I think the real reason why MS is pushing this is because they just don't want to admit that their bloatware is getting to the point where Joe Sixpack can't really administer it anymore. Even if all you have is Office, sooner or later you're going to install something that will blow away some DLL in c:\programs\office\system32\junk\foo\bar\runtime.
Then, the next time you try to run Word, it'll bluescreen on you. Now, if the stupid thing actually told you that c:\programs\office\system32\junk\foo\bar\runtime\s crewit.dll has been replaced with an incompatible version, then you'd probably be able to fix it, but noooo, we all know what the chances of that are. Instead, you'll call Microsoft's technical support line, pay $90 dollars for the privilege of asking them a question why their software barfs. Then, they'll tell you because you installed an alternative operating system on another partition, Office won't work, and that you'll have to repartition it back as one Windows partition, then reinstall everything. Then, they'll charge your credit card.
So, instead of fixing their OS, MS way of fixing the mess is to pawn off the responsibility for maintainance of their OS to third parties with extensive technical experience. Of course, they have to subscribe to Microsoft Developers Network, so that they can receive the secret decoder ring which translates the BSOD mess into something that you can work with. --
Re:Microsoft's good old days.
on
SCO does Linux
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· Score: 1
Microsoft was shipping a modern Visual Basic compiler, and an ELF-based system (plagerizers note - what the f is an elf)
ELF is the acronym for Extensible Linking Format, the second generation layout of UNIX binary executables.
The claim that Microsoft was shipping an ELF-based system means that at some point in the past Microsoft was shipping an operating system that could execute UNIX binaries.
Although Microsoft was, at some point, involved in Xenix, Xenix has been dead long before Visual Basic came into existence.
Hey, it's quite obvious that you were flapping your gums, and blathering about things you had absolutely no clue about. Perhaps you should write to Phar Lap badmouthing AOL, again. Maybe they'll believe you this time. --
There was a time, long ago, when SCO was thought to be way ahead of the pack, as far as PC-UNIX was concerned. While AT&T was shipping hopelessly outdated dreck -- K&R C compiler, a.out only kernel -- for x86 platforms, SCO was shipping a modern ANSI compiler, and an ELF-based system. Every hardware manufacturer, and his mother, was shipping device drivers for their hardware under SCO UNIX. A lot were also shipping AT&T UNIX drivers, but not all of them.
How times have changed... Instead of SCO leading the pack, they're barely trying to keep up. They are reduced to an embarassing "follow the leader" position. Goes to show you that you can't rest on your laurels, and always assume that you'll remain a king forever. --
I think it says you need to send a written letter to the brokerage firm (E*TRADE) next, and then it's NASD complaint time.
I don't think that this necessarily have to be the case. This might be appropriate in your case, but I consider my case to be of a purely regulatory nature. I believe, based on the evidence that I have, that there might be several violations of certain NASD rules here, and I have written NASD presenting my evidence, and asking them to initiate a formal investigation. I am simply documenting the facts as they appear to me, and let NASD take the ball from that point on. I'm not accusing E*TRADE of anything, but I am bringing up certain facts, that may reasonably be interpreted as rule violations, and requesting NASD to conduct an investigation, which I hope that they do.
I think that this is a completely different ball of wax than a situation where you have to show a good-faith attempt to mitigate the dispute with the broker. Here, we're talking about an internal dispute concerning your trading account, that may not, in itself, be a rule violation. It could only be a rule violation if the broker repeatedly, or willfully, continues to engage in this pattern of behavior. Mistakes happen, and even if those mistakes are technically rule violations, the broker has to be given an opportunity to make things right. In this case, you should reasonably give the broker the benefit of the doubt, and try to work with the broker to resolve the dispute.
But, when you have a reasonable belief that an arbitrary party is purposefully violating NASD rules, well, that's something compleeeetely different.
Furthermore, if you go to NASD Regulation's web site, www.nasdr.com, and follow the link to "complaints", it says somewhere over there that NASD does accept anonymous complaints. For obvious reasons. I don't personally know if this is true, I'm just telling you what I read on their web site. Presuming this to be true, clearly it's rather difficult to remain anonymous, yet document to NASD that you've tried to mitigate the dispute with the broker. And, NASD claims that they do, at times, act on anonymous complaints.
