[Am-info] Is AOL buying Red Hat like Sony buying into Hollywood?

[Hans Reiser]

Mike Stephen wrote:

>
>I agree that this makes no sense for AOL.  If they actually want an operating system that will 
>compete with Windows, and they are thinking that if they spend a whack of dollars on a redhat 
>company, they would be much better off with FreeBSD as a starting point due to the less restrictive 
>license arrangements. 
>

This is an incredibly marketing insensitve remark.  Linux has brand name 
value.  It is the only brand that can compete with MS.  FreeBSD is just 
hanging in there, and OS/2 is dead dead dead as a brand.


> The GPL basically makes putting big bucks into a GPL based OS senseless.  
>
Namesys is making money using the GPL.  Nonetheless, it is often harder 
to make money using the GPL, though it all depends on your situation.


I think that Hollywood is worried about free software being pirate 
friendly, and I wonder what will happen once a content provider owns RedHat.

I predict the AOL and RedHat cultures won't mesh any better than the 
Netscape/AOL cultures did.  I hope it ends up being good for SuSE.

Hans