I was just doing a "drive by" of my favorite sites and out of nowhere I saw this headline over at Slashdot: AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat? If it is true, this could be big news for both Linux and Red Hat fans alike as well as deal a huge blow to Microsoft in general. Think about it: AOL Time Warner owns Netscape, RoadRunner, ICQ/AIM as well as the world's largest internet service provider (AOL for those of you who didn't pick up on that fact yet). Really the only thing missing for them is an operating system to run this all on and Linux would be perfect for those "I just want to get on the internet and check my mail" consumers. If this turns out to be more han a rumor, I can see AOL providing an AOL branded computer in the future who's price would be lower than anything out on the market today considering that the OS would be free and not bundled into the cost of a new computer.

You can read the original story over on Washtech.com.

Anyone care to debate this topic?

Could Bill Gates Golden Goose be Over done? Did I hear someone able to undo Super Programmer, got you by the cahones, I don't know what to do with all my Billions!!!
Eventually every king of the hill will come down. Newton's Law. What goes up! Must come down.
I always knew he was programming for job security!!

I wish that could happen

Can you imagine all those inept AOL users having SO much trouble with a *nix based system ? Most of them have trouble powering up a PC. That will mean less annoying AOLer online

Although, how the heck do they think they'll make that profitable ? no one in their right mind would switch OS just to comply with their ISP, especially one that is not a broadband ISP. They'll lose all they need that can be found in windows, relative ease of use, games, etc.

Either way, I don't care much, as I don't use AOL and prefer other distro of linux

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This could be the worst thing ever to happen to home computing. It would make it so difficult for new users to "get into" computing, that they'd be turned off forever.

Who here, seriously, plays online games over an AOL connection? The laggy and dropped connections caused by "said" provider make it fairly difficult to play - a slap in the face to all true "gamers". This is just one example of a market that will be severely inconvenienced by the introduction of this possible new OS bundle.

You know what? I'd RATHER own a Microsoft branded computer.

[/RANT]

Oh, by the way unregistered, you can't kill Bill Gates! At the snap of his fingers, he can sell his entire stock portfolio, and make enough profit to buy an entire province in my country, or several small African countries.

As XBOX magazine put it: "We don't argue with a guy who could have us killed on a whim by gold-plated commandos."

Htmm, who said I was talking about online games ?!?

I was talking about games in general, as, like you pointed out, AOL and online game don't mix too well to start with.

Selling his portfolio would mean he'd need a LOT of buyers. And putting too many shares of MS on the market at the same time would make them depreciate in value big time. Everyone would be wondering why the hell he's selling shares, and think MS might be in trouble.

The guy has as much power as people grant him ... he's not the only one with lots of money to waste.

BTW : there is such a thing as an edit button

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I would rather suck a dirty donky cock than have RedhAOL OS on my 'puter. That's pronounced redh0|e. It's what you get from sucking dirty donky cocks.

Trust me on this one ppl.

p.s. BTW, Unregistered is my god damn user name!!! Can all you other fags pls use something else. thnx.

I strongly agree with UnRebOrn .

This can be a good news if you talk in a short period of time , for all the Linux community. But if you look in a long period of time , i can bet with you that AOL can be Evil as Microsoft .
AOL & M$ = Samething. And maybe they gonna be accused of monopoly . Sameway as M$ and AT&T in the 80's

In 2-3 years people gonna hate AOL the sameway as M$ did.

For myself i think AOL is already Evil .

You mean that there are people who like AOL as it is?

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Aaron Dahlen - Gaming Editor
aaron@slcentral.com
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