Now, I do not obviously know the details of your case, so it might as well be that you are approaching it from a trading account dispute perspective, instead of a regulatory angle. Now, if you believe that you've witnessed someone breaking the law, say stealing a bicycle, do you then come up to the guy, tap him on the shoulder, and say "Excuse me, would you mind putting that back where you found it?"
No, you call the cops, that's what you do. Same principle here, in my case.
Of course, my case can also be pursued from the dispute angle as well. I've returned to the post office to send out more certified mail today. The certified mail being, in fact, a written letter to E*TRADE, requesting them to investigate the issues that specifically involve my situation. This line of approach might eventually wind up going to arbitration perhaps, but it is going to be a completely separate thing, in addition to my regulatory complaint.
Hit 'em from both sides.
P.S. I had an extensive chat with a reporter for a very respectable, and a well known, financially-oriented business publication. Next week's gonna be fuuuuuuuuuuuuuun fun fun. I tried to tell the reporter I talked to that the fingers should be pointing to E*TRADE, I got the feeling that they're looking at Red Hat instead, which somewhat concerns me, but I think I got the message accross.
Furthermore, the mail logs on my mail server show a second very well respectable publication attempting to contact me. Unfortunately, they've sent mail to the Email address I'm using here, which is heavily filtered against spam E-mail, and sometimes my mail filters block non-spam mail by mistake, especially when a message does not have a properly-formatted Subject: header. Oh well. If you're reading this, just send me feedback from my web site, that's all.
The bottom line, though, is that the mainstream media is smelling a scandal here. P.P.S. I suggest that you start keeping a diary. Every time you check the stock quote for RHAT, write down the time, and what it was, and what you would've done had you had the shares. This way, if you ever end up in arbitration, this will make it easier to peg a monetary sum on your losses. Hear that, E*TRADE? By the time this is over, I'll know exactly how much you screwed me over. Down to the last bleeping penny. --
I'm not sure that contacting the SEC is a good idea, right now. E*TRADE is a NASD member. NASD has certain regulations that members must follow. Enuff said. --
The numbers don't add up. 6000*400=2.4 mil shares, while only 800,000 were allocated for the affinity program.
Furthermore, you cannot have any class action lawsuit here, because the terms of the trading account agreement force you to use NASD's arbitration, instead of any other legal proceeding, but IANAL. --
No I did not give up, E*TRADE pretty much jerked me off completely. I've tried to work with them, but they decided to blow me off. There was nothing I could do. They slammed the door in my face, so the only option I had left was closing the account, and move the funds back to my current broker. I was certainly not going to do additional trading with E*TRADE after they treated me the way they did. Screw them. I prefer to send my commissions to a broker who wants it, thankyouverymuch.
Thank goodness I didn't move my entire brokerage account to E*TRADE, instead of just sending them some loose change. Otherwise, my entire portfolio - instead of measly cash - would be stuck in limbo right now, while those clowns are picking their collective noses.
I don't think Red Hat really has anything to worry about. Everyone's barking at E*TRADE, not Red Hat. I reckon I've been screwed out of about $55K-$65K by now, but it's E*TRADE's head on the plate that I want. E*TRADE really did a thorough ream job on me, and I'll end up with zippo no matter what happens. I was slightly pissed at Red Hat initially, but right now I don't care about them, since I intend to eat E*TRADE's balls for breakfast. The only thing that Red Hat might possibly worry about is people being distracted from hacking because they have to deal with this crap. I'm sitting on about 2 megs worth of uncompressed source code that hasn't seen the light of day yet, and that will have to be postponed while I spend a small fortune on certified mail, and on chopping trees to feed the bulging contents of said certified mails. Plus, there's plenty more where that came from...
But you're right about one thing. This latest move probably pulled out most of E*TRADE's chestnuts out of the open fire. All they'll have to deal with, from now on, are a handful of cranks like me, who've they personally butt-slammed. That's much better than having to deal with a large angry mob.
E*TRADE's better be praying to their favorite deities that the stock doesn't tank before everyone finally gets their shares. Otherwise, not only will the mob get only a hundred out of a thou, or two, that they applied for, but they'll also miss their chance to sell out while they were at the top. If THAT happens, you'll *REALLY* see people howling.
I've missed Mr. Affleck's story, while plowing through all the stuff here. I've seen Dax Kelson's claim of being jerked off after sending them $90K, but I missed Mr. Affleck. If Mr. Affleck would contact me from the web site in my URL, I'll be happy to add his piece to my web site, right next to Mr. Kelson's.
