several Red Hat and AOL employees who spoke to NewsForge but asked us not to use their names, recent negotiations between AOL and Red Hat that led to rumors... were really..."
Granted, there are a lot of direct quotations in this NewsForge 'exlusive'. But seeing is believing, and even then, one can't always be too sure.
For all you trolls out there, note that the byline on the article belongs Robin 'Roblimo' Miller.
"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
Is this switch to Linux for their servers or for desktops in the company? I had always wondered what powered AOL's massive need for servers.
And it is about time AOL did something useful realting to their aquisition of Netscape. Even though the Mozilla code is Free I think the original devers know better how to do this.
I also don't think that an AOL browser switch will get rid of every "Best Viewed with IE" button!
In the article there's constant bleating about how a Linux client wouldn't be 'economical' blah blah etc.. well, aren't they going to save a stack of money by using Linux on the back-end?
It seems to me like they're taking all of the benefits of Linux and open-source and giving NOTHING back whatsoever.
What a wonderful community spirit.
(I know it's bad form to reply more than once to a topic, but hey..)
mogorific carpentry experiments
We have GNOME and KDE.
Now we will have AOL!
That right AOL.
At one point Netscape was quoted to say, "They were the next desktop". Other than office tools (StarOffice?), AOL has most of the needs in place. They have user base. Now with AOL Anywhere, a little java... They are a virual desktop on all platforms.
The OS today, is nothing more than the MACRO KERNEL of tomorrow.
I constantly hear from friends and family that NTLWorld is one of the best unmetered providers out there right now. Not quite as reliable as AOL, but at least you have access to SMTP.. and can control it through Dial-Up Networking!
I'm using Freeserve, and it's not bad at all, but engaged at about 8pm every night for a while.
mogorific carpentry experiments
I don't care if they're just doing this to save money, the end result could benefit all web users so its "a good thing" tm and the only people this will hurt are those companies making IE only sites
This could mean that web developers might finally be allowed to write html conforming sites, rather than the current notion of supporting the current two generations of IE and thats it.
Perhaps the bean counters will start to think of making websites more accessible when a large minority of users suddenly don't use IE.
Like it or not AOL users make up a significant number of internet users (30% in the US for ex), and if AOL uses Mozilla for the client it can only increase web standards compliance... hopefully we'll start to see more sites that don't purely rely on Microsoft's interpretation of the html standards and actually try to reach the widest possible audience by making standards compliant web sites.
From the article:-
The only thing that might delay -- not stop, just delay -- AOL's change from Explorer to a Mozilla-based browser is allowing time for some of AOL's largest and most important "partner sites" to do away with any Explorer-specific features they have been using in place of W3C standards.
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.
This is great. Mozilla is surely but steadily marching towards world domination. It's reached
the 1.0 milestone, it's available on more platforms
than windows, and more programs based on mozilla
are appearing.
I live next to several AOL departments, and they
hired few to none of our local tech force.
AOL imported all their employees from nearby states/counties/etc.
So, their switch to Linux is not gonna help me, or
none of my neighbors. They will only train their
current employees to do the job. So much for the
traffic jams they brought along.
--
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!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Maybe not. By the sound of the article, the people at AOL don't want to have to do tech support for a Linux client. Without a Linux client, anyone using the Internet is someone who is using another ISP.
Also, the boxed Red Hat 7.2 distro contains no fewer than 7 CDs (2 install disks, 2 source disks, Star Office, some Loki demos, and a documentation CD). Even if they limited it to just the first two, it still means tripling the already vast amount of plastic being distributed, and I don't think they'll go for that.
Finally, given the expertise differential between "installing the AOL Client" and "reformatting or repartitioning the HDD and installing Red Hat Linux," it's a bad idea. I think there are too many people out there who would wreak havoc on their current system if some Red Hat CDs dropped into their laps. It wouldn't be good for thousands of people to think of Linux as "that software that ate my computer."
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Um, did you actually read the article? The quote is in there.
And no, none of the AOL employees are named.
Jon
We all seem to know that AOL on Wintel utilizes the Microsoft rendering engine. What does AOL for MacOS use?
Has AOL ever used a rendering engine for either platform other than the one(s) used now?
If AOL has switched in the past, what was the motivation then?
(Finally, a reason to use my +1 bonus.)
It seems to me like they're taking all of the benefits of Linux and open-source and giving NOTHING back whatsoever.
The real reason why AOL(tw) won't release an America Online for PC Linux: there'd be no way to stop a kid with a debugger (easier to obtain on Linux than on Windows XP) from breaking into the Time Warner content because the machine owner is root and the publishers can't do jack about it. (SSSCA aims to change that.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
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.
