[ale] Redhat and AOL

[jeff hubbs]

Denny Chambers wrote:

> So if AOL buys out Redhat, I wonder if they will try there CD carpet
> bombing techniques with the the RH distro CDs. You won't be able to buy
> a roll of toilet paper with out getting an AOL/Redhat CD.
> 
> On a serious note I wonder if AOL is aligning it's card right to put
> together some sort of console/pc or something. Think about an iMAC
> looking computer that boot from linux, and imediately loads into the AOL
> desktop, which uses a Netscape 6.x browser for internet surfing.

This does seems to be a sensible path forward, but would it be necessary 
to buy Red Hat to do it?  It might HELP, because AOL would need to beef 
up the robustness of the RH installer tremendously in order to be able 
to become a ubiquitous "Internet console" type of thing.  That's a tall 
order and it takes money to sustain the kind of 'fu it would take to do 
it.  I'm assuming here that AOL would not be PRODUCING the console but 
rather a CD-based OS/browser/connectivity thing suitable for most any PC 
with a CD-ROM drive.  However, if they are think about a hw/sw product, 
seeing as consoles have come and gone, does AOL think it can succeed 
where others have failed?  Maybe they can.

My household is a bit different because I have CAT5 strung all over the 
place and a NAT firewall, but for most households, isn't it a bit 
daunting to have more than one machine Internet connected at once?  With 
wireless networking, AOL could put out a dog-simple, master/slave 
arrangement that was Linux- and SBPC-based.

- Jeff


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