The first news posts I read anywhere about the AOL-Red Hat talks pointed immediately to AOL's tendency to require certain intellectual property standards in their whole program suite. They don't have what I'd call a favorable record with third-party software vendors.
This is one of those companies that gave independent ICQ a moving target in an IM protocol for MONTHS. When AOL finally bought ICQ, updates on the software stopped for nearly a year. When I lose connectivity to ICQ -- regularly --, it's because a traceroute stops at an AOL router on the east coast. AOL bought Netscape. AFAIK, the default browser in an AOL installation is STILL ie. Why a company would pay license fees to a use a competitor to a product they OWN is beyond me. When Larry Ellison found Oracle, Inc using third-party software in their own business infrastructure, he cleaned house and built that "saved $1 billion using Oracle software" campaign. AOL hasn't gotten the message yet. Call me cynical, but I could see this merger going through amid great PR hype and going absolutely nowhere. AOL won't use software they own that didn't bear their company name from birth, won't release a Linux client for their ISP customers, and won't open their connection protocols for anyone else to do it. I just don't see this going anywhere productive. As for the huge AOL user base, well... that client may be an enormous kludge, but it is NOT an operating system. You've got a million online gamers trying to play quake online through an AOL dialup, and there's no way they're going to give up their entire OS just to see if "They've Got Mail!" -- -j On Sun, 20 Jan 2002, John Hebert wrote: > Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 10:52:05 -0600 > From: John Hebert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To: "'[EMAIL PROTECTED]'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [brluglist] AOLinux? > > I wanted to know what other BRLUGers thought about the talks between AOL and > RedHat. Good thing? Bad thing? What if AOL put funds into making a distro > that users installed instead of M$? > > http://news.com.com/2100-1001-819243.html > > John Hebert > ================================================ > 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. > ================================================ > ================================================ 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. ================================================