Somehow, I don't think so. Already you see pages with a disclaimer at the bottom, "If you're using AOL this page won't display properly..." and "If you're using AOL then the graphics will be shrunk and compressed, switch to Netscape..."
Of course, this is all just my speculation here; but I somehow doubt that there will be that many web pages changed for AOL users. Its also entirely possible that I'm just a pessimist.
You have to remember that AOL bought Netscape a while ago. They are probably just sticking with the market, as it shifts to Linux.
it would have to be a really old, or special compressed distro as redhat takes 2 full cd's now.
unless thay start sending DVD's.. but then everyone would have to have DVD drives and they are less common in pc's than burners. (burners outsell dvd read only drives 10 to 1 while regular CD drives outsell DVD drives 20 to 1.. stats collected by a friend of mine at a computer superstore)
If someone could get me a RH7.2 cd that default installed KDE that was on one CD I would kiss them! as I desperately need a distor that is super easy and fit's on one CD to give away.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This is definitely good news, but not just because a decreased IE browser share will give incentive for both MS and the Mozilla development crews to improve their browsers. Perhaps, with more people using Mozilla, Netscape 4.x users will finally upgrade.
I develop three different websites and I can't tell you all the headaches NS 4.x has given me. If you think IE is bad, try coding for NS 4.x. And it's not as if I can say "Very few people use that browser so I can ignore it." I get about 5-6% NS 4.x traffic, that makes it small enough to be annoying but big enough to make me have to address it. (By comparison NS 6.x comprises less than 2% of my traffic.)
I have no problems with someone using a non-IE browser so long as it conforms to standards. And yes, as non-conforming as some think IE is, it is more compliant than NS 4.x.... Maybe not more than NS 6.x, but it seems like a lot of people aren't upgrading. Anything that gets people to ditch that awful browser (be it for IE, Mozilla, NS 6.x, or some other up-to-date browser), is a good thing for web developers everywhere.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Americans On Linux
substitute Assholes for americans where you see fit..
Isn't that yet-another-big-player (tm) is using Free s/w in some way, but that there's going to be some quick convergence between Gecko and the rest of the web - IE-centric pages are going to have some real body of non-IE users to moan at them (let's face it, at the moment it is perfectly feasible for most businesses to run IE only sites) and Gecko's bugs are going to get stamped a whole heap faster. This can only be a good thing.
Tom Newton
Something I've been pondering (a little) is that since Linux boxes are fixable (regardless of distro), why couldn't this fixing be automated? Have a program that diagnoses the problem by trying to dial out, run traceroute, start X, and / or whatever, then when an error is encountered "check" (for some definition of checking) relevant config files or whatnot for errors, maybe asking the user some questions in the process.
Granted, this would be a task in full parity with making something like Linuxconf or XST, but if somebody did, imagine what it would do to the support costs!
Installed the Bubblemon yet?
The best way to acommplish this would be to have their own branded verion of Linux.
AOLinux.
Then they won't have to worry about all of the other distros. And it can have a stripped down feature set so that they do not have to support every widget on planet earth.
Extra bonus brownie points for tweaking the Nose of Microsoft.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
who thinks netscape 6 won't be good for AOL? yes it renders HTML/CSS/Javascript very well, possibly better than IE6/Opera, but the problem is, it crashes more than IE6 and runs much slower on Windows. AOL users will probably be annoyed that the new version of AOL will run slower and crash more often (is that actually possible!!!) than the previous version. I hindsight, anything which is bad for AOL is a good thing!
Even if they limited it to just the first two, it still means tripling the already vast amount of plastic being distributed, and I don't think they'll go for that.
HUH? how does going from 1 to 2 Triple the amount of plastic? I cannot see going from a mass of 16 grams to a mass of 32 grams as a tripling.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
AOL's servers were SGI machines running IRIX, now it will probably be SGI machines running Linux. I don't know if it was a desktop or server change though.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
It would of course have to be a custom distro, stripped of anything not necessary for the base functionality and prone to create expensive help desk calls, but instead with a powerful auto-configuring installer.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Oh, and is it true that it's bad form to reply more than once to a topic? I'd never heard of that one before....
Sorry. I was assuming 2 Redhat CDs and a separate disk for the AOL client. I guess they could ship a really stripped-down Linux OS and client on a single CD, as someone else helpfully pointed out.
::shudders:: Best not to think about it.
Still. . . not having the Documentation CD.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
That's a pretty interesting point. I'm not business expert, but this sounds plausible. It would be a shame if talks fell through because of fallout from the rumor-mill.
On the other hand, I'd say that this is no news to Redmond. The bad blood between them is probably deep enough that the AOL->Gecko outcome is inevitable. Not to mention the money sunk into Netscape over the last few years...
