[Gllug] RedHat to buy AOL Rant, conspiracy theory.

[David Irvine]

On Wed, 2002-01-23 at 12:56, Vincent AE Scott wrote:
> Martyn Drake(martyn at drake.org.uk)@Wed, Jan 23, 2002 at 12:24:02PM +0000:
> > On Wed, 23 Jan 2002 10:12:23 +0000 will wrote:
> > 
> > > And what of AOL-TW's move to restore competition in the operating 
> > > systems market? AOL-TW isn't in the OS business, never has been, and 
> > > won't be in the future: it's now gone on the record to give *a 
> > > comprehensive denial that there was anything in the Washington Post 
> > > story which claimed AOL was in discussions to acquire Linux distro Red
> > > Hat.*
> > 
> > All I will say is look what happened to Netscape.  I think I said enough
> > :)  Also, if AOL Time-Warner (who seem to be eaten more film companies
> > these days, and although not new, I was shocked when New Line got eaten by
> > them) _were_ take over Red Hat, they still haven't made a Linux client for
> > accessing the AOL network yet have they?  AOL have enough problems
> > supporting MacOS-X don't they?  <shakes head>
> 
> vertical consolidation

Consider this....

<fx=scared conspiracy  theorist voice>

What if M$ were paying AOL-TW to buy Red-Had ( A fairly  large player
inthe linux world) in order to port AOL 7.0 to run on linux causing mass
infection  of  the linux  world with AOL users. M$ Could  then tellt the
judges it was a good thing, Red-Hat would go bust cos nobody wants AOL
bundled with the os, i  mean ffs  have you ever tried to  uninstall aol?
Exactly  so anyway its all an evil plan by them or they to completely
dominate the world with evil nasty aolisms.

</fx>

Could be  some  scary times up ahead folks.



> 
> > 
> > > Phew.  The nightmare scenario where I am asked to log in with my 'screen
> > > name' seems a little further away.
> > 
> > What pisses me off more at the moment is the antics of Verisign.  I
> > understand they've just eaten another registry adding to their ever
> > increasing monopoly of domain registries.
> 
> horizontal consolidation
> 
> Big companies dont get bigger by becomming any better at what they do,
> just by 0wning more of what you pay for, and selling you the same stuff
> under a different name.
> 
> What i dont get tho, is how AOL became so amazingly big.  big enough to
> buy TW at least.  but in my mind it makes sense for them to attempt
> getting a complete vertical line from the consumer all the way thru to
> the media content.  undoubtedly this is what they'd like to achieve.
> Buying up an OS just brings them one step closer.  

Agreed. If they can have their own  os, which spews out aol keywords,
time warner streamed movies, aol's news company (can't remember the
name) every hour and has that 'You've got mail' sound effect every  time
you log in,  and whats more they wouldnt have to pay  redmond a cent to
get people signed up, what more could they ask for?



> 
> oh, and i wouldnt believe anything a company says.  certainly not one
> who's got fingers in many pies.
> 
> 
> -v
> 
> -- 
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> 
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>  is that it needs competent managers.  
>  --Graydon Saunders
> 
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