from a Windows partition (Ã la 'loadlin' I suppose), so no-one
would be forced out of Windows by this.
Will AOL configure their service so as to lock out existing
subscribers who don't start using AOLinux? I doubt it! Most
of the 10^7 AOLlers are using IE in Win, and used to it, and
most of these wouldn't welcome being kicked off. AOL won't
want to alienate them.
And, for the same reason, probably not many voluntary takers
in the 10^7 either. Maybe a proportion will give it a whirl
out of curiosity.
But, because the Web will still be what it was, they will
encounter all the standard problems of non-IE users. So
most of these adventurous types would revert anyway.
Therefore it looks as though the potential for take-up would
lie in new subscribers. Guesses at how many of these might
go along (unless the free CD forced them to -- but see above)
must be vaguer; but I'm not optimistic. Nor will AOL get
even 10^6 new subscribers overnight.
So I can't see this having much more impact than a soft
thump in the middle distance.
The other contra is related to the quoted comment above.
If you want to try to force Web providers away from IE-inspired
web coding in this kind of way, you don't need Linux at all:
since AOL already have Netscape, provided this can be fixed
so that it doesn't do its freeze/crash thing, they already have
a tool which (if the underlying premiss has anything in it)
could force the move; you can run this under Windows anyway.
But users will still have IE in their Win istallations, so,
when even the most standards-compliant and bug-free Netscape
still trips over non-compliant web sites, they wolud tend to
drop Netscape [there's an assumption here that IE works on
sites where Netscape works ... ]. Where in the end, therefore,
is the force which will make Web providers change their ways?
So I'm finding it difficult to imagine a plausible scenario
for this story. Interesting and provocative, though.
Best wishes to all,
Ted.
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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk>
Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 167 1972
Date: 20-Jan-02 Time: 12:09:43
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