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Cygnus going public in the next six months?
Lazzaro writes "Red Herring has an interview with the VC Firm
that's funding Cygnus, the last paragraph quotes
the VC as listing Cygnus along with a few other
companies in their portfolio, and saying "most
of these companies will go public in the next
six months"." There definitely will be a wave of open
source IPOs in the next year. The questions are who? (Red
Hat and Cygnus are prime candidates despite the fact that
neither is saying anything) and others like VA who are
up front that going public is their future. And the other
question is when.
Ok, I'll bite this troll hook.
Cygnus is the commercial support organization for GNU software. If you want gcc ported to your brand-new cpu or operating system, and don't mind paying to make it somebody's priority, Cygnus will do it. If you want a commercial support contract for GNU software to make your boss happy -- Cygnus will write you one.
And as far as I can tell, they're talented. I would have no reservations about using them for help on a project, once I leave college and have money.
Nine years. They've been doing open-source/ GNU/ freeware/ etc. development for nine years. Linux is roughly eight years old.
The guys who hosted projects like egcs, contributed lots of code to GNU tools, and create the win32 gcc port cygwin32.
Anything else?
I believe Cygnus is pubic. CYGN on the nasdaq. Closed at 10 something, 52 week high 12 something, 52 week low 2 something.
The moderators are going crazy this week with their attempts to stifle dissent.
if an open source company goes public, it means they own you - you are responsible then to shareholders for making PROFIT, and you are judged on that basis. if you decide to do something open-sourcish, and the shareholders don't think it makes enough profit, they can fire you from your own company... maybe i'm just niave in these matters, but i think this really changes things. you can be a publically traded comapny and do open-sourcish things (like IBM for example), but i don't think you could say that a public companies motivations are the same as those as a truly open-source company. there always have to remain comapanies that are not owned by their shareholders in order to do some of the right things.
2cents.
Actually, I thought the point of the GPL was to avoid the problems caused by proprietary code. In fact, if one of the effects of the GPL was to keep companies from being driven by profit motives, then no companies would agree to use it, and it would be relegated to the fringes.
Money is not bad, and in fact, if you have a lot of money (from your company going public, perhaps) you no longer have to worry about paying the bills, and are THEN free to do what you like without having to worry about pleasing anyone else. Look at Woz, for example.
On the topic of Red Hat, Cygnus and VA.
Red Hat claims not to be interested in an IPO. However the evidence indicates otherwise.
As far as Cygnus, I have no information at all.
On the matter of VA;
As they say, "The rest is left as an excercise for the reader."
Red Hat, Cygnus, and the other OSS related companies already are making profits. And they have an open source business model.
They already are businesses, and they need to keep on being as profitable as possible - regardless of whether or not they're public.
I don't think that just because they're going public means they have to change their business models. They ALREADY HAVE models that work!
But the real question noone is asking is, does Alan Cox have Redhat stock options? And if not, why not? Dude needs a bigger house.
fish and pipes
Well, can we be blamed if we are excited about a company? And exactly what have we said that "manipulates the percieved value of a company"?
I can't wait for this. I think it would be very interesting to start an Open-Source mutual fund. That would be very interesting.
Gordon
All I can say is that I am sure many of us would like to get in on a piece of the action. I'm hoping that Slashdot will have these IPOs posted as soon as they happen. Before they happen would be preferable :-)
Ok, most of you might disagree with me, but it sometimes is bad when a company goes public. Look at Disney. Way back when Walt ran the company and it was all about what he wanted. Now Disney is public and it's all about making more money. When companies go public they turn from being someone's vision into just a way for their shareholders to buy a new boat. I always thought the point of the GNU license was so companies wouldnt be driven by getting more cars in their garage but by really liking to do what they do. I'm not trying to say making money makes them evil bastards, but if you do the work and make the money thats great, but shareholders own the company and dont really do any work, they meet every few weeks and tell everyone what to do.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.