Everybody here is talking about the boon to web compatibility if this happens. I sure hope it does!
Christopher
Mozilla
Who wants AOL for Linux? What is going on? A proprietary dial-up, authentication and content delivery system? Pulllease.
If AOL offered a dial up account using PAP or CHAP and just TCP/IP access with a browser that went to their homepage and allowed you to see their premium content, this may be a good thing for any AOL content junkies
But I can already use AOL Instant Messenger, and MSN, and Yahoo! through Linux, why would I need anything else?
AOL are right not to create AOL for Linux. Linux users should be following Internet standards and not some proprietary bullshit.
Windows users can have AOL for all I care. Give me a proper ISP any day of the week.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
The issue is not with the big guys. It's with the home user / enthusiast dorks who've decided for whatever reason to code their sites in VBScript, ActiveX and proprietary DHTML. These people will kick up a stink, but frankly they've made their bed and now they'll have to lie in it. Boo hoo for them.
As an AOL/Time-Warner employee (not directly AOL, however), I have available FREE AOL, if I want it, but choose to pay for a standard ISP.
Am I an elitist? I'm not alone. I'd guestimate 90% of the people here do NOT use AOL, and I'm not just talking about computer nerds, and I'm the only one here that I know of that even uses Linux at home.
I've also not heard any mention in these parts about switching to anything else - we run Windows almost exclusively, even though I've often thought (outloud) that being such MS haters, AOL could do a lot of financial damage to MS by internally switching to something else - without even asking our customers to switch, AOL/TW employs tens of thousands of people - switch them over to Linux, save the company millions of dollars, and take that profit away from MS.
But Nooooooo....... We're not even allowed to order a "bare-bones" machine, we have to order one that comes with Windows preinstalled.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I have a couple of friends on the tech inside of AOL, its being urged to switch from Microsoft to other operating systems
...don't get me wrong, Gekko actually functions surprisingly well for 95% of HTML rendering. But there are some things it simply does NOT HANDLE AT ALL that IE does in its SLEEP. Multiple sub-layered dynamic tables, for one- the engine will get the first one right and puke on all subsequent. It doesn't handle dynamic use of the iframe tag at ALL. Things like that.
Until Gekko can play as fast and loose with HTML as the IE rendering engine, the vast majority of users are going to consider it to be shite, because comparing page loads, IE is more forgiving and Gekko just doesn't bother to do things that it SHOULD (much like the Navigator / Communicator 4.x engine!).
I've had to make WAY too many design comprimises in order to get my web work to run properly in netscape and mozilla.... often times scrapping entire designs that worked fine in IE. If the idea of the web is to be platform independant, then why do I have to retard my code because something touted as "better than IE"... isn't?
AOL shifting to Mozilla? Maybe when the rendering engine is as idiot friendly to HTML as AOL is to the home user. Until then, I really, honestly can't see it as anything more than a longterm hedge against Microsoft.
at least the AOL techs admit that AOL sucks "How many Linux people do you know personally who would sign up for AOL if we had a Linux client? I don't know a single one, myself. I have an account with another ISP I use at home with my Linux box, and probably wouldn't use AOL from home even if I could." It is very good news to see that Geco is a viable option for internet browsing. As long as the big companies follow the herd mentality, once one of them "embraces" new technology they all might do the same thing
While lots of people talk about AOL shipping a Linux install on their ubiquitous CDs I don't really see that happening (because of the support nightmare of grandma calling up because she can't view the powerpoint presentations she had from her grandkids).
But what I do think that makes sense is AOL buying a hardware vendor and bundling Linux, Mozilla, an AOL client, and staroffice into a microsoft free solution.
Gateway would make a good choice becuase they're not doing so well (primarily because they're not Dell), but they've got good brand recognition. Then we'd start to see the "AOL Computer by Gateway" (with Linux probably not mentioned at all).
AOL would make it clear that this wasn't a Windows computer and that Windows software wouldn't run on it, but AOL has enough money to keep at it until they've sold enough units for software vendors to start supporting it. The target audience would be new computer users and heavy AOL users who are buying a new computer.
In my view the only way that Linux can succeed on the desktop is if the computer comes pre-installed with Linux. Installing a second OS is something that the average user is just never going to do. And AOL/TW has deep enough pockets to make a go of it.
"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.
If The SSSC is actually passed and Linux becomes illeagle, wouldn't companies who use linux internally like AOL be effectively shooting themselves in the foot?
the story quotes an "aol techie" as saying:
"We get to bitch to Alan Cox about kernel problems now."
- but i thought mr. cox had relegated kernel maintenance to marcello tosatti?
if i'm a grammar nazi, you're an illiteracy nazi.
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...
