AOL’s RedHat Box

The rumor that AOL is negotiating to buy RedHat raises my resting heart rate to 37 beats per minute, a full 2 beats faster than W’s. In my fantasy, AOL buys RedHat and comes out with an AOL PC aimed at the end of the market that still finds computers and the Net too complex. The AOL box is an incredibly well-integrated package that plugs into your TV and into the Time-Warner broadband connection that comes bundled with it. (Maybe it doesn’t need the broadband. We’ll let the marketing folks – and then the Justice Department – figure that out.) Flip a switch and you’re on the Net and you’re doing the Tivo thing, too. The GUI is designed from the ground up to be so simple that marsupials can use it to browse, write email, do basic word processing and play games. No user knows that it’s Linux under the skin, just as Tivo gives no indication (why should it?) that it’s a visitor from the planet Linux. But, in my fantasy, this is an expansible system in terms of hardware and software, thus creating enough of a market for Linux desktop apps that Microsoft is given a run for its (= our) money.

Don’t tell me how wrong I am. Let me dream a little longer… (I refuse to acknowledge that the outcome might be a second locked down OS. Noooooooooo!)

Categories: Uncategorized dw