I sure hope that E*TRADE realizes one thing. They've already lost the VA Linux IPO. E*TRADE's gonna lose more money, when all is said and done, than they could've possibly gained by screwing around like that. I reckon that at least a few dozen (if not hundreds), Linux shops will go public in the next 3-5 years. E*TRADE has lost every one of them. Every bleeping last one. I hope that they realize that. --
I personally believe everyone's heart is and was always in the right place on this whole thing,
Nonsense. I am positive that E*TRADE was hell bent on kicking out as many affinity customers as possible, so that they can hoard all the shares for themselves.
It was obvious that the IPO was going to go up, but nobody expected it to go through the roof the way they did, so E*TRADE ended up with a whole bunch of people REALLY pissed at them and ready to write complaints to NASD and SEC, instead of just mildly pissed.
The last thing E*TRADE wanted was several hundred complaints sent to NASD and SEC. When you have so many complaints thrown at you, something's gonna stick. So, they came up with this as a way of calming down the barbarians storming the gates. They simply excersized the option that was mentioned in the prospectus: the right for them to purchase additional shares at the offering price in order to cover any "overallotments". This is costing them nothing, and potentially averting a shitload of complaints to NASD.
Of course, all you people who put in for 1,000 shares or more, you'd be lucky if you get more than the minimum 100. You're also pretty much giving up the right to take them to arbitration, since the extension will be interpreted as settlement of any claim you might have against E*TRADE. --
The following is an excerpt from an update that I just posted to my web site, giving what I think is the *REAL* reason E*TRADE extended this so-called "offer". The URL to my web site is in my sig.
The terms of the original IPO gives the underwriters an option to reserve some additional amount of shares at the offering price, for the purpose of "covering overallotments". I believe that this is what E*TRADE's doing. In reality, it's not costing them anything, because they're simply selling additional shares, under the original terms. So the mechanics of how this is being done seems to be rather simple.
I believe what happened is that someone at E*TRADE suddenly realized that they are now facing a likely possibility of having to deal with several hundred (if not thousand) complaints going to NASD and SEC. When you have so many complaints thrown at you, something usually sticks. Despite repeated assurances from E*TRADE that they are only following all those nasty NASD and SEC regulations, they obviously do not wish to attract any regulatory attention to this mess.
It's also possible that Red Hat gave them an earful about it. This might be a factor but I believe that the potential for regulatory complaints was their main reason.
Although E*TRADE's eligibility requirements did not appear to be very consistent, many people who are now in the affinity program have moderate or high net worth. Oh sure, the backhanded hints from E*TRADE might've encouraged many people to provide misleading information regarding their financial status, but, in any case, many people in the program are probably very well off, financially. Getting several hundred complaints about them from wealthy and intelligent investors somehow didn't appeal to E*TRADE very much. You can't really blame them for that.
Furthermore, many people were kicked out of the process due to a surprise reconfirmation requirement, that E*TRADE unilaterally imposed in the wee hours of August 11th. If these people had the same reaction as I did to RHAT's steep climb in valuation, this must've motivated many of them into seeking action beyond just complaining to regulators. At the time I'm writing this, I am seriously considering going to arbitrarion as soon as I'm fairly sure that NASD has the ball rolling on the regulatory side. But now, I'm not going to wait for NASD to act, and I will be making some strategic preliminary moves immediately. I haven't reached a firm conclusion just yet, but right now I'm more leaning towards arbitration than I ever was, for reasons that explained below.
This latest development appears to be a rather brilliant move by E*TRADE. The more you think about it, the more sense it makes, from E*TRADE's perspective.
First of all, they're not using any of their own money here, since it's likely that they are getting shares by excersizing the overallotment option.
The people who stand to benefit the most from this move are the people who have applied for the minimum 100 shares from E*TRADE. These people will get everything they wanted in the first place. Well, almost. RHAT's price appears to have already peaked, and it's possible that they won't get the actual shares until the price has dropped somewhat.
Furthermore, I do not know for sure but it appears that people will get only the minimum 100 shares, if they apply for this extension. That's how it lookes to me, and this is consisted with the Wired story. I think it's rather unlikely that people will get all the shares that they initially applied for. E*TRADE is betting that people who applied for a larger amount of shares - 1,000 and more - will be satisfied with getting the minimum 100, and that will discourage them from complaining or going to arbitration. These people are the ones most likely to complain to NASD/SEC, or to seek arbitration.
