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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
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
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
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 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.
Didn't AOL buy Netscape? Hasn't Netscape
contibuted most of Mozilla code?
So I think AOL gave Mozilla back.
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.
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.
Americans On Linux
substitute Assholes for americans where you see fit..
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"
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.
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.
Um, Hello? AOL is *funding* mozilla. Or haven't you noticed? I don't think that's exactly 'giving nothing back'. Mozilla *rocks* -- and the source is free! What more could you ask for?
[
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!
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.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
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
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)
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.
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 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
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.
This is interesting. I just hit the "Submit" button on an opinion that takes it from the other point of view. I indicated that AOL may face a risk of departing customers if too many web pages don't work. This all brings up an interesting question: Is AOL's large install base enough to whip the noncompliant web sites into shape? Do you think they'd start working on this problem in advance of a Mozilla-based delivery? What's the right approach to make sure the web sites change rather than the AOL customer base?
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?