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The Upcoming LinuxOne IPO
AlphaBrav sent news that LinuxOne is planning to
up their IPO price range. For those who don't know who LinuxOne is, don't feel bad: read this amazing article that point by point shows that there are more problems with this company then I can list in this space, although my favorites include their CEOs questionable past, GPL violations, and a corporate web server that not only doesn't run their own distribution but offers to sell you a (binary only) CD if only you send your credit card unencrypted to them. Best of all, their ticker symbol is set to be LINX.
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
You may have heard the saying "all publicity is good publicity." What is going to happen if LinuxOne turns out to be a terrible company and a ton of investors get burned on a shoddy distribution? LinuxOne is going to get bad publicity. Most of it will be from the traditional media, many of whom still think all Linux is the same thing, and therefore the bigger a flop LinuxOne becomes, the bigger a black mark against "Linux/OpenSource."
This blanketing attitude is changing, though; even CBS can tell the difference between a RedHat and a VA. And if LinuxOne burns some people, it will be our opportunity to turn bad news into good. We need to represent LinuxOne as the Yin to our Yang. We need to say, "This is what happens when you do it wrong," in addition to, "This over here is what happens when you do it right."
Over time, this will add news media credibility to our store. It will make it possible for people to tell the difference between a good Linux distribution and a bad one, and as a point of comparison it will clarify some issues in peoples' heads over why Open Source is a good idea, and why it is successful.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Connected to rinoa.LinuxOne.NET.
Escape character is '^]'.
Welcome to LinuxOne! This is rinoa.
Red Hat Linux release 6.0 (Hedwig)
Kernel 2.2.5-15 on an i686
login:
Riiiight.
This is clearly an attempt to rake in a fortune and run. There's no product there. If there was, and it was any good, they'd use it. They don't. If they knew enough to -make- a system, they'd have secure e-commerce. They don't. If they understood the licence, they wouldn't be doing binary-only distributions. They are.
IMHO, we'll see the board cut & run to some tax haven that has no extradition treaty with the US or Europe within a year, probably months, possibly even weeks, after the IPO.
This probably won't be fatal to Linux. In fact, the sooner they run, the better for Linux, as it'll be clearer that it was crooks and not simply computer geeks pretending to be business nerds. It -will- be damaging to Linux, though, if the pretense keeps going long enough for people to believe that the guys are genuine, because then that could provoke a backlash against the whole Open Source concept. ("Look at Bill Gates! Now -HE- knows how to run a company. These wannabe's, with their high ideals and no business sense are just wasters and loosers.")
The sooner LinuxOne explodes into a corruption scandal, the better it'll be for everyone. IMHO, it'll happen sooner or later, whether that's tomorrow or 50 years from now. I'd just rather it was early enough for it to not take down the entire Open Source movement with it.
IMHO, if these guys want money, will some rich twit give it to them, and tell them to go away? Far as I'm concerned, they're going to get the money anyway, but it needn't senselessly destroy everything that the Linux community has worked to build. The Linux community is incidental to LinuxOne's aims, so it doesn't harm or benefit them if it survives or vanishes. There's no reason for them to work for either end. I'd rather it survived, though, and hope Open Source isn't an innocent victim in this game.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I know this probably sounds crazy, but put a few pointers in here...
1. This guy started NetUSA, and the company went public.
2. NetUSA is failing in public, it's lost huge amounts of money and the stock price is falling drastically.
3. HE probably owned a majority share of NetUSA, right? So he gained quite a bit of money from those stocks... now, legally he could neither sell them nor use that money for six months. However...
4. Now he starts a NEW company, and tries to send it public within six months, a ridiculously short time for such things. Which, at ANY price, will bring in a nice chunk of pocket change...
5. Gee, sounds a little fishy - you think he might be using one to fund the other? Illegal, yes, impossible? No.
He's already shown disregard for people (laws?) by hosting spammail junk. Considering the (lack of) history for this company, I wouldn't be surprised if this is exactly what's happening. I hope he gets caught and jailed.
-Elthia
opinionated as ever
When I asked what the difference between RedHat and LinuxOne is, he said that there is little difference, and when I asked why I should buy LinuxOne instead of RedHat, he was unable to answer my question.
If you've got any furthur questions, their toll free sales line is: 1-877-Linux12
Sosumi. just kidding. DONT!
HebGDb Stated: "For CmdrTaco to essentially decry this company as a scam is entirely inappropriate. He, and this website, are owned by a close competitor, so comments like these not only have no objectivity, but should be viewed as highly suspicious and manipulative"
Except here is the problem. This statement is utterly untrue. LinuxOne is a distribution developer. Andover.net/Slashdot/etc are simply informational/resource websites.
This is like comparing Yahoo to Microsoft.