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AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat?
Posted by
michael
on Fri Jan 18, 2002 11:07 PM
from the drm-coming-to-rpm dept.
from the drm-coming-to-rpm dept.
bstadil sent in this rumor. The Washington Post isn't exactly a rumor site, so there's probably truth behind it. Wow. It would make a great deal of sense for AOL/Time-Warner to acquire an operating system for leverage against Microsoft - same reason they bought Netscape.
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AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat?
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Why, It's free already? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why, It's free already? (Score:5, Insightful)
They acquire the talent, the distribution, and the brand recognition all in one move. It would save them money in the long run versus hiring knowledgeable people and creating a distro to capture the market share redhat already has.
It just makes more sense (for a large conglomerate) when moving into a new market to buy an established company than it does to start your own division that knows nothing about the new market and spend time playing catch-up. They can spend those resources instead on going where they want to go from the established base.
Re:Why, It's free already? (Score:5, Insightful)
The GPL is a good start - but if you want to control future development the only way to effectively do that is either hire some programming staff or buy the company.
Buying the company is usually cheaper.
Re:Why, It's free already? (Score:5, Insightful)
So why do I use AOL? I live in the UK, and AOL is BY FAR the best unlimited access dial-up service available. (Getting broadband is just too pricey right now.)
What is the major thing stopping me from switching to Linux altogether? It's not Word or Excel, it's not Internet Explorer (LOL) it's the lack of AOL. I have about 7 years worth of saved emails in my AOL Personal Filing Cabinet, which I NOW realise are pretty much lost forever as soon as I switch services (this is unless someone has reverse-engineered the file format, which I haven't seen done well in AOL's case)
At least I have a good computer. My father, who has a slower computer (ideal for Linux) will not swap, solely because of the lack of AOL. He's no dummy either. He's been using computers since well before the Commodore PET, and programming since then too. He doesn't want to leave mostly because all his friends know his email address.
I guess this has got a bit long, but the point is PLEASE don't assume that all AOL users are idiots, and/or know nothing about Linux. In the US, you may have free local calls to your ISP. In the UK, unless you're on AOL, don't expect to do that and be able to connect even 1 out of 5 times that you dial up.
I've posted anonymously, because my message is more important than my identity.
Re:Why, It's free already? (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite how bad it has been, AOL has made massive improvements over the last few years. Still got a way to go, but ...
Switching to a Linux base would be another step on the road - faster, more stable, and no rebooting after the latest 'service pack' ;)
If it goes through, I foresee a situation like IE vs Netscape, except, in this scenario, millions of homes get a CD with a 'free' OS. There are a growing number of people out there who only use their machine for the net (surfing, e-mail, IM, etc). And there's a small number of companies that sell machines that run from a single CD. MS is no slacker in the 'marketing dirty tricks' division, but AOL could do serious, long term damage with their 'CD in every household' approach.
AOL managers may not know the technical side of Red Hat, but I'm pretty sure they understand what it means to the overall game plan. Two quotes come to mind, one about it's not necessary to make a large profit of every item you sell, as long as it means your competitor doesn't sell one; and from Netscape eons ago, to the effect that every time they sold a copy, it ran on Windows, so the two companies remained tied, but whenver a user opted for IE, then Microsoft won, so that Netscape could never win while it ran under Windows.
The implication is quite clear - if AOL wants to 'win', the best way would be to support an alternative OS.
AOL buys *all* the cool stuff. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's interesting: AOL has bought almost all of the coolest stuff on the Net: Netscape, ICQ, WinAMP. Don't forget that Gnutella came out of there, too.
And they've let all of them, so far, mostly be their own companies.
Re:AOL buys *all* the cool stuff. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:AOL buys *all* the cool stuff. (Score:5, Interesting)
With Netscape, there's tight integration in some cases, where it makes sense (e-mail for NetCenter), and not others. And again, the development resources are often shared between groups when needed.
Sometimes the integration can be premature, at best. There were many articles in the press about trouble when AOL brought TW employees onto the AOL e-mail infrastructure, which just wasn't ready to support the type of groupware features TW was used to. I argued against forcing it down their throats, but the merger team had already decided what a Good Thing it was, and there was no fighting it. Long term, though, it'll be a big boon to the AOL back end, forcing some feature development. And I believe there are other such ways they've leveraged support staffs (staves?) and other infrastructure since I left.
In general, I think AOL's been fairly smart about when to integrate and when not to integrate.