How long has it been since they purchased Netscape. It was kinda ironic how the owner of Netscape was using MSIE. I can't wait to see what "The new AOL version 8.0" will use as it's web browser, when it becomes available. I hate AOL, but the more Netscape/Gecko users the better!
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
That's funny, my copy of Windows XP somehow managed to include everything on one CD. Perhaps Windows isn't as bloated as the Linux community makes it out to be.
What I meant was that the current IE only pages wouldn't work and AOLers would complain. It would be good in the long run for most of us once standards were actually standards, but there are so many web pages out there that break the standards and so only work in IE.
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
We need some real browser statistics which break down IE into AOL sub-chunks. This is key because AOL's IE is an inferior version of MS's and does not render many pages correctly (a fact which seems to be largely ignored by page designers), driving some AOLers to use the IE within Windows. If we knew what the actual AOL intenal browser percentage was, we could properly gage the effect this will have (assuming people who hate the existing one will ignore Gecko as well).
Not necessarily...
They could simply pare down the standard RH distro to one CD, with just enough to get the base system installed, get X up and running, and get the user on the network (dialup or ethernet) - then download the rest. Kindof like a Debian net-install.
For all I know, RH may have this ability already, and all AOL would have to do would be the paring down to one CD.
If they make sure there's an installer on the CD for people who already have a RH/rpm-based install, that would cover most of the bases. Of course, this would leave deb and tgz-based distros out of the mix - but those could be optional downloads if they decided to provide them.
What I'd like to see is more information on converting from Windows to Unix-style systems. Except for Apple joining the Unix camp, the percentage of Windows and Unix systems seems to be fairly static.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
now i may actually want to do something with those cd's that keep coming in my mailbox instead of using them as coasters.
AOL has had the opportunity to watch Microsoft screw anybody and everybody who got in their way.
.NET.
Microsoft is pushing MSN.
Microsoft is pushing
Microsoft is pushing Passport.
Microsoft is pushing Windows Media Player.
etc.
If you are AOL, and Microsoft makes your browser engine, you have got to be concernede that you will be on the wrong side of some little "oops" like the one that recently made Quicktime plugins go poof, or made DR DOS go poof, or what have you.
AOL needs to break free of IE as a matter of self preservation.
The world will then be a better place for all of us.
See, I have this network at home which I administer like a tyrant: only programs that I approve will be installed. Nothing else is allowed unless I think it's usefull and I checked it's integrity (spyware and the like).
Now, why do I tell you this. Simple: my sister is a real music fan and wants to access file sharing software like Morpheus, Kaazaa and the like. So I did my homework and downloaded Gnucleus (which works insanely well). I told her: look, here is a client without ads that does everything you need. Spread the word to your friends about it. Her reply was simple: my friends do not care about the ads, they are not interested in alternatives. Same thing when she subscribed for an hotmail account: I told her, you'll be spammed to hell and I subscribed her to a better account. She did drop her hotmail account but under protest, because that was what she knew. Another instance is ICQ, 2000 and 2001 clients come with ads. I kept the 99b version until it stopped working correctly. I didn't want the 2000 and 2001 versions because of the ads...she again did not care.
Most people don't care about ads, not about spyware....even if they underestimate spyware.
So *if* AOL would bring out AOLinux with a default windowmanager that looks like Windows 98/W2K/XP and that has an ad in the corner: I'm all for it because the normal user will take it, use it and accept the damned litte ad.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
If you can't view the site correctly because of AOL/mozilla, you can do just how people are doing now.. minimize AOL and use IE (you know, the in-seperateable browser with windows?) and all will be fine. I mean all you really have to do is add a tag line that reads "Best Viewed in Internet Explorer or Netscape... not AOL. Please minimize AOL and click on the big "E"." Sure saves time and money on corporate site to redesign a site because AOL made a change.
Flame me if you must.
thelikesofwhich.com
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.
Say I have a table that's 100% high, and inside of that, an image that's 80 pixels high and another table that's 100% high.
Now, in theory- and under IE and other browsers, in PRACTICE, this second table would consume the remainder of the height inside of the first table, less the 80 pixels of the image. This is really simple math. This doesn't break ANY standards. This is, in fact, something that's reasonably important to certain design implementations,
And mozilla pukes on it.
How's that being standards compliant, if you implement "the standard" for the first table and ignore it for the second? You're using your happy little argument as an excuse to code poorly.
Even after reading the article, I'm not sure whether or not this is real.
Remember: AOL has done well with Windos, which is the OS of choice for most morons out there (and a couple non-morons) mostly because "it came with the 'puter".
There are a variety of reasons why they should/could switch, but also many why they should not. Maybe, just maybe, this was an intentional leak to put some pressure on M$ and get another "put us on the desktop" deal?
