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Michael Robertson Sued Over Missing Linspire Cash

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the transparency-whether-you-like-it-or-not dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Blogger and ex-Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony reports that Michael Robertson has been sued by a Linspire shareholder to get to the bottom of what happened to Linspire's assets. One hundred shareholders have been left uninformed as to what happened to the company and its assets after Linspire was sold to Xandros a few months back."

24 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Isn't it obvious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    He freed the money as part of his Open Vault Software initiative.

  2. What assets? by Onaga · · Score: 3, Funny

    Linux isn't profitable...

    1. Re:What assets? by wastedlife · · Score: 4, Informative

      OEMs. A lot of the cheap-ass linux desktops at Fry's and Walmart used to be sold running Lindows/Linspire (I think gOS and Xandros have stolen that market). Also, I believe they were looking to sell their "Click N Run" package manager for use in Ubuntu and possibly other distros.

      --
      Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
  3. Re:BUSINESS - JESUS = CORRUPTION AND THEFT by binarylarry · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Jack, jack jack.

    I wish you'd just go back to writing your hilarious cartoons.

    --
    Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
  4. I thought there wasn't much more to say... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...other than the caption in the article, "Michael Robertson - Greedy, crook or just incompetent?"

    Then I found this earlier entry: http://kevincarmony.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-07-12T08:40:00-07:00&max-results=7

    It gives details on the company's structure and what Roberts was doing to steal money from the company. Interesting stuff.

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    1. Re:I thought there wasn't much more to say... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Informative

      Whoops! That link will take you to a page full of entries. Here is the direct link to the specific entry:

      http://kevincarmony.blogspot.com/2008/07/michael-robertson-speaks-intentions.html

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    2. Re:I thought there wasn't much more to say... by ray-auch · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sounds like things are the same the world over... with the key words being "minority shareholder".

      Unless it's a public company (and sometimes even then) that tends to mean you have the right to get shafted (and not a lot else).

      The majority (which could well be the guy you fell out with plus the one or two he bribed) can vote you down and do pretty much what they want - including selling for much less than the company is worth, or just diluting your equity to worthless. Of course, they'll be involved in whatever corporate entity benefits from the transaction - and you won't.

      Oh, you might have lots of fancy contracts protecting minority shareholder rights etc. - but in the end they'll just be more worthless paper to file with the share certificates.

      No no, I'm not bitter, not at all :-/

  5. Re:BUSINESS - JESUS = CORRUPTION AND THEFT by cthulu_mt · · Score: 2, Funny

    A +++

    Would subscribe to your newsletter.

    --
    Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
  6. Ummm... by Darkness404 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I fail to see how Linspire was ever profitable. It didn't offer anything revolutionary and was basically Debian/Ubuntu with a few extra features that no one cared about. Can someone please enlighten me on how Linspire was ever a force in the market?

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    1. Re:Ummm... by ari_j · · Score: 4, Funny

      It doesn't matter - if it was bought out, the shareholders are entitled to value for their shares, no matter how little that might be. Wouldn't you be pissed off if you held a couple thousand shares and got deprived of your $1.25?

    2. Re:Ummm... by Vectronic · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't think Linspire was every really profitable, nor was it ever a "force in the market" this is just about a couple shareholders wondering where the money they thought they were going to get...went...

    3. Re:Ummm... by whoever57 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I fail to see how Linspire was ever profitable.

      Didn't Linspire get $20M from Microsoft for changing its name from Lindows?

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    4. Re:Ummm... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Informative

      As I recall, Walmart shipped Linspire as the OEM OS for a while. Deals like that tend to infuse quite a bit of cash into a small company like Linspire. Michael Roberts might have you believe that they had hundreds of engineers pouring their souls into improving Windows compatibility, but that's most likely Roberts being Roberts. (Which is to say an extreme exaggerator at best, an outright liar at worst.) Their actual burn rate doesn't sound like it was all that high based on the descriptions of the company.

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    5. Re:Ummm... by schotty · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Although mostly true, as a former user, I can say the presentation + CNR was what made it a hit with the userbase.

      CNR was the icing on the cake -- the package cake. Red Hat and Novell never had that. Now Canonical has something like it bundled with Ubuntu, as does Fedora with their own. Plus it was one of the cleaner KDE based desktops I have ever used. Coming from a diehard GNOME/Fluxbox guy -- that should be taken as some praise.

      The only issue I saw with the distro was a lack of updates to the kernel. As we all know the kernel adds so much more than just some update, but rather more and imporved device support. It was awful at times to not have properly working modules when Fedora, SuSE, and Mandriva did.

