I am incredulous. Keep in mind that AOL is buying the company RedHat. They are not (cannot) buy Linux. RedHat is a corporation of a team of people who produce a distribution of the GNU/Linux system that many of us are familiar with. What would be the gain to AOL or to RedHat for AOL to buy them and have them work on a new product totally orthogonal to what they're set up and trained to do?
My two cents opinion is that AOL is considering this because RedHat and SuSE are the two easiest to use distributions; SuSE is not an american corporation. There is a fairly large market for consumers who wouldn't mind trying an alternative to Windows. One of the big problems with a lot of the distributions out there is that there isn't any helping software, the software isn't easy to use without documentation, and most of all it isn't nearly as simple as it should be to get the box communicating across the internet--or with AOL. Enter AOL. They have RedHat continue to produce an easy to use operating environment. An easy to use operating environment just as tightly integrated with a browser and AOL as Windows is with IE and MSN? I'm just speculating. I had to respond to this post, because I felt it to be somewhat off the target. On Sun, Jan 20, 2002 at 05:03:50PM -0800, tk wrote: > AOL and Linux! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! > > I heard about this on CNN.(you know, the "Communist > News Network") :<) > > I wonder if the idea here is to create some sort of > AOL quazi operating system. Thus users would just pop > the disk into their computer, and presto AOL takes > over. No offence to AOL users, but isn't the whole > marketing concept behind AOL's success based on the > premise that not so computer litterate people like my > mother disire a means to enjoy their computer without > facing a steep learning curve? Also from the > persepective of AOL's current convinience theme, an > integrated operating system would create transparency > for the AOL "information world". Just think of it! The > AOL desktop, word processing app, etc ..... It might > be just as bad as Microsoft in terms of integration, > and cross application dependence. Plus the things we > all complain about with regard to Microsoft's Monopoly > could hypotheically extend to AOL's "operating > system". Remember AOL's instant messenger? Ahhhhhh! > :<) > > I fear this might be the idea, as I just can not > imagine the "average" AOL user tinkering with Linix. I > find it hard enough myself, and I grew up with an 8086 > with two floppy drives, and no hard drive. :<) -- Nicholas E. Walker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ================================================ BRLUG - The Baton Rouge Linux User Group Visit http://www.brlug.net for more information. Send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] to change your subscription information. ================================================
