On Saturday 19 January 2002 05:19 pm, you wrote:
> On Saturday 19 January 2002 10:01, you wrote:
> > Actually AOL is not the big company to worry about. Time Warner is
> > the real force behind that combination. They were a very large
> > monopoly long before AOL became anything to worry about. I think it
> > is kind of interesting that they want to buy RedHat just to stick
> > it in Microsoft's face that they don't have to rely on them to get
> > subscribers.
>
> Do you really think they would drop in the neighborhood of $1 billion
> if they didn't intend to turn a profit on the deal? MS FT has been
> doing all it could to push AOL off its desktop. AOL needs another
> desktop ... and quick. All the litigation and maneuvering makes my
> head swim and I soon lose track of who is goring whose ox, but I am
> 99+% certain AOL/TW would not drop that much cha-ching as an act of
> juvenile spite.
>
> 'twill be interesting to see how
> this plays in Peoria.
>
> Bill
Correct URL of Article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5064-2002Jan18.html
Funny I seem to recall every time that I visit The Washing Post using
Konqueror as a browsers theis web site is all messed up. Point is I just
don't trust any website that feels they are an authority on Linus which I can
not visit using a Linus browser.
I seem to be missing a few points in relation to AOL purchasing RH.
1. What is AOL going to buy? Linux and almost all associated programs are
under some form of public user license. RH major contribution is program
verification and packaging by a nifty installer program.
2. I thought IBM was the major corporate owner of RH. What do they think
about this? Wouldn't that screw them up with their software?
3. As far as I understand RH principal asset is it integrity. How long do
they think that will last if all RH Linux users are required to report to
AOL Central by secret code like Netscape users are? Don't believe that then
where does that news report come from on Netscape's email window?
4. How long do they think it would take almost all RH users to say "Good by
RH" and "Hello SuSE or Mandrake"? I seem to recall a major split in GUI
because KDE uses Qt which is not public domain.
What would make a lot of sense to both parties would be for AOL to give RH
software away and provide technical support for its installation. After all
you can down load RH for free and RH does make its money by providing
service to corporate customers. This concept would expand RH user base and
slowly move AOL onto another platform.
Frank
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