The AOL Time Warner acquisition of Red Hat seems to be a dirty rumor. Of course, AOL is cagily saying “they are not in negotiations with Red Hat” and Red Hat is saying nothing. Both parties admit to having been in some kind of informal discussoin. So maybe something will happen yet. Nonetheless, it’s an interesting idea. Adam Curry wrote
If AOL/Time Warner feels they need to be an OS company then I presume content is a dead horse, Sell your stock, last one out turns off the lights.
I think Adam missed the point. It’s not that AOL should be looking at becoming an OS company, but that they should be looking at (and maybe are) becoming a company that’s not dependent on a Microsoft operating system. The fact that AOL Time Warner is suing Microsoft for anti-competitive practices related to squashing Netscape probably means that they’re ready to start cutting the Microsoft umbilical cord (or is that the umBILLical cord?).
Remember: the AOL-Microsoft talks to renew AOL Time Warner’s contract to use Internet Explorer as the engine under the hood of the AOL app broke down because Microsoft wanted a stipulation that AOL would never sue. Given that AOL has taken off the kid gloves, I’d expect to see the next version of AOL’s app powered by a Netscape browser engine.
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Scoble provided Dave Winer with his notes from the Blogger Pro demo last night. They’re pretty sketchy, but, if accurate, then I’m disappointed. I was hoping commenting and categorization would be in the mix. (Yeah, I know: someone’s gonna suggest a hosted Manila solution. I’m just not a Manila fan. I’ve tried it several times. I’ve really tried to like it. I just don’t.)
More thoughts on this later maybe. I gotta catch a plane.
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Hmmm. It appears Radio has ceased mirroring my Radio 8 hosted site to my Blogger-powered site. UPDATE: Whoops, no it’s back. For some reason, though, the edits I made to the post right below this one (about noodles) won’t propagate through to the Blogger-powered site. Weird. The only thing I can think of is that it’s because the noodle post was posted yesterday. Radio seems a bit more “day-oriented” than Blogger.
The Events log in Radio is useless for examining this problem given that it doesn’t record transactions through the Manila-Blogger Bridge tool. Is there an actual server log around here somewhere?
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I’m addicted to my recipe for szechuan sesame noodles. They’re just so damn good that I’m having them for dinner for the third night in a row. Thank god I’m travelling tomorrow; I need protein.
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It’s good to see students thinking about applications of technology. I’ve always pushed the opinion that students frequently do more to drive the effective use of technology in education than the faculty…usually because the students understand it better than the faculty! Friday on Kuro5hin high school student wondered “Why not use a weblog in high school english classes?” [link via A Whole Lotta Nothing]
Indeed, Talez, why not? :-) That’s what Schoolblogs is all about. When I was teaching English back in the dark ages (1993), I used collaborative writing tools like Daedalus Integrated Writing Environment (DIWE) or Norton Connect (both LAN-based tools) in precisely the fashion this student suggests.
In fact, the idea for DIWE came out of the Electronic Networks For Interaction (ENFI) project that my colleague, Dr. Trent Batson, did at Gallaudet University (prior to when I worked there). Gallaudet is the university for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. English grammar and usage is a challenge for Deaf students, because many of them don’t have the opportunity to use it colloquially. Trent began using computer-mediated communication back in the eighties to give Deaf students the ability to converse in English via computer networks. Later, I worked with Trent on the Epiphany Project, a two-year grant to develop models for integrating technology into the writing curriculum. Computers and writing are a great mix (and expanded way beyond just Deaf education) because of precisely what Talez alludes to — the more you write, the better you become at it. And computers are great writing tools.
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Evan mentioned on the Weblogger User Group list that he needed to borrow a projector from someone in his area to “demo an interim version of Blogger Pro we’re planning to launch this week.” Confirmed by a post to the Blogger home page.
Wish I was in SF to see it. I’m enjoying playing with Radio 8, but I’m eager to see Blogger Pro. One of the drawbacks to Radio 8 is (apparently) the license only lets you install it on one machine. The license language is (purposefully?) vague. I need to be able to blog from work and home workstations, at least.
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According to C|NET, AOL is not bidding for Red Hat. [link via Curry].
Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted. (Although I tend to trust the Washington Post more than C|NET, so maybe there’s still some truth to this…)
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(Sorry, this one’s a bit stale.) Back when I posted What Open Source Zealots Don’t Get, BurningBird flamed in response.
There’s a lot that the Bird didn’t get. For example, she claims I “stopped condeming zealots, and started condeming the entire open source movement.” Of course, if you actually read the rant, you’ll notice the thesis right there at the end of the second paragraph: “[This essay] is intended to be a pragmatic look at why open source hasn’t lived up to the hype.” Can’t get much more clear than that.
I’m not going to respond to all the flamebait, but the most egregious example of the Bird’s lack of reading comprehension was the interpretation of this comment of mine…
If consumers want these kinds of tools that are of interest to consumers, but not of use to the geeks who know programming languages, then the consumers are either going to have to learn to code themselves (ain’t gonna happen; we all have other careers) or the consumer will need to pay to have someone else develop them.
… as meaning open source developers need to “get a career.” Sheesh. They have a career, Shelley: developing software. However, contrary to the implication in the Richard Stallman post that started all this, the average consumer — whose career is something other than software development — doesn’t care about being able to view or modify the underlying source code of applications or about learning how to do so. That’s why commercial sofware prospers.
Bottom line: some open source applications compete with commercial products. When the open source community really cares about a product, it can create a tool that gives any commercial product a run for the money (e.g. Apache, Linux, Perl, PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc.). Some open source apps don’t compete with commercial products as well. Why? Harnessing the passion for open source projects outside of software development and information systems management (e.g. the careers of most open source developers) is not something open source is good at.
Open source has yet to create a consumer-oriented (as in “for the consumer desktop”) open source product that has been even remotely as successful as Linux, Apache, et al. That doesn’t mean give up. People on Linux want to be able to manipulate graphics, too, hence the GIMP. The GIMP’s fine if you’re on Linux, but don’t ask a professional designer to give up Photoshop for it!
These apps fill a niche. They’re just not ever going to compete with their commerical counterparts (and often aren’t intended to!) because there’s zero evidence that the passion driving open source development of apps like Apache and Linux simple exists on a scale wide enough to deliver on competitive open source products for the consumer desktop.
Unless…
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a great idea from Derek Powazek. Too bad there’s no City Stories site for DC. (Apparently someone has claimed it, but there’s nothing there.)
DC Bloggers? Anyone? Hmm? I’d do it, but it really requires a better collaborative content management system (e.g. Greymatter, Movable Type, Manila, etc.) than I have access to right now. One day I’m going to just have to break down and get a real webhosting account.
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AOL and Red Hat mum on talks.
God, I hope it happens, if for no other reason than it will set Richard Stallman off. :-)
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