[thelist] AOL wants to buy RH Linux??

[deke]

On 19 Jan 2002 at 20:47, .jeff posted a message which said:

> absolutely.  what's worse -- a) a company that gobbles up other
> companies that have either attractive or competing software and actually
> uses that software in their future releases or b) a company that gobbles
> up other companies and turns those companies and their product into a
> shambles? there's no doubt the answer is "a".  "b" is just pure evil and
> of no use to anybody but themselves.

Hmmm. Comparing Mapquest and Mirabilis to WebTV and SCO, I'd have to 
say that AOL is "a" and Microsoft is "b"

> if i had to choose between
> microsoft or aol being the one that owned the os and the browser, i'd
> pick microsoft 100 times out of 100.

But the key point of this is that RED HAT DOESN'T OWN LINUX.

> the scary thing about aol and its looming power is they have *no* regard
> for standards whatsoever.  people complain about microsoft, but they're
> far better about standards than most of the critics give them credit
> for.

Q. How many microsofters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
 
> another thing is that aol is a media company -- microsoft is not.
> microsoft's main focus since day 1 has been software development.  when
> it comes to supporting products and pushing new releases, patches,
> upgrades, whatever out the door, nobody knows more about that than
> microsoft.  the same can't be said for aol.

Have you heard that the Department of Justice wants to split Microsoft 
into two companies - Microsoft and Patchsoft?  Most of the employees
want to work for Patchsoft, figuring they'd rather be part of the 
solution instead of part of the problem.

deke
--------
We are the parents our people warned us about....