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Metro Link Wants To Be Shown The Money
An Anonymous Coward writes: "I saw this article today in Linuxgram. It talks about how Linux Global Partners apparently has left Metro Link, one of its investments, high and dry. Wonder if this will affect Ximian or Gnucash." Metro Link, it turns out, has been doing pretty well in the meantime, but hasn't seen much of the $5 million dollars it expected from LGP, and as a result has been investigating other partners. The LGP portfolio lists Metro Link, but looks like it hasn't been updated in a while.
hmm.. LGP always used to mean leather goddesses of phobos
I'm going to completely scrap all the moderation points I spent on this section and answer you. "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer" is an economic myth. Read The Millionaire Next Door on this subject. The only truism you can apply to wealth is "Those who know how to earn and hold on to their money get richer and those who don't get poorer."
:)\n"
Let me elaborate on an example from the book. We all "know" that doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, etc, are more wealthy than the average citizen. Right? Wrong. A higher income (or inheritance, etc) does not have a positive correlation to wealth (net worth after discounting gifts and factoring in taxes). For example, a doctor may earn substantially more than the average person, but he also spends an equally large amount on "lifestyle." After all, he can't possibly match the image of a good doctor if he doesn't drive a fancy European car, live in a fancy home in an upscale neighborhood, golf at exclusive clubs, etc.
The examples go on. I highly reccomend the book above. If you aren't living in the way the book suggests, chances are that you may have a high income, but will never be truly wealthy.
That's just my $0.02, but I think that it's probably the sagest comment attached to the entire article.
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What is your Slash Rating?
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
It's another market casualty, unfortunately. I shut down my own venture company (which is not to be confused with LGP) a while back, due to the investment climate.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
How did they the uneducated public "really screw things up?" They invested in things that looked promising (the internet,) and got burned when the profit models were exposed as bad ideas (by the lack of profits.) So what got screwed up? The markets continue to buy and sell stock.
By pushing the stock market up to an immense bubble due to overinvesting in tech stock, similar to what was done with railroads in the mid-1800s, radio in the 1920s (remember the bust of october 29th 1929?), and various other tech waves at other points. There's presently a few trillions of dollars too much in the public stock market compared to discounted future earnings; if any of the old patterns hold, these will need to go over time - and will possibly go as a very sharp drop.
Presently the value of the US stock market is larger than the GDP - while historical data shows it as always regressing towards a value of 50% of the GDP, with large swings on each side.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
where did the fund come from and who where the fund managers ?
was this a fund that people bought into or a VC setup ?
good companys are listed but GNU cash has a FO ?
I dont think so they are all FO's (-;
geed like the Bonds Brokers in the 80's
but this time we cant blame the fed its ALL the VC's fault and the so called analysts on bloomberg
regards
john jones
markets may go up as well as down
I don't think of the GNU license as anti-commercial. It merely keeps some amoral types from stealing everything that isn't nailed down.
Unfortunately, in an environment where these types dominate, it becomes difficult for a decent business to do well, or even survive. But that isn't the fault of the GNU license. That's because their competition is using theft to stock their inventories.
Legitimate ways to do business under the GNU license:
1) Create something new, and sell it. If it's based on a GNU product, you'll need to be selling just your contribution, and include the source code, but that's only fair. That's the cost of stocking your warehouse with parts for free. The amount that you can charge will be limited by the potential size of the market. Any one of your customers could potentially set himself up as your competition. So you need to adjust your pricing so that this isn't a viable plan.
2) Service. You are in the ideal position to supply upgrades, additions, add-ons, etc. You don't even need to develop them yourself. You can just offer to help your customers develop them, and, incidentally act as a backup storage fore their code (which is, as it must be, GNU licensed). So you can sell consulting, upgrading, etc. This is an low profit/low overhead business segment, but it's available, and by developing the software you are already positioned to move into it.