It is not clear yet what happens to people who do not have sufficient funds to purchase 100 shares due to the IPO being repriced.
So, the interesting question is what will happen to people who've sent $10,000, or as much as $90,000 to E*TRADE, expecting to get thousands of shares? Are they going to be satisfied with getting their a few shares, and shutting up?
In essence, this appears to be very much like an offer of compromise. It remains to be seen if E*TRADE can pull this off. I believe that if someone accepts the 100 shares, they can still pursue some regulatory action or arbitration, but if they do, it's pretty safe to say that this reduces the chances of them prevailing. The transaction for 100 shares can be interpreted as a compromise that relieves E*TRADE of any liability. It's very much like a settlement in a court of law.
Some people got very teed off at E*TRADE. It is possible that they've already sent their complaints before E*TRADE back-pedaled. It is also possible that their reaction would be 180 degrees different, and that they would be offended at this apparently blatant attempt to calm down the barbarians storming the gate. Stay tuned.
Instead of kilobytes, call them kibobytes. Think James Parry will object?
Gawwwwwd... Looks like these people have too much free time on their hands. Why don't they just spend their free time trying to invent warp drive, or something? Leave this kind of stuff to Jay Leno, or David Letterman. --
I think they've had some glitches they've hit around E*Trade. We want to look at that say, is there a way we can do that better?
Oh, my! Looks like E*Trade has stepped in a rather big pile of doo-doo here. Not only they are facing a prospect of having to deal with many potential regulatory complaints to NASD (they can count on at least one from me), looks like they'll also end up paying for it in lost business.
Something tells me that VA Linux is going to keep itself as far away from E*Trade as possible. Good for them. E*Trade has some bad karma about them.
E*Trade's rejections of applications were ground in nothing but arrogance, and they had no factual basis. E*Trade was completely capricious in choosing whose applications they will accept. Looks like they'll have to pay for that arrogance, in more ways than one. --
An IPO article without news about the fiasco? That definately lacks spice.
Do not expect to see any major development on the Red Hat/E*Trade fiasco until some time after the IPO happens.
Hypothetically speaking ( wink, wink, nudge, nudge ) people are going to wait until the IPO. This way, they can put a dollar amount on lost income due to E*Trade's questionable activities.
A lot of this is due to the fact that there's a lot of bad blood between Microsoft and pretty much everyone else: Oracle, IBM, Dell, Gateway, and others.
Microsoft is currently reaping the rewards of their arrogance and bullying of the past. Oracle sees an opportunity to package a complete top-to-bottom database solution that kicks a lot of ass, and write Microsoft completely out of the picture. Initially, they picked Sun and Solaris, but that was before Linux took really off. If they had to do "Raw Iron" again, they would go with Linux -- no doubt about it.
A rather unique feature of Oracle's database design is that each database client is serviced by a separate task (well, that was true the last time I checked, a few years ago, but I'm sure that's still the case today). This is unlike their competitors - Sybase and Informix - whose database engines are basically single processes which multiplex themselves amongst all currect clients. The latest versions of their servers do support multithreading, but because multithreading is implemented differently on pretty much every *nix, they may not be able to take advantage of any particular platform's unique multithreading abilities.
Meanwhile, Oracle's database servers had separate processes servicing clients for at least a decade now. Which means that on SMP machines Oracle servers should be able to kick some major ass. I never actually had a chance to play with Oracle on a multi-CPU box, but knowing the way their servers work, I would expect them to positively smoke.
No wonder Oracle is salivating over Linux now. SMP on NT is a pathetic joke. With Solaris, you have to sign over your bank account to Sun, in order to purchase a multi-CPU license (I'm not sure if Solaris x86 even supports SMP). An Oracle solution on a Linux box with a couple of Xeons should have a rather impressive price/performance factor. --
A stripped down Windows 2000 server, probably a custom build, running nothing but an http daemon on port 80.
This is a sham. For a *real* challenge:
Standard install of Windows 2000, IIS, and Microsoft Office 2000, installed according only to information that comes with the manuals included with the software. NO OTHER INFORMATION can be used in configuring the machine.
Now, put THAT outside the firewall, and see how fast it gets cracked. --
... Because, after reviewing what E*Trade did, it is clear to me that the only people that E*Trade allows in are the ones who are clearly lying through their teeth.
E*Trade pretty much tells you to lie. This is their way of relieving themselves of any imagined or real liability. If you lose your shirt, this way they can say that you've lied, and that they're not responsible.
