AOL in Negotiations to Buy Red Hat, Jan 19, 2002

AOL Time Warner Inc. is in talks to buy Red Hat Inc., a prominent distributor of a computer operating system, an acquisition that would position the media giant to challenge arch rival Microsoft Corp., according to sources familiar with the matter.

... Red Hat should worry about the conditions imposed on new technology by AOL and Time Warner. Will they want a Red Hat distribution to include copy controls? (I'm not sure how that could be layered on a free operating system, but Red Hat could die trying.) Will they expend too many resources trying to attack the Windows monopoly head on, rather than playing on Linux's unique strengths (and the ones it inherited from Unix) as a multi-user system, a server well-tuned for open Internet protocols, etc.?

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