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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
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.
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.
- They are split apart
- They adopt Free Software and Open Standards across the board
- 95%+ of websites will ONLY render with the mozilla engine
- RMS is appointed General/Technical/Absolute Manager
- MS buys AOL
- Hell freezes over
Seriously it will take a massive shift in MS for this to happen and it would probably be one of the least significant things which would appear from such a transition (I imagine a GPL WordViewer would be about top of the list and the biggest thing we could see). MS detests free software (or open software or anything that might prevent their control) and would pay a massive price rather than lose control of the internet browsing experiences of the web. I would actually expect it to be far more likely that MS will become more aggressive in locking out other browsers than IE wherever possible (think IIS, Frontpage and all the MS controlled sites). Hell they conned Tony "The Stooge" Blair into handing over large wadges of cash for the new government public internet portal which is completly IE dependant! Ah well let the battle commense again.Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
With support like that from the biggest companies in the world, who needs enemies?
:-P
I'll make a prediction right now...Do I have to say it? Oh, I guess I do...
AOL/TW will buy Red Hat. They're looking to break free of Microsoft, especially since Microsoft basically screwed them over with XP. They will finally make good on a Mozilla/AOL client, they will release versions for Linux and Windows and continue with the strategy that Linux is the cheapest way to get AOL into every household in America.
People buying computers just to get on the Internet (there's still a lot of those) will buy Linux machines (without really knowing why) that have AOL installed on them. Microsoft will slowly lose their grip on the consumer desktop market...
They'll continue to own the commercial market until the same twits who insist on the use of Windows in the commercial market because it "looks just like what i've got at home" will have Linux at home, and then they'll want that because it "looks just like what I've got at home."
Boom, Microsoft's stranglehold on the desktop fails, Linux takes over and utopia finally sets in.
Whatcha think? Too far fetched?
My journal has hot
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...)
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.