Frankly, I'm completely disgusted at the way they've done this. There's virtually no chance at all that the SEC will investigate, but, on the chance they do, some heads will definitely roll. --
I think it's quite an accomplishment that Evan Leibovitch even understood what Bob Metcalfe was talking about. Usually I don't even get that far. Most of the time Bob Metcalfe makes as much sense to me as Jerry Pournelle.
Now THAT is a frightening thought: get Bob Metcalfe and Jerry Pournelle debating each other on any subject. The winner will be the one who is the first to bore the other guy to sleep. --
Oh, cut it out. There have been some legitimate questions raised regarding inconsistent and bizarre handling of this IPO by E*Trade. E*Trade should be forced to come up with an answer regarding a number of perfectly valid and reasonable questions regarding their suspicious handling of this IPO.
I had compiled a whole bunch of inconsistent statements that were coming out of E*Trade over the course of about 72 hours. It has to be a pretty wild stretch of imagination for all of them to be true. See http://www.concentric.net/~mrsam/etroubl e/ (shameless plug). --
If the web site's intended audience is not Chinese citizens, they could solve this problem quite nicely by firewalling all of China. Problem solved.
If they do want their site to be visible in China, perhaps that new QOS gizmo from Cisco can be used here.
Or, there are also a few tricks you can play with DNS, if you're in the hacking mood. Identify the specific netblocks used by the Chinese government, then rig your DNS server to send a different A record for the web site, in response to queries by the Chinese government. Put up a mirror of the controversial web site on some crappy 486, running Linux of course, and let the Chinese government bomb the blazes out of the poor machine that nobody but themselves uses... --
Re:Holy Shit! Someone has heard of Enders Game!
on
Ender's Shadow
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· Score: 1
"Ender's Game" was cool. "Speaker For The Dead" was a disaster. It was like the two books were written by two completely different people. Seems to me like "Ender's Shadow" should've been the sequel instead. --
The only way for Amazon.com, or anyone else, to have their domain registration-related E-mail traffic disrupted would be if amazon.com willingly subscribed to the MAPS RBL feed.
NSI is whistling through their ass here. MAPS RBL is a purely voluntarily blacklist. If someone does not wish to have their mail to/from NSI blocked as a result of the RBL, it will take approximately five seconds for them to disable RBL filtering on their mail server/routers, or provide an exception for NSI's IP address space. Someone should ask the Looney Tune who wrote that letter whether or not he would have any objections if someone were to have him sign up to a few thousand mailing lists, on a condition that every one of them will have a working remove address. According to this Looney Tune, as long as there's a functioning remove address, there's no problem, so he will have no reason to object. --
Slashdot Mirror
I think the real reason why MS is pushing this is because they just don't want to admit that their bloatware is getting to the point where Joe Sixpack can't really administer it anymore. Even if all you have is Office, sooner or later you're going to install something that will blow away some DLL in c:\programs\office\system32\junk\foo\bar\runtime.
Then, the next time you try to run Word, it'll bluescreen on you. Now, if the stupid thing actually told you that c:\programs\office\system32\junk\foo\bar\runtime\s crewit.dll has been replaced with an incompatible version, then you'd probably be able to fix it, but noooo, we all know what the chances of that are. Instead, you'll call Microsoft's technical support line, pay $90 dollars for the privilege of asking them a question why their software barfs. Then, they'll tell you because you installed an alternative operating system on another partition, Office won't work, and that you'll have to repartition it back as one Windows partition, then reinstall everything. Then, they'll charge your credit card.
So, instead of fixing their OS, MS way of fixing the mess is to pawn off the responsibility for maintainance of their OS to third parties with extensive technical experience. Of course, they have to subscribe to Microsoft Developers Network, so that they can receive the secret decoder ring which translates the BSOD mess into something that you can work with.
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Microsoft was shipping a modern Visual Basic compiler, and an ELF-based system (plagerizers note - what the f is an elf)
ELF is the acronym for Extensible Linking Format, the second generation layout of UNIX binary executables.
The claim that Microsoft was shipping an ELF-based system means that at some point in the past Microsoft was shipping an operating system that could execute UNIX binaries.
Although Microsoft was, at some point, involved in Xenix, Xenix has been dead long before Visual Basic came into existence.
Hey, it's quite obvious that you were flapping your gums, and blathering about things you had absolutely no clue about. Perhaps you should write to Phar Lap badmouthing AOL, again. Maybe they'll believe you this time.
