Slashdot Mirror
"LinuxOne" files for an IPO
ColPanek writes "Surprise: The newest planned Linux-related IPO is not VA Linux Systems or LinuxCare, but a company called LinuxOne, which apparently has been shipping its own distro since way back in September 1999 ... This summary of their preliminary prospectus says LinuxOne didn't disclose any underwriters for the proposed offering."
I am considering starting a company.
I'm not sure who I'm going to hire yet or who I need because I'm not sure what I'm going to sell yet.
My biggest problem is to figure out whether this company should be valued at 90 million, or a more reasonable jack squat.
Hotnutz.com
linux one's website looks like a my first html experiment. i wouldn't even bbuy a distro from the these jokers let alone invest in their 'failure waiting to happen' future. I wonder if their mother's know they are having an IPO. dont you need to be like 17 or something.
... Company has existed since March, 1999.
... Their web site is a total joke.
... Their web server is a stock Red Hat Linux box. They don't even serve their pages off their own alleged Linux distribution.
... Despite their claim of being a US company, linuxone.com is registered to some outfit in Austria.
... Despite their so-called "free download", they will ask people for $9.95.
... Their order page is a ... BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHA ... a formmail CGI script. I'll bet a lot of people are perfectly comfortable sending their credit card number over the Internet in clear text.
If this isn't a big joke, I don't know what is.
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1. Buy lots of redhat cds from cheapbytes at $1.50 each.
2. Put up a website advertising the first 100 free, the rest at $9.95 a pop.
3. Make some outrageous claims to drum up publicity.
4. Wait for the money to roll in.
ayottesoftware.com
Look their Logo is the Anarchy symbol rotated 160 or so degrees.
So the site is obviously done by an editor... code like this:
www.
LinuxOne.net
Give me a break!
The company is located 3 miles from my house... I'll swing by tonight and see if it's a Mailboxes, etc. address. I can tell you that it's right on the rail road tracks... prime real estate!
As an added bonus, offer a "Proprietary, Secret Linux Distribution bundled with Viagra and a Database listing 100s of Hot Babes who think Linux is SEXY!!!!"
File for an IPO.
Say... is this more ethical than "get rich in realestate" kits sold on TV?
Go click on the About LinuxOne on the cheesy website.
Now go visit the Sunnyvale City Council webpage and a certain one Mr. Stan Kawczynski's bio
Curious that an elected government official would be engaging in this kind of activity. True, there's nothing illegal here. But it sure smells funny...
For those of you who don't know, Sunnyvale is the "heart of Silicon Valley"[tm] (their words, not mine)
Jason "former Sunnyvale resident" UntulisHaving only limited contact with either ADSL or cable "modems", I'm going to go out on a limb here...
The technology that'll require sophisticated proprietary device drivers? NICs. Ethernet. Plugged into the device in question. Man - that was tough.
OK... maybe there's embeded products coming down the line that'll require something more... complicated. But why?
www.linuxone.com doesn't actually point to transmeta -- however, the comments in the source of the page credit Transmeta for the "this page is not here yet" page design! ;)
Geeky modern art T-shirts
I am copying a comment from the talkback section on LinuxToday. This gentleman is really pissed..
Read this:
"I really get sick of all the "SMUG KNOW-IT-ALL" attitude comming from some of the members of the LINUX Community! If you'd do a little research before confirming the opinion of some the folks watching the Linux Commununity (bunch of pimply faced teenagers), you'd know that LINUXONE is doing a Chinese translation of LINUX MANDRAKE Distro for the main-land Chinese market. A huge and very worth-while and possibly very lucritave endeavor. Before you run your mouth, ENGAGE YOUR BRAIN!
Keep in mind: YOU ALWAYS FIND THE MOST STICKS AND STONES UNDER THE TREE WITH BEST APPLES ON IT!
Regards,
George"
Looks like they have managed to find some hardcore fans on the first day..this is even more ridiculous...
Zigbee Central: A Zigbee weblog
Then I decided to have information look up LinuxOne, Inc.'s phone number... no luck, again.
A quick trip to mapsonus.com gave me the location of LinuxOne based on the domain's street address. Seeing as how my office is at the intersection of Villa Dr. and N. Shorline Blvd, I have decided to visit the LinuxOne "office" after work today.
Yes, I am insane... and I'll tell you where that insanity leads me in an hour or so...
[goes off to look at NetUSA site] Hmm. Apparently this is now the parent company for PacificMicro, who make Mac-In-DOS (now for Win98! What's wrong with this description? :) Whether this is anything legit or not, I don't know.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
This is pretty funny.
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How in the world is their Pacbell DSL line handling the Slashdot Effect!