3) Distribution: This is the current big one. It's already pretty highly occupied by companies, so you probably don't want to move into it. At least not as your primary plan. Possibly as a specialty, rather like KRUD (Kevin's Red Hat Uber Distribution?) which specializes in CD with all the latest patches, with everything pre-tested to work AND be secure.
4) Consultant. Another popular choice, that works well for some. Here the GNU software that you release was probably developed while working for someone else and being paid for it. If you have to offer a cheaper rate to get the GNU license on your software, you can charge it of to advertising.
5) Grad Student. This isn't exactly commercial, but it isn't exactly not. Here the purpose of the GNU license is to act as an advertisement for yourself. Also, it may look good in your portfolio. And sometimes you can work it into your thesis.
These are only the options that occur off the top of my head. I haven't thought seriously about them. Many of them probably wouldn't sustain a very large business. So? Why should that be bad? Free Software is intended to promote freedom, and this generally means lots of small groups that work together rather than one large group. Saying that it doesn't support large companies is very different from saying that it's anti-commercial.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
your theory would have the implication that the USA was selling more goods and services overseas than it imported.
This has nothing to do with balance of payments. A company can make plenty of money in overseas operations without importing or exporting squat.
Suppose I'm Kodak, and manufacture my CD-R's in Mexico, and sell them worldwide. When sold in the US they look like imports to your statistics, and thus negative. However to Kodak they are a positive part of their revenue and profit picture.
And your Kodak example does not work; repatriation of overseas profits is a positive item in the current a/c
Repatriation of profits certainly is included in the c/a, however profits are only a fraction of the total economic activity represented by the foreign manufacture and importation of goods. The net c/a from this activity is clearly negative.
What is important if the ratio of domestic revenues to total revenues. Clearly that is falling for large American companies, which of course are those listed in the public markets. Thus relying on historic GDP - market valuation ratios to gauge whether a stock is overvalued is misleading because it neglects the stake in offshore economic activity such companies have.
while historical data shows it as always regressing towards a value of 50% of the GDP
Historically a US company's market was almost all domestic. That is not true any more. A large US company often has 50% of it's revenue offshore.
Correcting for offshore economic activity and the 50 year average of 70% puts the current GDP/valuation at no more than 10% above historic norms.
Is this hyperbole, or is MetroLink responsible in some basic way for XFree86 and X.org?
Well, in terms of politics, they did donate the modular X architecture used in XFree86 4.0, which really cleaned up XF86s design and made closed source drivers possible (while some might not appreciate this, a lot pf people do).
In terms of technical brilliance, while Metro X currently lack some of the newer (currently nonstandard) X extensions that XF86 have developed, their X server does do a fine job of raw X performance versus the free competition, in nonpartial benchmarks.
Its a give and take relationship. I'm not saying Xfree86 doesn't rock, because they do. But so does MetroX.
until you have the check and its cleared in your account, you don't have an investor. Its a tough market out there and not everything is going to fly, as much as they might deserve to.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
No, the licenses are the same. The primary difference is the goals - the X.org release is designed to be a portable, stable, sample implementation for the X.org members to use as the basis for their X implementations.
XFree86 is an implementation based on the X.org sample implementation (XF 4.0.3 is based on X.org X11R6.5.1) with support for a large variety of hardware devices added, as well as some experimental extensions, such as the Render extension used for anti-aliasing.
Metro Link maintains the official X.org master CVS repository and is responsible for putting together the official X.org releases, like last week's release of X11R6.6.
This shit should NOT BE HAPPENDING! And I think that the reporting on stories like this is like reporting on the moron who went out and kept buying lottery tickets because the tarot card reader told him he'd win the big one, selling his house, car, and cashing in savings bonds to finance the effort that fortunately was successful. It's like a fable with a lesson you don't want your kids to learn.
A former customer of mine had that problem. They did the bridge loan (small investment to cover you between investment rounds), and got a decent piece of the company for cheap money. About 2 weeks later, the company closed on a much larger round at a higher valuation (as a bridge, the went in at the previous valuation), and the investment was looking good.
