Acts of Volition

AOL Time Warner is apparently in negotiations to buy Red Hat - the closest thing Linux has to a corporate identity (original source: Washington Post - see related discussions at Slashdot and MetaFilter). It would be interesting to see how AOL/TW would handle having a stake in the success of Linux. AOL has long had a love/hate relationship with Microsoft and the ubiquitous Windows platform. They need it to succeed (so far at least). I suppose having the most promising underdog operating systems would be a nice compliment to having the most promising underdog web browser (Mozilla).

Red Hat has had a strong web presence since their purchase of web design firm Atomic Vision a few years ago. Atomic Vision was responsible for the original design of Cnet's Download.com, one of the better design on the web at the time. For a while, Red Hat / Atomic Vision produced some great web work, including Red Hat's own site (great logo) and the open source news site Wide Open News. Both sites have since deteriorated somewhat in quality but are still quite good and I get the impression that much of what was bought with Atomic Vision has since been laid off (see sob story).

It's fascinating how the life's work of large groups of people can get lost in the mix of mergers and acquisitions. I get the feeling AOL/TW doesn't even know it owns ICQ or WinAmp (although, I died a little bit the day WinAmp started including an AOL icon as part of its installation). They seem completely unaware of their own participation in the development of the file swapping Gnutella service.

I wouldn't expect AOL for Linux for Dummies next week. AOL/TW has been slow to leverage their technology takeovers so far. Netscape hasn't done much at all (their still pushing Netscape 4.x even though the open source Mozilla project has produced a far superior browser). ICQ is still an odd ball next to AOL Instant Messenger. There are two possibilities here:

1. they are looking a little farther down the road for integration of these various entities and a return on these investments or;
2. they have no idea what they are doing.

Consumers are like electricity, they'll take the path of least resistance. So far, this has generally been dictated by pre-installation and universal compatibility of the Windows and Internet Explorer platforms (that's compatibility via monopoly, btw) and the Wal-Mart-style lowest common denominator approach taken by AOL.

Bill Gates has often said that in 30 years, Coca-Cola will still be on top, but Microsoft will not. I think he's right, but I think they'll be enjoying the next 25 years first.