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There was a time, long ago, when SCO was thought to be way ahead of the pack, as far as PC-UNIX was concerned. While AT&T was shipping hopelessly outdated dreck -- K&R C compiler, a.out only kernel -- for x86 platforms, SCO was shipping a modern ANSI compiler, and an ELF-based system. Every hardware manufacturer, and his mother, was shipping device drivers for their hardware under SCO UNIX. A lot were also shipping AT&T UNIX drivers, but not all of them.
How times have changed... Instead of SCO leading the pack, they're barely trying to keep up. They are reduced to an embarassing "follow the leader" position. Goes to show you that you can't rest on your laurels, and always assume that you'll remain a king forever.
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I think it says you need to send a written letter to the brokerage firm (E*TRADE) next, and then it's NASD complaint time.
I don't think that this necessarily have to be the case. This might be appropriate in your case, but I consider my case to be of a purely regulatory nature. I believe, based on the evidence that I have, that there might be several violations of certain NASD rules here, and I have written NASD presenting my evidence, and asking them to initiate a formal investigation. I am simply documenting the facts as they appear to me, and let NASD take the ball from that point on. I'm not accusing E*TRADE of anything, but I am bringing up certain facts, that may reasonably be interpreted as rule violations, and requesting NASD to conduct an investigation, which I hope that they do.
I think that this is a completely different ball of wax than a situation where you have to show a good-faith attempt to mitigate the dispute with the broker. Here, we're talking about an internal dispute concerning your trading account, that may not, in itself, be a rule violation. It could only be a rule violation if the broker repeatedly, or willfully, continues to engage in this pattern of behavior. Mistakes happen, and even if those mistakes are technically rule violations, the broker has to be given an opportunity to make things right. In this case, you should reasonably give the broker the benefit of the doubt, and try to work with the broker to resolve the dispute.
But, when you have a reasonable belief that an arbitrary party is purposefully violating NASD rules, well, that's something compleeeetely different.
Furthermore, if you go to NASD Regulation's web site, www.nasdr.com, and follow the link to "complaints", it says somewhere over there that NASD does accept anonymous complaints. For obvious reasons. I don't personally know if this is true, I'm just telling you what I read on their web site. Presuming this to be true, clearly it's rather difficult to remain anonymous, yet document to NASD that you've tried to mitigate the dispute with the broker. And, NASD claims that they do, at times, act on anonymous complaints.
Now, I do not obviously know the details of your case, so it might as well be that you are approaching it from a trading account dispute perspective, instead of a regulatory angle. Now, if you believe that you've witnessed someone breaking the law, say stealing a bicycle, do you then come up to the guy, tap him on the shoulder, and say "Excuse me, would you mind putting that back where you found it?"
No, you call the cops, that's what you do. Same principle here, in my case.
Of course, my case can also be pursued from the dispute angle as well. I've returned to the post office to send out more certified mail today. The certified mail being, in fact, a written letter to E*TRADE, requesting them to investigate the issues that specifically involve my situation. This line of approach might eventually wind up going to arbitration perhaps, but it is going to be a completely separate thing, in addition to my regulatory complaint.
Hit 'em from both sides.
P.S. I had an extensive chat with a reporter for a very respectable, and a well known, financially-oriented business publication. Next week's gonna be fuuuuuuuuuuuuuun fun fun. I tried to tell the reporter I talked to that the fingers should be pointing to E*TRADE, I got the feeling that they're looking at Red Hat instead, which somewhat concerns me, but I think I got the message accross.
Furthermore, the mail logs on my mail server show a second very well respectable publication attempting to contact me. Unfortunately, they've sent mail to the Email address I'm using here, which is heavily filtered against spam E-mail, and sometimes my mail filters block non-spam mail by mistake, especially when a message does not have a properly-formatted Subject: header. Oh well. If you're reading this, just send me feedback from my web site, that's all.
The bottom line, though, is that the mainstream media is smelling a scandal here. P.P.S. I suggest that you start keeping a diary. Every time you check the stock quote for RHAT, write down the time, and what it was, and what you would've done had you had the shares. This way, if you ever end up in arbitration, this will make it easier to peg a monetary sum on your losses. Hear that, E*TRADE? By the time this is over, I'll know exactly how much you screwed me over. Down to the last bleeping penny.