Jay the ex-mail guy
AOL is acquiring anti-MS weapons, plain & simp (Score:5, Insightful)
AOL needs to fight MS in every way it can. AOL's known this for years, which is why they partnered with Sun & Netscape, and why they're buying strategic projects. Think about the most visible points of contact with MS software.
* MSN Service, IM
AOL's got these, always have. But picking up ICQ was a quick way to buy up a bigger userbase. MS is actually the ones fighting back on this front, partnering agressively with broadband providers like Qwest to push MSN-branded net access.
* IE
AOL has used IE as long as they've had a browser, but you can be sure it's not because they liked the idea. There just wasn't a viable non-MS browser out there. You can be sure they'll switch to NS6 as soon as they feel it's ready.
* Media Player
A biggie. Especially with the changes made in XP. MS wants to push WMP as the RIAA-friendly media, figuring if they can get support from the labels, it won't matter what the users want, because WMP will be the one that has the copy protection the RIAA will support. AOL picked up WinAmp because it was the player with the best chance of pushing back against WMP.
* IIS
All three partners in the deal, AOL, Sun, and Netscape, went in with one goal in mind. Fight MS. Did it work? Eh, not really. But they've still got a lot of NS server software available for use at some point, if they can find a good use.
* Windows
So, picking up a Linux distro is perfectly logical for them. They're trying as best they can on all the above fronts, so why not pick up an OS and push it as an alternative? Imagine what a company with AOL's media control powers could do with RedHat. Build AOL services right into the desktop, stick it in a set-top (To fight WebTV).
Re:AOL buys *all* the cool stuff. (Score:4, Informative)
AOLserver [aolserver.com]runs big parts of aol.com and digitalcity.com. Say what you may about the quality of AOL's services, but when was the last time you heard of either of those websites going down? Or getting hacked?
Re:AOL buys *all* the cool stuff. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:AOL buys *all* the cool stuff. (Score:5, Interesting)
What else should they focus on? Skeeball tickets?
Again, here you go with the anti-capitalisim. What, exactly, is wrong with making money?
No offence, and I know you mean well, but you really need to lighten up on the money making thing. Money makes the world go around, and no matter what you want to believe, it's not evil. It's what you do with it that counts.
AOL is not my favorite corporation, but they're doing well, that means they're doing things right for the majority of people who use their service. Yes, you and I know their service sucks, but THEY ARE MAKING MONEY! There's nothing more grand, more worthwile, and more deserving of our respect than profit. Nothing.
Look at it this way: money gives you the ability to affect change in the way you desire. Therefore, if you gain a lot of money you can do what you wish. If in the process you are corrupted by the money then you weren't a person of the convictions you started out with. This isn't a bad thing (unless you fund things to further the "bad things" you are convinced of.) It's merely a barometer of what you really are, and most of us are selfish "bastards".
I'm too drunk now to spout out some sort of disertation , but remember this: you're only as corrupt as you allow yourself to be.
Re:Content Control on Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess you're new to the world of Linux, so I'll be charitable. Red Hat merely produces a distribution centred around the Linux kernel, GNU tools, and a raftload of other software.
Linus Torvalds, father of the kernel and current head honcho of kernel development, works for Transmeta, not Red Hat.
How does that work, you ask? Simple. The only person who "owns" anything related to Linux is Linus, who holds the trademark for Linux. If Red Hat (or, in the future, AOL) were to get too asinine with the use of the Red Hat name, as they have done recently, it's conceivable that Linus could simply tell them they haven't the right to call their product "Red Hat Linux" anymore.
The world of Linux is far more complex than the world of Microsoft, for many reasons.
A carton of feces (Score:4, Insightful)
What happened with Netscape?
Microsoft edged it out. Netscape lost its competitiveness. In a straight comparison, IE kicks Netscape's ass now. The innovation departed from Netscape.
The purchase of Linux by AOL will come with a big PR campaign about AOLinux or whatever. There will be a standard, SINGLE image of Linux in the brains of most consumers, and then AOL will take that up against Microsoft, which will easily defeat it in many consumer-level preference comparisons.
Then, the consumers will forget Linux, not knowing that there are dozens of different flavors out there.
I recommend keeping all linices entirely without involvement by non Linux corporations, for these cultural reasons.
IE does not kick Netscape's behind anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
In a straight comparison, IE kicks Netscape's ass now.
