Re: AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat

[Kara Pritchard <kara@luci.org>]

I come from the other end of this. Think of how many users Red Hat will 
lose if associated with that bad word "AOL". (no offense to any 
subscribers on this list intended). Linux people are fairly adamant about 
their opinions, and RH's majority use of Linux will become a fraction of 
what it once was if merged with anything related to AOL.

On a more interesting note, this also affects me and my work at LPI (and 
of course my RHCE stuff too). LPI would become a competitor of Time 
Warner/AOL. How wierd is that. As an RHCE, I have a feeling LPI will 
benefit greatly from such an ill-advised move.

If such a thing happens, it will not be to the benefit of the Linux 
community. In fact, I'd believe it would have absolutely nothing to do 
with it. It would just be about the money involved. I'd really hate to see 
this happen. Cygnus and all the other great projects that RH took over 
would die. 

No other Linux distribution vendor is quite prepared to stand up to the 
plate and become the leading distribution. If such a merger would happen, 
it would severely damage the community. I don't consider myself to be much 
of a conspiracy theorist, but if anything I believe this would have enough 
effect in the commercial market to let Microsoft win.

-Kara

On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, Tim Grossner wrote:

> Say it aint so Jay...say it aint so...
> 
> All kidding aside it would be a big mistake, but on AOL's part. There is 
> nothing in this world that AOL users hate more than change. And if AOL is 
> thinking it could use a Linux/Redhat variant to power the whole AOL users 
> PC, AOL will lose LOTS of users. Then what happens to RedHat if that 
> market doesnt pan out...they go the way of Corel...
> 
> I say "Stay in your own backyard, AOL!"
> 
> On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, Jay Link wrote:
> 
> > 
> > AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat
> > 
> > http://www.washtech.com/news/media/14759-1.html
> > 

-- 
Kara Pritchard                          Phone: 618-398-7360
Director of Exam Development            http://www.lpi.org/
--



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