I would absolutely love to see the web move back to a "best viewed with any browser" attitude, and AOL switching to Mozilla/Gecko would ensure at least a parity.
Just lets not break open the champagne just yet, hm?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I know that I just became a target of some pretty nasty flames but hear me out please...
Can you find any company that relies more on it's computers than AOL? The fact is that if they make the switch to Linux internally, it means that they are sold on the features that Linux gives them and the reliability of Linux. For them, this is not a decision they came to without a lot of thought. Other companies, who have resisted Linux because of FUD, will now seriously consider it simply because another large company that relies heavily on their computers did. This opens up the back-rooms of many Fortune 500 companies as well as smaller ones. When these IS departments are sold, they will work on taking Linux to the corporate desktop.
AOL is sensing an opportunity here and are positioning themselves to take advantage of it. Everyone knows that if you can get major computer makers to stick your icon on the desktop, you stand a very good chance of snagging customers. AOL has already been paying to do this for years. I would bet that it is one of their major marketing expenses.
With the Microsoft settlment nearing completion, perhaps AOL sees a different way of "owning the desktop." Perhaps it is less expensive for them to distribute an AOL version of Linux, giving it away to the manufacturers (and providing the necessary support) than it is to pay for space on the desktop as they do now. This would mean the manufacturers would not have to pay M$ for an OS and would only have to give up a few cents per desktop for the AOL placement fee. I'd gladly give up a quarter to save fifty dollars and I'll bet they would too.
AOL does not have the inhouse expertese to accomplish this but, Red Hat does. While Red Hat is an excellent company, they aren't exactly rolling in the dough. This means that in order to survive, they need to be bought by someone who can use them as they are or, they need to change their business model. If I were an executive at Red Hat, I would see AOL as a "White Knight."
This may not be a marriage made in heaven but, when you have a common enemy, it is easy to become friends.
While I give this a less than 50% chance of happening, I'll say that if it does happen, I expect a phenonomal growth in market share for Linux (on the order of 1000%). This makes it a worthwhile gamble.
On a closing note, I'll say I'd love to see Linux disks being given away like the AOL disks are now. That would really trouble Microsoft!
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.
Why Red Hat? Corel would probably be a lot cheaper, and would get them an office suite for the new platform besides. It may need a bit of patching right now, and updating for new libraries, but it's pretty close.
OTOH, they might, e.g., buy Lindows, and help everyone feel at home.
Or buy Stormix (if they can find who owns the rights). That one would be real cheap, and is known to work well.
I don't see them forking out the cash to purchase Red Hat. All they'd be buying is the name, and in the market that they would be targeting, Red Hat is a completely unknown name.
Or they could just do what Mandrake did. Fork off of a Red Hat distribution, and start developing it.
Or they could stay out of the systems market entirely, and just decide that it would be nice to work closely with some particular systems distributor.
But even with AOL/TW support MS won't loose it's monopoly until there is decent competition in the office suite business. That's why Sun has been pushing Open Office. Build 641 seems to work pretty well on Win95, but on Linux it crashes without useful diagnostics on even a one page document (with, be it admitted, a bit of fancy formatting).
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I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
BBSpot Slashdot Story Generator
AOL displayed it last year at E3 when Sony was showing off their PS2 harddrive combo thiny. All of this stuff runs in the Linux layer. There was also a version of RealPlayer running... looked nice and ran well.
http://net4tv.com/voice/graphics/ story/85_ps2_aol.jpg
http://net4tv.com/voice/graphics/ story/85_ps2_aol.jpg
http://db.ascii24.com/buyer/news/game/ 2001/05/18/626203-000.html
Your Windows XP CD doesn't include seven halfass web browsers, two versions of Emacs, twenty-four other text editors, sixtyfive graphical front ends to an MP3 player, six web servers and eight desktop environments.
Nor does it include a C compiler, a Python interpreter, or sixty-eight random broken tools only a software developer would use.
Face it, your Windows XP CD isn't sufficient and doesn't have all the tools your Aunt needs to balance her checkbook, play a game of solitaire, browse the web and read her email.
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
A machine that was Linux-based, AOL-optimized, and could run a subset of Windows apps would about do it. Considering the cost-of-acquisition of a new customer for AOL, it could sell these machines at a loss and still come out ahead as compared with spamming the world with coasters. If it can also run AOLindows-compliant games and apps (particularly some of the Adobe and Macromedia stuff, as well as Quicken and tax software) - without requiring those companies to do much more than be sure their stuff installs cleanly under Wine - then it's like: Do you want to pay $1000 for a new Windows machine; or would you rather pay $600 for the same hardware (that's -$200 AOL loss leader, -$200 Microsoft licenses) and still be able to run everything you, average home user, could need?