Netscape 4's perhaps, but with regard to IE 6 vs. Mozilla 0.9.8 (effectively Netscape 6.3; 0.9.8 is due to be released in a week), I have to hand this round to Mozilla. Mozilla starts faster than IE, supports more CSS, supports XHTML (as opposed to IE just bailing and dumping the XML tree), allows for Opera-style tabbed browsing (which saves Windows user and gdi resources compared to the one window per page paradigm of IE, especially on Win9x/ME where user and gdi heaps are only 64 KB), works on platforms other than IE's Windows, Mac OS, Solaris, and HPUX, and even comes with a rudimentary IRC client (which IE+Outhouse does not).
What does IE 6 have that Mozilla lacks (other than market share, which can change once the next version of Concept Virus hits)?
Stop Spreading FUD... (Score:4, Informative)
My webpage is Fully Compliant XHTML 1.0 Transitional [w3.org] and renders better in IE 6.0 than in Mozilla (as text and images not this "dumping the XML tree that you speak of). Mozilla is a great browser but when I see people spreading lies in an effort to spread its usage I feel disgusted.
Let the browser stand on its own merits instead of spreading FUD to promote it. This sullies the name of Mozilla and all that work on it.
Re:Stop Spreading FUD... (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone else have already pointed, may be you should try to validate your CSS.
And "Fully Compliant XHTML 1.0 Transitional", means nothing,
you aren't supposed to make new pages using Transitional,
try to make it compliant with XHTML 1.0 Strict...
Anybody that knows a bit about CSS and HTML will tell you how much better
support for them Mozilla have.
Does IE already support CSS1?
I remember when some one from MS said that they would never support
100% CSS1, because "no body really want it", that one was funny..
And how much of CSS2 do they support?
:after,
No
All the table formating options?
No
etc..
I have a big respect for you, I have read some very interesting comments written by you,
but I think you should check your facts better before spreading this kind of FUD, you may
prefer IE, but it's an accepted fact that the standards support in Mozilla is very superior
to IE. (and I don't mean that Mozilla is perfect, I should know, I helped to run hundreds
of CSS test in Mozilla a while a go)
Best regards
\\Uriel
P.S.: Please, let me know when IE is ported to
FreeBSD so I can look at your page, or may be you will fix it first?
Here's REAL:LY why AOL bought Netscape: (Score:3, Interesting)
KPCB has a long history of leveraging his full constellation of companies to maintain KPCB influence - and this is why he is often referred to as the most powerful man in Silicon Valley.
Re:The End of the MS Monopoly (Score:4, Funny)
For some reason, that sounds . . . arousing.
~~~
Re:The End of the MS Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember the days when people didn't want "PC Compatible", they wanted "Lotus 1-2-3 Compatible" and "Microsoft Flight Simulator Compatible". The problem with the various attempts at internet appliances has been that the target audience knows what they want, and what they want is AOL.
Re:The End of the MS Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about. Take AOL, with Mozilla for the web, mail, and a shared family calendar. Throw in the instant messenger aspect of it. Throw in Winamp and a nifty CD player. Throw in all the proprietary features and content. Throw in a little special version of Abiword. Throw in a special version Gnumeric.
Bammo, Batman. An AOL-based subscription funded OS that provides 95% of the day-to-day functionality that most people (AOL people, actually) tend to use.
That'd be a good thing. And the end of the MS monopoly for both geeks (who can already run Linux) and for non-geeks (who could just use AOL-OS).
Please no.... (Score:3, Funny)
Good and Bad. (Score:4, Flamebait)
While AOL could provide a huge shot in the arm to Linux (it wont make a huge jump to the desktop without being able to run AOL, sad but true), what geek wants to run an AOL OS?? Would AOL/TW put their icons everywhere, or try to include DRM in it?? AOL/TW isn't much better than MS after all, they cater to the lowest common denominator.
Oh well, if they do, I'll just go to another distro, I suppose.
Re:Good and Bad. (Score:4, Insightful)
There's nothing wrong with a "lowest common denominator" version of Linux. Why should Linux be just for geeks? This will just be another distro, and there can be as many Linux distros as are needed. The geeks will just use a different one (Slackware, Debian, etc.)
Even the people who are presently using RedHat wouldn't be hurt much by this. I bet that if AOL bought RedHat, some community-supported distro based on the last release of RedHat would emerge (minus any proprietary software, of course) and fans of the "old" RedHat would just shift over to using that.