Unfortunately, they also chose a poor VC, and the VCs couldn't raise the money when one of the groups involved dropped out. The company that the client had invested in laid off 80% of its staff and was looking to sell its technology.
It's a shame. Slimy VCs screw a lot of businesses.
How did they the uneducated public "really screw things up?" They invested in things that looked promising (the internet,) and got burned when the profit models were exposed as bad ideas (by the lack of profits.) So what got screwed up? The markets continue to buy and sell stock.
I've a bunch of friends that bought Amazon or whatever, and complain to me on phone about the current price. My response is almost always the same: "why did you buy it? what was your reasoning as to why it's going to worth more five years from now?"
As we get back to having financial markets run by people who understand them and who are competent to decide which companies deserve investment, we'll see some real, solid prosperity again -- no mirage, but real creation of real wealth -- for the first time since the 1980's.
Well, there are two issues here: financial markets are "run" by providers of liquidity: they buy and sell in short term, hopefully pocketing enough spread to stay in business. The poeple deciding that companies deserve investment tend to have longer horizons: the day-to-day market moves don't affect their decisions. Companies live or die based on profits, not what the market is doing.
This ain't a crapshoot guys... do the math: look at capitalization, earnings, and sales. Avoid money-pits, buy real, underpriced businesses.
They're certainly not "responsible" for XFree86 or X.org, but they arep "Premier Members".
How does this argument apply to a company that creates both free and not free software.
Microsoft does the same thing. Pay for some things, others are free.
Open mouth, insert foot.
I think it would probably be more accurate to say "By its very nature money flows towards those who *have it* and know how to get it and keep it (The Rich) and away from those who do not (The Poor)." It's a lot easier to have your money work for you when you have some money to "play with", so to speak... risking capital is generally a luxury afforded to those who have capital to risk.
Not that the poor can't become rich with sufficient skill or luck (or the rich can't become poor with vastly insufficent skill or luck), but it's easier to make a million bucks when you already have that first million, even if you just inherited it from daddy...
--
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
Is this hyperbole, or is MetroLink responsible in some basic way for XFree86 and X.org?
My own experience with MetroLink hasn't been so good: a few years ago, I ordered a copy of their "accelerated" X server, but it arrived without acceleration support, and they never delivered the promised update.
Free software doesn't pay...... Now, before you mod me as troll, think for a minute. If you're giving something away, and expecting to make it back in support, that might sound decent at first. However, I see several inherent flaws in this. A: It discourages functional product design. After all, if it's so easy to use, who needs support or expensive docs? B: It's target: Linux users, probably the most, as a whole, talented group of O/S users. Again, that's gonna hurt your support. C: It won't fly with coporate America. The suits see things only in terms of money. No cost = No value. Just ponder those points for a bit....
TODO: Something witty here...
We've had a few years where the uneducated public got into the stock market and really screwed things up.
I half agree with you here, there are members of the unwashed masses who got into the stock market and made very wise decisions, picking good stocks while they were low and sat on them, while avoiding to IPO rush. On the other hand there are the Day Traders, these are the people who tried to cash in on IPO's and make money on minute changes in the stock market, these people got what they deserved. It is an interesting stastic I read some time ago in Time Magazine, they said that 90% of Day Traders loose money, and the same 90% would have made money in 1999, if they had sat on the stocks they had in January all the way through December.
no mirage, but real creation of real wealth -- for the first time since the 1980's.
Maybe the 80's aren't such a good example, in the 90's we had Day Traders, but in the 80's we had Junk Bonds. Ever hear about the Savings and Loan bailout, that cost tax payers a few billion dollars. The only real fact about wealth which is not a mirage is the old saying "The Rich get richer and Poor get poorer". By its very nature money flows towards those who know how to get it and keep it (The Rich) and away from those who do not (The Poor). This fact has not changed regardless of which party is power or who the President is throughout the world and throughout history.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power - Benito Mussoli