And the next time Microsoft is selling a Windows upgrade, offer an AOLindows conversion kit for free, and offer some cool new AOL features that don't work under Win. ("We're sorry, but feature X can't be separated from the OS.")
With the AOL user base, companies would pay to have their stuff certified AOLindows compliant. It's a sure win if it gets out of the starting gate.
____
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
This isn't just a good from the "let's get away from everything microsoft" viewpoint.
Think of what this means for cross-platform AOL clients:
Mac support: OS9, OSX.x
Linux support (no client yet, but the switch to gecko should reduce the amount of work to be done in porting)
Think about what it means for advancing the real W3C standards:
A standards compliant rendering engine used by the largest single percentage of Internet users out there...?
This is all good stuff.
Well aside from AOL taking over my RoadRunner connection in the near future, and controlling everything on cable.
Now, if we can all just agree to stop using any version of Netscape 4.x, I'll be a happy programmer.
It will render what you want just fine as long as you put in the right DTD. (I just tried it). If you don't know what you are doing, then just don't use the strict DTD. Anyway, the standard isn't really that hard to understand, and documentation is freely available -- you should try reading it sometime.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
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.
If MS _does_ produce a windows OS without IE imbedded in the OS wouldn't it be easiest to use the gecko rendering engine? Not to assume that vendors would ship without IE, but MS legal issues may be part of AOL's basis for this decision. AOL owns Netscape anyway, the decision kind of makes sense.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
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
I just care about my users *and* my systems: I want my systems stable and my users happy. I try to find the middleway. A real tyrant woudn't even consider installing a file sharing program on his systems. I just didn't find a good word, "tyrant" is not good...perhaps "protectionist" would be better. I never said that I was a good admin, I just try to do my best.
I knew that joke by the way... it was nice to read it again, thanx for the laugh :-)
Doens't change my mind on the AOLinux topic...
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
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.
Most Slashdotter's decry the AOL/TW bohemoth because of the monopolistic implications, I'm with you on that one, so don't flame me on this basis.
;)
Just a thought related to an AOL client for Linux... Linux user's would never install the annoying AOL client on their box, but why not try to win the tech savvy Linux crowd over with an "AOL lite". $10 a month for your basic dial up essentials.
Yeah, it's not broadband. But remember that some of us either a.) can't afford broadband, or b.) can't get it. That's what our employer's pipes are for!
No, it is not. The genie is long out of the bottle, and there is no going back. Non-standard HTML is just way it is.
By maintaining an ivory tower postion, where only so-called standards-compliant HTML gets rendered, and ignoring the web-wide reality of broken HTML generators, common HTML errors, and commonly used HTML extensions, we embark on a losing strategy.
This strategy leaves you a marginal player, whining on the sidelines, out of any consideration of being a real player. Yes, you get to feel smug about taking the "high road" and pontificate about how standards-compliant you are, and how stoopid web authors are to blame for users' troubles.
But at the end of the day, the browser which just "works" for Joe Business is the one which wins. Simple as that. No arguments about standards. No lectures about speach and beer. It either works, or it doesn't.
Reminds me of that saying: In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, however, they are different. Time to get away from theory and have a look at real-world practice.
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
with the frequency of AOL's point-zero software releases, we'll see Mozilla in AOL by the end of next week.
Licorys linux is super easy, has KDE 2.something, and fits on one CD. you should try it.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
Decent competition in the office suite community? Name ONE reason anyone would switch from MS Office. ONE. And don't say cost, because as we all know Office comes free on PCs. :-P
My journal has hot
Once the contract is signed and the news gets to wall street that redhat signed a support contract with the largest isp in the world, the stock will certainly rise =)
APPLE would be perfect
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Redhat doesnt need AOL, AOL needs redhat.redhat has hundreds of millions and they are making more money as we speak
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
AOL/TW will buy Red Hat. They're looking to break free of Microsoft...
Why Red Hat? Corel would probably be a lot cheaper...
make me wonder if AOL perhaps missed an opportunity by not buying Be. Seems to me BeOS would have fit the bill for all this talk of an AOL web/email only consumer box, and could have been purchased for a song. Am I overlooking something here?
Cheers.
Bush is a cylon.
Most of the comments are running under the assumtion that Joe AOL user will upgrade as soon as a new version is available. Well, it isn't true.
.exe attachment.
I know a few people that use AOL and some of them still use 5.0 and earlier. If it works, they're not going to mess with it.
As for AOLinux, I'm sure that will die a quick death as soon as someone can't open some virus infected
Get a life!
