Salon on the Red Hat IPO Eligibility

Definitely the hot topic this week. Salon is running a quite passionate article written by a hacker who was rejected by E*Trade to participate in the RH IPO in august. his story reads like many of the emails I've got in the last couple days. Hacks don't have liquid net worth, so they're being rejected on that grounds? Its a good piece.

Comments

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[Lord Kano]

I'm sick of being told that I'm being protected from myself.

In my state you have to get a fscking license to buy grain alcohol because some idiots died from drinking too much booze (it's usually vodka that people overdo it with, yet grain gets the blame). So statewide only bars and people with political clout can get the license to buy grain alcohol, and we're tole that this is to protect our college age "kids" from themselves. If some asshole wants to put a 750ml bottle of Ever Clear into a beer bong and fry his brain, I say let him/her do it. There's just more

In many states, like my own, we are required to wear seatbelts in our cars. I was an avid seatbelt wearer before the law was passed anyway, so it didn't alter my behavior in any way. But I think that it's horseshit to make it mandatory for adults to "Buckle Up". If someone doesn't want to use a seatbelt and gets turned into hamburger, fine that was his/her choice. It just causes the nations average IQ to go up.

Motorcycle helmets are also mandatory in my state. I remember a local radio/TV personality (John Cigna sp?) was a rather outspoken opponent of mandatory helmet laws until he went headfirst into a brick wall (a la Gary Busey) and the helmet kept his brain on the proper side of his skull. I don't hear him talk much about how those laws are unfair now. BUT, if he wanted to ride without a helmet he should have been able to. If someone is reckless enough to do 60mph down the freeway without head protection, the world might better off without them.

Now back to the IPO, this is the lamest of the "protecting people from themselves" cases that I have seen in years. In the other examples that I listed above the protection is only against something bad happening to the individual, what I mean is that nothing "good" or "great" can come from buying grain alcohol (except maybe a good game of "get the girls drunk"). This however not only protects inexperienced investors from the potential pitfalls of an IPO, but it barrs people from reaping the potential benefits of the IPO. The IPO gives many people who were influential and hard-working in the open source community the opportunity to gain something for all of their hard work. Other people are making money off of Linux, who not the people who helped make it what it is today?

LK