Dave Ihnat said: > On Sat, Jan 19, 2002 at 09:14:23AM -0600, ABrady wrote: > > I can see the new, improved slogan: > > > > "It's so simple, any simpleton can use it!" > > > > It would likely lead some windolts away from windoze and let them > > pretend they're _real_ power users now. In about 20 minutes the linux > > world will be flooded with new worms and causing major overloads on > > servers passing the new Linux Homepage Virus to everybody in each user's > > Evolution addressbook. > > > > No thanks! > > Well, I've lived through the predictions of doom'n'gloom due to the > incipient presence of the hoi polloi since the early '80s; that's not > got me so worried, per se. > > First, by allowing anyone on USENET--not just academia and > business/research-- it was going to be degraded below usability. > In some respects, it was; in others, it just picked up and kept moving, > eventually leading to the rise of the Internet. USENET still lives, > but is pretty much a backwater compared to its position of preeminence > in the early days. > > Then, it was allowing commercial use of USENET. THAT was going to ruin > it. In some ways, it got worse, but there were enough bytes to go around. > > THEN, it was anyone and everyone setting up web sites; the pollution > was going to ruin everything. THEN, in very short order, it was > advertisements on the Web. > > What's fundamentally different with this is that a major resource > will be taken over and used as a tool in AOL's war with Microsoft. > This means it is NOT going to evolve in the same general direction as a > "free-range" Linux system, but rather, the focus will be to provide tools > and a facade that supports AOL Time-Warner's specific goals. > > This will probably remove it from contention as a general-purpose server > platform, AND as a high-end professional desktop, since even if they > _intend_ to try to tell us they're going to continue to provide such > lines, the inevitable fragmentation of focus, dilution of development > efforts, and complexity of trying ot maintain several variant product > lines is an exceedingly difficult task. And it's made even moreso by the > fact that Linux itself is still rapidly evolving, meaning they'd have to > absorb new features in all lines concurrently. I just don't think they're > at that level of organization in this field. Or corporate commitment. > > $0.02, YMMV, Pre-coffee.
I don't argue on the side of doom and gloom often. I don't always turn out right when I do. But I turn out right more often than I turn out wrong. If it was the other way I'd be less inclined to continue trying. I don't doubt that AOL would continue to work toward some kind of linux. Corel did, too. I look at the quality of that product (mediocre) and the quality of most everything else associated with AOL (bad to mediocre) when I have serious doubts about what happens here. In the beginning, there likely won't be anything to really notice about changes in things. But, as time passes, things will change. The need to gain more and more users will be the cause for a push into areas that aren't aimed at stability and security, but ease of use and eye-candy and convenience. Things will begin looking a lot like the desktop for the people that they are fighting against at the expense of much more important things. I escaped windoze for several reasons. One of the components I haven't missed is AOL being on the desktop every time I install or reinstall anything. Or maybe I should reword that to say I miss them about like I miss a few ingrown toenails I've had. I watched them gobble up Netscape. Where is it now? I look at their commercials (after all, they're everywhere you can look on TV and in mags) and I see somebody pointing straight at the lowest common denominator. Well, MS goes for the lowest common denominator. What is the result from that effort? Ex-Pee with security holes the size of China, problems with CD writers, themes that won't stay how the users set them, hardware that doesn't work (even with updated drivers), spontaneous reboots (as a replacement for the BSOD), stop errors that are just as cryptic to most people as the hexcodes on BSODs. Not to mention all of the problems created by the WPA: licenses expiring after a reinstall that was required due to previous instability, booting and getting notices that the "trial" installation they are running is about to timeout (even though it was bought and actiuvate properly), the inability to install multiple machines with the same release and copy (except for the coporate versions, which allow everybody to install as many times as they like, presumably until the BSA comes around and threatenes to sue them for millions and coerces them into signing their lives away forever, only using the distro du jour). Obviously, if this distro becomes a pawn in the shell game of these two, some method will surely be created to disallow installing parts of one with parts of the other, so likely there'll be something WPA-like with everything AOL owns, too. I look at the fact they gobbled up Time/Warner, who gobbled up Turner. CNN is losing ground, in part because of the poor quality of their reporting. But I don't see any major strides in recapturing the market share they've lost. It might not be AOL's fault, but it's happened on their watch. About the only thing I see that actually has grown under AOL is AOL. I'll tell you, I'm not interested in chat rooms and buddy lists. I don't need keywords. I don't like spending 20 minutes downloading upgrades to who knows what every time I login for the first time that day. I did that before. I quit doing it a long time ago. THAT's what AOL means to me! What this very easily could turn out to be IMHO is a slow erosion from the quality the was RedHat to the simplistic methodology that permeates everything AOL. Not because of interest in spreading the use of linux, but in the interest of attracting more users away from MS. I wouldn't and won't care if the quality continues as it has been. I'll stick around unless and until I begin seeing signs of erosion. If it doesn't, I won't I've lived in several cities in my life. Not suburbs, in the cities. I've prided myself on always knowing when to move before things turned ugly. I've been keen on seeing the direction things were going long before they actually began to appear. I think if I'm watchful enough I might just be able to do the same here. Again, that presumes it actually worsens. If it doesn't I have no reason to go anywhere. I'm just not hopeful, given the track record of AOL, that any version of linux they own can ever be successful. _______________________________________________ Redhat-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
