Feature:More on Red Hat/Intel/Netscape

After reading a lot of stories about RH/I/N (including Chuck Milam's submission from CNN) I decided to write up my opinions on the whole deal and dump them online. Hit the link below to read it if you care.

Ok, here are my opinions on the deal:

1. Successful Linux = Less Microsoft. This is good for Intel who constantly has to suffer under MSs iron will. I have no problem with things reducing Microsoft Control.
2. Intel supporting Linux makes x86 'better' under Linux. We all talk about using Alpha and PPC for Linux, but if Intel puts the R&D money into this thing, Merced (and whatever comes next) will fly with linux. This sets Intel up nicely. Will IBM and Compaq react by supporting Linux on their chips as well? Wouldn't that be great! Suddenly all these platforms have corporations helping finance kernel optimizations for their platforms. Yum yum.
3. With Transmeta's Mystery Chip rumored, Intel is gonna want to get their name in lights or risk missing the boat. They've got the market share and don't want to lose it to this startup.
4. But why Red Hat? Because Red Hat is a good name. A lot of people see this as a problem- endorsing one Linux or another isn't a problem tho. Red Hat develops under the GPL. They contribute to Gnome. You can run their stuff on any distribution. So any benefits to Red Hat also benefits us all. And Red Hat makes some money, and hires more hackers. More hackers who will write more GPLd software. How can you not love this? More folks to help support linux will be hired. Tech support is one of the major shortcomings. IRC and Email are fine for many people, but some folks want phone support. Besides, support guys are better at support than software developers who are A. Busy and B. Not always as good as supporting users as they are at writing code.
5. UDI felt strange to me. But no more. Intel will support more drivers. Could this weight open up I2O? Wouldn't that be wonderful? How about USB? All those wacky 3d chipsets intel sells? Intel will want to support drivers. Other companies will follow.
6. But Best Of All Linux has Intel behind it. We've got IBM, Sun, Intel, all the major players are endorsing us. It'll be a lot easier to tell you boss you want to use Linux when Intel backs it up. Your boss trusts intel. He's been using Intel CPUs since the 8086. If Intel endorses it, he'll let you run it. That'll make a lot of closet Linux Lovers much happier in NT dominated work environments.