[ic] Re: AOL in negotiation to buy Red Hat

[Cory Trese]

	Honestly, from the point of Linux vs. Microsoft, nothing could be better
than an infusion of money and the addition of one of the most successful
software marketing systems of the past decade.

	AOL is in the business of convincing people they need AOL.  AOL users are
often of the mindset that 'the internet == aol.'  What's wrong with AOL
convincing a portion of those users that 'aol == linux' ?

	As for AOL 'hurting' linux, if you believe that can happen, then you might
just be missing the entire point of open source.  AOL can not hurt us nor
our movement -- if we don't like it, we'll take the redhat source base and
start 'Blue Hat.'

	If I had the choice between mass MSN/WindowsXP or mass AOL/RHL, I know
which one I would pick.  50% open source is better than 0% open source,
IMHO.

Cory Trese

-----O> What Eeek ?

AOL is the antonym of opensource, if you ask me. Their software is highly
buggy and some of the most nonstandard there is. In several years of
computer support, and several years using computers on my own beyond that, I
have spend hundreds of hours dealing with headaches brough about by AOL's
software.

Now, I don't think AOL will inundate RedHat with their own people and make
the software crappy. What concerns me is not the quaility of AOL's software,
but the reason that it is how it is: marketing.

The only reason AOL does not use the perfectly good browser and dialup
system that comes with Windows, is that they want to have a marketing angle.
All new! Features you can't get anywhere else (that aren't good for much)!
Plus, they employ sauturation marketing techniques and gain customers by
brute force... not to mention shady business practices like making people
commit to long-term contracts or billing them without their knowledge.

So what  happens when AOL starts tailoring RH Linux to their strategies?
Forget all the silly jokes, seriously, what would AOL do to make RHL into a
viable product? It's right here in the article:

"To counter Microsoft's desktop hegemony, New York-based AOL Time Warner
could use the deal to couple its America Online software, the market leader
with more than 33 million Internet subscribers, with Red Hat's
operating-system technology, sources said."

I can see it now: piles of RedHat discs sitting in your local wal-mart with
a shiny gold cutout sticker: "Comes with 600 hours free AOL!".

On the upside, AOL might bring an infusion of money to RedHat. But lets ask
ourselves: how high on AOL's list is E-Commerce? Are they aiming at making
money on business services or on selling low-cost RHL to consumers with AOL
trials?

I don't have all the answers, but I do know that I feel that AOL is not
likely to bring any good to RH.

JT

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