Also, Note to Linuxone Sys Admin -
Read up on the latest security holes and lock down some of these ports:
www.linuxone.net ftp 21/tcp File Transfer [Control] [96,JBP]
www.linuxone.net telnet 23/tcp Telnet [112,JBP]
www.linuxone.net smtp 25/tcp Simple Mail Transfer [102,JBP]
www.linuxone.net finger 79/tcp Finger [52,KLH]
www.linuxone.net tacnews 98/tcp TAC News [ANM2]
www.linuxone.net sunrpc 111/tcp rpcbind SUN Remote Procedure Call
www.linuxone.net auth 113/tcp Authentication Service [130,MCSJ]
www.linuxone.net domain 53/tcp Domain Name Server [81,95,PM1]
www.linuxone.net http 80/tcp www www-http World Wide Web HTTP
#www.linuxone.net www 80/tcp World Wide Web HTTP [TXL]
www.linuxone.net pop3 110/tcp Post Office Protocol - Version 3 [122,MTR]
www.linuxone.net login 513/tcp remote login a la telnet;
www.linuxone.net cmd 514/tcp shell like exec, but automatic
#www.linuxone.net shell 514/tcp rlogin style exec (rshd)
www.linuxone.net unknown 1120/tcp unassigned
www.linuxone.net xterm 6000/tcp X-windows server
-Praxxis
I think they left out a risk from the S1...
"A FURTHER POTENTIAL RISK FACTOR THAT MAY IMPAIR THE PROGRESS OF THE COMPANY IS ITS DEPENDENCE ON THE LINUX COMMUNITY TO WRITE THE CODE THAT WE WILL SHIP. WHILE THE LINUX COMMUNITY HAS AN UNPARALLELED TRACK RECORD IN DEVELOPING HIGH QUALITY CODE, THEIR SMUG KNOW-IT-ALL ATTITUDE MAY DETRACT FROM THEIR SUPPORT OF THE COMPANY'S GOALS. IN ADDITION, THE FACT THAT THEY ARE A BUNCH OF PIMPLY FACED TEENAGERS MAY POSE A FURTHER RISK TO THE COMPANY."
Hopefully, it's not too late to amend the filing.
LILO boot: linux init=/usr/bin/emacs
The sad opening to the LinuxOne page (once you can finally connect) was written by Dr. Wun C. Chiou, the founder. He also founded a company now known as NetUSA, whose stock is currently hovering around zero.
This sounds like a baaaaaad investment to me...
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Wage Slave Journal
Here's a press release from Linux Mandrake about an agreement with LinuxOne, along with several other companies, to enter the Chinese market.
The release is from September 3. Interestingly, there's a little blurb describing LinuxOne (it seems to embellish the company), but there's no link to a LinuxOne web page. My guess is that these guys didn't even have a web site three weeks ago (the other companies mentioned all got links to their sites). It certainly looks like a site that could have gone up during someone's lunch hour.
From their web site:
A key feature of LinuxOpen is its ability to run on the most advanced PC workstations with devices that increase communication bandwidth, such as ADSL and cable modem. LinuxOne will support these new technologies with its sophisticated proprietary device drivers (software that provides an interface between an operating environment and its associated hardware).
Proprietary?! On a Linux distro? Hmmmm....
Name: rinoa.LinuxOne.NET Address: 216.101.248.91 Aliases: www.linuxone.net nslookup 216.101.248.91 Name: adsl-216-101-248-91.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net Address: 216.101.248.91
2) The page was written in Frontpage, or atleast some of the subtle hints, for instance, in the source there is a charset/content type tag, any webmeister who knew these tags existed yet still made such a crappy page could only be doing it in FP, which inserts such tags into any page by default.
3) The webserver they are running isn't Apache, atleast, according to Netcraft, which says it's running "inetd in realloc(): warning, junk pointer too low to make sense"
4) According to the InterNIC whois database, the man who registered Linuxone.net has an address at Netusa.com, a man who can't set up sendmail is going to build a Linux distro worth 28,000,000? Hmmm...
"If you don't use windows then what do you use?"
"FreeBSD."
This enterprise sounds very much like an attempt to cash in on the RHAT excitement; if RHAT turned some "wunderkids" into paper billionaires, then surely LinuxOne can do the same, right?