I hope the reputation of the phrases like "This site is AOL-friendly" and "AOL users click here" doesn't slow web developers from making their sites compatible with Mozilla. I still see sites complain about the "AOL browser's" weak support for png, so I hope AOL can find a way to prevent web developers from confusing the ancient AOL browser with a Gecko-based AOL browser (embedded Mozilla).
The shareholder is always right.
I find this very suspicious considering AOL's relationahip with Sun Microsystems - namely the iPlanet joint venture.
The general rule of thumb was that you tried to fix it for about 20-30 minutes.. If it was going to take longer, you'd be better off reinstalling.
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
Why Red Hat?
If AOL starts using RedHat exclusively for their Linux servers/desktops it would make sense to buy that particular distribution (if they were to buy one at all).
Fork off of a Red Hat distribution, and start developing it...
The problem with that is you need the people to develop it. Buying RedHat would give you many of the people you'd need to continue development.
The original post does not say that AOLinux would make it to the desktop in bussinesses directly, but putting it on the desktop somewhere would (home sector in this case) would push the other sectors (bussiness).
I actually think this logic is flawed, because I'm convinced that people choose their computer/OS on basis of what they know from work and not inversely. (My dad bought an IBM PS/2 back in the days running DOS...even tough much cheaper Amigas were more advanced)
I took the "ad" bit as an attempt to be funny and I disregarded the "bussiness" part on purpose. Besides, normally you state the most important point first, and the funny part last when you make an argument :-)
Now just another little anecdote on how "Joe User" thinks about OS/computers. I take my new iBook to work regularly and most people to it react very positively. Now, today I had a conversation with a less technically inclined coworker and he said he would be interested to buy one because they look neat but he won't that the Mac lacks "compatibility". He meant no office suites, no integration in current networks. That kind of stuff. I gave him a blank stare and told him that "Microsoft Office" exists for Mac and that it works well, email, internet (web, you know), are there and that it connects perfectly within my hybrid (W2K/Linux/OpenBSD) network at home. Heck I hack into the company network with it, but don't tell the sysadmin. Then he told me something about not being able to add TV cards to a Mac....ehm, isn't a Mac reputed for multimedia? (he was fantasizing about the cinema LCD screen coupled to a PC with a TV card or something like that)o ". (Yes, he is a managing type with a paycheck triple of mine, otherwhise one can't even think of those Cinema LCD screens ;-) )
You see, people are not informed at all... So this guy would be the typical "at-work-I-have-windows-98-I-want-that-at-home-to
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Mozilla is NOT some holy grail of rendering. It builds crap as does IE
Ummm no. That would be nice, but it's just not true. At the moment the Windows and Mac clients both use MSIE.
This is definately an issue with the big guys, it's precisely big corporations which think they can get away with telling their customers what browser to use. Just go down the list of AOL partner sites with Netscape and try to use their login functions and the like if you don't believe me.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Oh god that's new maybe AOL will be good now instead of just plain.. Well we all know about AOL so lets just leave it at that. Now if it did change that would be as if Hell frozen over!!!! who knows I think that would be great if it did change well that should be really intresting if this happens
nothing good can ever come from staying with normal people
I think the big difference between Linux and Windows in this respect is that with Linux nothing is hidden from the knowledgeable user. By looking at the available documentation and code on my Linux box I can figure out how to fix absolutely any problem.
With Windows, sources of information on the details are rarer (yeah, there's a lot of stuff on the MS web site, but there's a lot of stuff not covered, as well) and you have no recourse to the source code. From what I've seen the way you learn how to fix a Windows box is to either (1) take a bunch of classes from MS or (2) hang out with a bunch of guys who took bunch of classes and/or know people at MS.
Is there another way? I ask primarily out of curiosity, since I don't foresee myself going back to a Windows platform anytime soon, and I'm quite enjoying the reprieve from tech support for my neighbors, relatives, etc., since I started saying "Oh, your Windows mahchine doesn't work? Sorry, I use Linux, don't know anything about Windows." ;-)
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
There are a lot of comments here to the effect of: "Yeah, cool, if AOL switches to Mozilla, 30% of the population of the web will suddenly require Mozilla compatibility and all those stinking IE-only pages will get fixed!"
There's something to that, but don't forget AOL's point of view: "If we switch all of our users over to Mozilla, we're going to have millions of customers who are annoyed that since they installed AOL 8.0 their favorite web sites don't work." This will create a huge number of support calls and may incent some people to switch service providers. AOL support has the option of telling customers to minimize "AOL" and click on "that funny-looking blue 'e'" so they can use their web sites, but AOL prefers that most of their users not know they have the option of surfing without all the AOL goodies and ads.
Not that AOL doesn't have the power to get all of the sites fixed (they clearly do), but they've had their share of black eyes in the past and aren't eager to get another one.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Sure: MS Office doesn't have a Linux version :)
Zodiac Survey
Besides, AOL also produce various set top boxes, PC appliances including one based around Linux & Gecko which no doubt their partners are also required to support.
