On Sat, 2002-01-19 at 10:50, Nick Wilson wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > > * On 19-01-02 at 16:16 > * Dave Ihnat said.... > > > On Sat, Jan 19, 2002 at 09:09:08AM -0500, Bob Staaf wrote: > > > AOL/Time Warner buying Red Hat might be great for those who use Linux as a > > > Desktop workstation but, anyone actually believe they care about competing > > > in the server market? > > > > As a professional in the field, I'm afraid if that happens I'll not > > only switch myself, I'll actively recommend against the "new" Redhat to > > my clients. They're just the wrong player in this field. > > Here here! > I'm not against making Linux a more popular alternative but AOL? Jeeez! > - --
I have never really USED another linux distro. I have installed and dinked with several. Here are a couple of almost random (meaning not really thought out) thoughts. Several years ago I was at the Linux Expo in Raleigh right after AOL bought/bailed out Netscape. ( Does anyone think there would be a netscpae if AOL had not stepped in?). One of the speakers at the expo was the chief technology officer from netscape and a new AOL employee. He said one thing that really made me think. I will paraphrase: " We have all laughed at AOL's technology and assumed that it was substandard. Those of use who have run networks with thousands of users think we are pretty good. Now consider running a network with 15 millon simultaneous users world wide. Makes you think? AOL has this every day of every week. These guys know what the are doing." It did make me think. I thought the work managment system I worked on at a meduim sized utility that supported ~1500 users that was integrated across os2, win 95, and HPUX, all talking to a faily good sized DB2 data base on MVS through CICS and in turn talked to the inventory management, customer service, time reporting, and property accounting systems was a pretty big deal. It was. Now take that and increase it by 4 orders of magnitude. Not four times butadd four zeros. Holy shit! Maybe those guys do know what is going on. Now I know that the end user of AOL is not the (current) typical linux user, Red Hat or otherwise, but they were tageting an entirely different market. That is a business model issue not a technical one. In fact I think building a system that even the most braindead computer illiterate user can sucessfully operate indicates a level of expertise that is way beyond the norm. An AOL with all the resources it has to bear, buying a big distro could be the best thing that ever happened to linux if the goal is to get drivers that work on lots of hardware. After all they have a vested interest in making it work on as many machines as possible. Red Hat hs some really sharp folks and a demonstrated ability to bring a good product to market using a constantly changing codebase. I would make sense for AOL to try and purchase that expertise if they are wanting to go after a non windows desktop for the masses. Steve Case and our friend Bill are not exactly best of friends you know. Add to that AOLs relationship with Sun ( Sun bought the Netscape server stuff IIRC) and you might have a force that could actually compete with Microsoft for the desktop in a big way. Of course there are many things that could go wrong, or rather, must go right, in order for this to be a really GOOD THING for the current RHL user but there are after all other disrtos that will benefit from at least some of the work that AOL might do. >From Red Hat management standpoint lets remember that the primary purpose of a corporation is to increase the wealth of its stockholders. We do, after all, live in a capitalist economy and if I were a RH stockholder I would be giddy right now at even hearing these kinds of rumours. And no, I do not believe that because it is on the web it must be true :) Whew, I guess I dumped more than I intended and like I said it is not really intended to be a cohesive argument but rather some thoughts that immediatly came to mind upon reading this thread and offer a broader view of some of the issues. Bret _______________________________________________ Redhat-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