The thing is, nobody had ever heard of LinuxOne before, and unlike RHAT, the company lacks:
It wouldn't be a bad thing if they succeeded at selling a few shares to the abjectly clueless; the resultant publicity would have the effect of injecting a degree of sanity hopefully without injuring any of the more credible enterprises out there.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Background of Officers and Directors
Dr. Wun C. Chiou, Sr. has been the President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors of our Company since inception. He has been active in the computer industry for more than 15 years. He holds a B.S. Degree from National Taiwan University in General Science and Psychology; a Masters Degree from Bowling Green State University in Physics and Mathematics; and a Ph.D. from Ohio State University in Biophysics. Dr. Chiou has also completed post-doctoral work at Ohio State University on image modeling. Dr. Chiou has held a variety of positions including Research Physicist for the U.S. Army, Areomed (1974-1979); Senior Staff Engineer for Hughes Aircraft Co. (1979-1981); Research Scientist for Teledyne Systems, Co., Northridge (1981-1982); Senior Technologist for the California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (1982-1984); Chief of Artificial Intelligent Branch of NASA Ames Research Center (1984-85); Consultant for Peterson & Co., Northridge; Senior Scientist for Lockheed, Palo Alto Research Center where he organized Lockheed's Artificial Intelligence Center (1985-1987); Founder, President and Director of Pacific Microelectronics, Inc. (1987-1996), which became NetUSA, Inc., a public corporation (1996-1999). Dr. Chiou resigned from NetUSA, Inc. and formed the Company in March 1999. Dr. Chiou has also taught at Cal State, Northridge and U.C. Berkeley Extension. He possesses knowledge and research experience regarding expert systems, artificial intelligence, image modeling, optical information processing, and system integration, among others. Prior to founding the Company, he was the Branch Chief of Artificial Intelligence software at NASA, at Ames Research Center in Mountain View. He has published many scientific articles in a variety of periodicals. Dr. Chiou is a member of the Optical Society of America, Society of Photo-Instrumentation Engineers, and the National Association for Artificial Intelligence. He will devote full time to the business of our Company.
Stan Kawczynski has been the Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer, and a Director of our Company since April, 1999. Since 1995, he has also been Vice President of Investments, specializing in estate and retirement planning, for Birchtree Financial Services, Inc., a member NASD/SIPC wholly-owned subsidiary of Block Financial Corporation, with offices in Sunnyvale and San Rafael, California and Kansas City, Missouri. From 1993 to 1995, he was Vice President of Government Affairs, as well as the Director and Chairman of the Board of Trilogy Systems, Inc., a new business opportunities incubator company. Throughout his 19-year investment career, Mr. Kawczynski has held positions of Account Executive with Dean Witter Reynolds, Senior Account Executive with PaineWebber and Vice President of Investments with First California Capital Markets Group. He is an active member of many civic organizations, including Council Member, former Mayor of the City of Sunnyvale, California, candidate for the California State Assembly, Chair of the Advisory Counsel for the Digital Clubhouse Network, member of the Steering Committee on Information Technology and Communication for the National League of Cities, past Chair, Policy Committee on Transportation, Communication and Public Works for the League of California Cities, past Zone Chairman, President and Secretary of the Sunnyvale Host Lions Club, and many others. Mr. Kawczynski will devote his time as required to the business of our Company.
Robert Philips has been Vice President of Marketing for our Company since April, 1999. Since 1996, he has also been a Communications Engineer for NEC Electronics, Inc. From 1995 to 1996, he was Vice President of Engineering and Marketing for GIK Technology and from 1991 to 1995, he was Vice President of Marketing for Mobile Link Solutions, Inc. He has been a founding executive for numerous Silicon Valley start up firms with responsibilities varying from development of business plans, proposals, collateral materials, advertising and public relations. Mr. Philips has a technical background in hardware, software, and network technology that provides insight to high-technology products. He holds a B.S. Degree in Physics, a B.S. Degree in Philosophy, an MBA Degree in Marketing and an MBA Degree-Extended Edition in High Technology Management. Mr. Philips will devote his time as required to the business of our Company.
Paul Kraus has been a Director and Secretary of our Company since April, 1999. He is a licensed California architect and founder of the Design Partnership in San Francisco, California. He was also founder and principal of Investpac Inc., a company which developed real estate during the 1980's. From 1992 to the present, he has been the President/CEO of Goodco Press Inc., a lithographic company located in Silicon Valley. Mr. Kraus will devote his time as required to the business of our Company.
Does this remind anyone else of Homer Simpson starting the ISP because "Everyone is making money off the internet except me"?
On a semi-serious note: two things could happen if the SEC actually lets these guys offer stock.
1) Nobody buys it, the IPO tanks, and Wall Street has a slightly lower opinion of upcoming IPOs like VA and LinuxCare.
2) Morons (see: mutual fund managers) buy a ton of LinuxOne stock, remembering the word "Linux" from a Red Hat press release and noticing the three digit share price next to RHAT. In three months when the earnings report is released with the entries "Income: Allowance $20 / Expenses: Kegger $4,329", the stock plummets. At that point, the Wall Street hive mind concludes "Huh, that Linux fad sure ended quickly". After that, VA or LinuxCare might not be able to get together ANY sort of IPO.
Open question to anyone with a background in finance: Are there any rules about what companies can and can't be publicly traded? Is it one of those capitalist "let the market decide" kind of deals?
Will LinuxOne be sending out "The Letter II"?
-Barry