FREE operating system that cannot read your Word docs from work or play any of the games you bought at CompUSA! FREE!!!
cpeterso
Both the Mac and Windows version are "reasonably standards compliant" in the sense that they will render standard compliant HTML reasonably well. That's not the problem at all. The problem is that they also support lots of non-standard code, which MS encourages people to use instead.
Umm produced, past tense, and there was only one the best I remember. It was never made in large quantities, and never sold very well, and was discontinued long ago.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Cost.
Office comes free on OEM PCs, the kind marketted to people who don't know hardware from software and to whom an OS is a "start button".
Office PCs come bare and the IT department installs everything the employee is going to need.
Usually when installing a PC the software costs are more than the hardware.
Most companies do IT in an ad-hoc way, buying a new computer (whatever is cheapest) to replace a dead one, or for a new employee. These companies are hopeless, but they'll likely die because they do this half-assed stuff in other areas too.
Companies that are on the ball upgrade all PCs every few years, buy some spares, and do it from a dealer who will guarantee being able to sell them identical hardware until their next upgrade point. They decide on a software package, do one perfect install, and ghost all the rest in machine that support hot-swap IDE drive bays. I've been there, working on that kind of thing.
The company was willing to spend a few dollars for quality parts, and was willing to trim in other areas because every dollar saved on a PC was $100k+ when spread across every PC worldwide.
If they could save $200 on Office XP ($600 new, assume 1/3 of list, for a large site-license) times 100k PCs it's going to be worth some training and getting used to a slightly different interface.
Actually, the funny thing is that MS's anti-piracy measures have caused more demand for non-MS products than anything else recently. I've had clients ask for non-MS (free specifically) internet terminals, for free office suites, etc. All because they either fear the BSA, or actually purchased a computer themselves and noticed the huge cost of the software.
Had MS kept their mouth shut they wouldn't have lost these people. It might not be much, but when people realise you can live without MS software it'll just get easier.
Has anyone thought that maybe AOL pays money(?!?) to Microsoft for using their browser??? And that, since we all pretty much agree that the Moz is shaping up quite nicely - and without a doubt AOL certainly has a right to use it - that perhaps money might be the reason for the switch???
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
Counter-point: if AOL announces the change-over, no web site out there can afford to not work with Mozilla when the change occurs. You simply can't afford to tell 30% of your user-base "Sorry, we don't want your business.". If they're under the gun, I suspect the web designers will scramble to accomodate this large chunk of their user-base. It's not like they don't have the tools available, after all.
Before you start ranting about how a Linux user would never pay $23 / month (or whatever it is) for AOL service, consider this first:
That $10.00 a month dialup locally owned ISP you use now doesn't likely have many local phonenumbers available. Many people that travel (including some Linux users) prefer to have a large ISP such as AOL so they have local numbers to dial without signing up for multiple ISPs.
"that web site isn't Internet compliant"
is pretty much all they'll have to say. Most people can find another site that gives them what they want, and bigger site will comply, and fast.
Imagine you own a large Web Business.
Suddenly 30 million people can't buy your stuff because your not compliant, what do you do?
hmmmm.
That proplbably here more about this in more public areas of the media as time goes buy. sort of a heads up.
I hope every "web-master" whose site is non compliant gets fired when people can't utilize the site they where hired to create.
and by fired I mean 'hit by a truck'.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
AOL is justified in being wary of offering a Linux client that sucks them into providing support for a myriad variety of Linux distributions. But... you can fit a lot of stuff on a CD. How about giving folks an option by rolling out an AOL version of Linux with the AOL client? If you want a Linux AOL client plus AOL support, you get to run AOL Linux. Sounds reasonable to me.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
...so... how can you make people with this type of outlook, your excuse in losing the battle over the desktop?
I think it is evident from looking at the average hardcore gamer that uses Windows primarily.
IMHO I believe that they would be the easiest "Microsoft using demographic" to sway to Linux. Taking into consideration that (most of) these hardcore gamers already have a basic understanding of hardware, drivers, etc...
When it comes down to it, they are gamers. If gamers were flocking to Linux, I don't believe that Loki would have went under since they were the largest single business entity involved in Linux gaming.
NOTE... Of course it is possible that Loki went under due to other factors than just slow sales, but having an almost non-existant customer base is the most obvious.
to see "This web page best viewed using Mozilla!"
;)
Revenge is sweet!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The minute Mozilla 1.0 comes out, I'm switching to it on every machine I use. I wonder how many more like me there are out there?
I really would like to have mod points, so I can mod up the parent (the comment #3145234, by hkmwbz)