[thelist] AOL wants to buy RH Linux??

Keith cache at dowebs.com
Sat Jan 19 21:55:31 CST 2002


jeff

> in the meantime, wanna talk about a browser market with little to 
no competition where the owner/distributor of the os also owns the 
browser?
> 

Well, let's see... There's only one company that currently fits your 
description, Microsoft. Why do you think Microsoft should be the 
only one who can get away with "no competition where the 
owner/distributor of the os also owns the browser". What's wrong 
with Nokia, AOL, Toyota, and/or General Foods getting part of the 
action? Or three gals from Tampa for that matter? 

As for that article, did you notice anyone in the industry being 
quoted? No, what's there is some moron reporter's fantacy on a 
subject that's obviously over his little head. Imagine his scenario, 
AOL forces 30 million currently paying customers to install Linux OR 
quit using AOL. Right, like that's *really* gonna happen! AOL isn't 
that dumb, by design AOL users have the lowest level of user 
sophistication - so you force them to use an OS that requires one of 
the highest levels of sophistication. Yeah, right!

What's more likely to happen, the same fate as Netscape. AOL will 
chase off the talent at RedHat, take two years to produce their first 
upgrade, an upgrade so broken even they will announce they have 
no intention of fixing it. The bad news is that an acquisition by AOL 
means RedHat's finished, if their handling of Netscape is any 
indicator of how they'd waste RedHat too. It's a kiss of death for 
RedHat as far as I can see.

keith




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