      --
      Sigs are nice guns ...
  7. I worked for Robertson by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And this doesn't surprise me. He is a pretty shady character. He was the typical, ego-crazed rich guy who loved pushing everyone else around.

    Ever since he tried to defend running as root, I never trusted the guy.

    1. Re:I worked for Robertson by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Ever since he tried to defend running as root

      Well, how do you expect him to empty your bank accounts if you don't let him in through the back-end?

    2. Re:I worked for Robertson by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I worked for Michael Robertson at MP3.com. I was there pre-IPO. MP3.com was a wonderful place to work. My favorite gig ever. But dealing with Michael was the least pleasing aspect of the whole thing. He was incredibly arrogant, rude, and obnoxious.

      I'll never forget how he treated this intern kid who was somebody's personal assistant or something. He said he was looking for some big meeting or something. I knew there was a meeting going on in the main conference room so I pointed him that way and followed him there to make sure he found it. He went in to the meeting presumably already in progress and said "I'm so and so's assistant here for such and such meeting" and Michael said "No you aren't, get out!" The poor dude was crushed and I felt bad for having steered him into Michael's venom.

      I did ok financially out of MP3.com having sold the first quarter of my options as soon as they vested (the rest weren't worth much though) so I don't hold any grudge over money (although I know plenty who do and feel like Lindows and other ill-conceived ventures were funded using THEIR money after he cratered their stock options) I just feel bad for how he treated people.

      I once heard one of the tech guys complaining about how Michael loved to say "If I gave you a million dollars could you make this work?!?!" And of course they did because they were rock stars and of course he didn't because he was a bastard.

      Of course, Kevin Carmony was a douche and a half as well and I'm not surprised he had problems at Lindows. He definitely doesn't really get the Free Software thing or he never would have had anything to do with it. They were both trying to take advantage of the "suckers" who give their work away for free.

      Posting anonymously because lots of ex-mp3'ers read /. and I still have to work in this town.

  8. Re:LNL by Gavagai80 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Uh, Linspire was as much linux as any other distro. It was KDE with all the usual programs, though most of them renamed. It included proprietary codecs and a commercial dvd player, but was 99% open source and had a 100% open source derivative freespire.

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    This space intentionally left blank
  9. Click N Run by HalAtWork · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Click N Run was one aspect responsible for their fame. They would take the care to improve and provide pre-configured desktop software in an interface that made it easy to install the software. This was before Synaptic Package Manager was able to do the same thing. Also, before they were called "Linspire", they had the controversial name "Lindows", which connoted that they were trying to provide a Linux desktop that would do things most typical Windows users wanted. A lot of users tried to switch to Linux many times but were frustrated by the experience, so this really had the power to draw a lot of people in. I think that Ubuntu and Fedora succeeded where Linspire failed though.

    --
    Twinstiq, game news
  10. A fool and his money... by haggie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Michael Robertson makes Charles Ponzi look legit. Investing in a Robertson start-up is moronic. You would get a better return if you had put $200K in an IndyMac savings account.

  11. bwahaha by clusterlizard · · Score: 2, Informative

    Like a good trainwreck, I can't stop watching

    --
    i took a bitchslapping for natalie portman
  12. Re:BUSINESS - JESUS = CORRUPTION AND THEFT by hondo77 · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, if Business - Jesus = Theft + Corruption, it follows that Business = Theft + Corruption + Jesus!

    --
    I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
  13. Former Fan by minus-sign · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I actually liked Linspire. The idea was simple and could have been very profitable: a Linux based OS that was professionally supported. You pay for patches and updates and know it retains support because, well, you pay for it. It didn't work out that way, but the theory was sound. Sorry to see its gone so very very bad.

  14. Re:BUSINESS - JESUS = CORRUPTION AND THEFT by the_womble · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So, if Business - Jesus = Theft + Corruption, it follows that Business = Theft + Corruption + Jesus!

    Both you and the GP are assuming that Business and Jesus can run together. In fact there are well fundamental incompatibilities between the output Business produces and the input expected by Jesus.

    It is worth noting that other claimed incompatibilities are pure FUD.

    The problem has been repeatedly highlighted by Jesus developers, and the project lead has recommended uninstalling business and similar proprietary apps. This has been unpopular with Business advocates and probably contributed to his legal difficulties.

    The most reliable approach is to use only software meeting the standards set by the Christ Software Foundation. Some people have taken this approach, but they have had to be willing to accept limited access to some codecs.

    Some people have managed to run Money while Jesus executes in a separate VM, but this is probably not a good idea. Jesus is really designed to run as a hypervisor.