[CLUE-Talk] AOL in Negotiations to buy Redhat Linux ?????

[Grant Johnson]

AOL, although their online service is dumbed down, and their customer 
service is lousy, is not GPL unfriendly.  They own Nullsoft, which has 
several GPL'ed products, including a very nice windows installer maker 
called NSIS, which I use at work for distributing windows apps.  Their 
AOLServer is open source, although I am not positive of the license. 
 Also large portions of their dynamic content is TCL based.  They may be 
a good source for making a user friendly, if dumbed down desktop. 
 Partner with a hardware maker, put a little polish on Open Office, and 
they could make a PC that does everything that a user wants, but cut the 
price to undercut an MS box because they know that 80% of them will use 
the AOL service and they will get their money back there.

As for the Netscape disaster, there is light at the end of the tunnel. 
 Mozilla is good, and Netscape 6.1/6.2 don't suck like 6.0 did.  It took 
time to migrate a closed source app to the open source, but it seems to 
be coming around.  

I see the best application for this buy out to be a simple PC because 
the cost is the same as an "applicance" and the functionality and 
versatility is better.


The enemy of my enemy is my friend.