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I'm not sure that contacting the SEC is a good idea, right now. E*TRADE is a NASD member. NASD has certain regulations that members must follow. Enuff said.
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The numbers don't add up. 6000*400=2.4 mil shares, while only 800,000 were allocated for the affinity program.
Furthermore, you cannot have any class action lawsuit here, because the terms of the trading account agreement force you to use NASD's arbitration, instead of any other legal proceeding, but IANAL.
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No I did not give up, E*TRADE pretty much jerked me off completely. I've tried to work with them, but they decided to blow me off. There was nothing I could do. They slammed the door in my face, so the only option I had left was closing the account, and move the funds back to my current broker. I was certainly not going to do additional trading with E*TRADE after they treated me the way they did. Screw them. I prefer to send my commissions to a broker who wants it, thankyouverymuch.
Thank goodness I didn't move my entire brokerage account to E*TRADE, instead of just sending them some loose change. Otherwise, my entire portfolio - instead of measly cash - would be stuck in limbo right now, while those clowns are picking their collective noses.
I'm done venting tonight.
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I don't think Red Hat really has anything to worry about. Everyone's barking at E*TRADE, not Red Hat. I reckon I've been screwed out of about $55K-$65K by now, but it's E*TRADE's head on the plate that I want. E*TRADE really did a thorough ream job on me, and I'll end up with zippo no matter what happens. I was slightly pissed at Red Hat initially, but right now I don't care about them, since I intend to eat E*TRADE's balls for breakfast. The only thing that Red Hat might possibly worry about is people being distracted from hacking because they have to deal with this crap. I'm sitting on about 2 megs worth of uncompressed source code that hasn't seen the light of day yet, and that will have to be postponed while I spend a small fortune on certified mail, and on chopping trees to feed the bulging contents of said certified mails. Plus, there's plenty more where that came from...
But you're right about one thing. This latest move probably pulled out most of E*TRADE's chestnuts out of the open fire. All they'll have to deal with, from now on, are a handful of cranks like me, who've they personally butt-slammed. That's much better than having to deal with a large angry mob.
E*TRADE's better be praying to their favorite deities that the stock doesn't tank before everyone finally gets their shares. Otherwise, not only will the mob get only a hundred out of a thou, or two, that they applied for, but they'll also miss their chance to sell out while they were at the top. If THAT happens, you'll *REALLY* see people howling.
I've missed Mr. Affleck's story, while plowing through all the stuff here. I've seen Dax Kelson's claim of being jerked off after sending them $90K, but I missed Mr. Affleck. If Mr. Affleck would contact me from the web site in my URL, I'll be happy to add his piece to my web site, right next to Mr. Kelson's.
I sure hope that E*TRADE realizes one thing. They've already lost the VA Linux IPO. E*TRADE's gonna lose more money, when all is said and done, than they could've possibly gained by screwing around like that. I reckon that at least a few dozen (if not hundreds), Linux shops will go public in the next 3-5 years. E*TRADE has lost every one of them. Every bleeping last one. I hope that they realize that.
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I personally believe everyone's heart is and was always in the right place on this whole thing,
Nonsense. I am positive that E*TRADE was hell bent on kicking out as many affinity customers as possible, so that they can hoard all the shares for themselves.
It was obvious that the IPO was going to go up, but nobody expected it to go through the roof the way they did, so E*TRADE ended up with a whole bunch of people REALLY pissed at them and ready to write complaints to NASD and SEC, instead of just mildly pissed.
The last thing E*TRADE wanted was several hundred complaints sent to NASD and SEC. When you have so many complaints thrown at you, something's gonna stick. So, they came up with this as a way of calming down the barbarians storming the gates. They simply excersized the option that was mentioned in the prospectus: the right for them to purchase additional shares at the offering price in order to cover any "overallotments". This is costing them nothing, and potentially averting a shitload of complaints to NASD.
Of course, all you people who put in for 1,000 shares or more, you'd be lucky if you get more than the minimum 100. You're also pretty much giving up the right to take them to arbitration, since the extension will be interpreted as settlement of any claim you might have against E*TRADE.
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The following is an excerpt from an update that I just posted to my web site, giving what I think is the *REAL* reason E*TRADE extended this so-called "offer". The URL to my web site is in my sig.
The terms of the original IPO gives the underwriters an option to reserve some additional amount of shares at the offering price, for the purpose of "covering overallotments". I believe that this is what E*TRADE's doing. In reality, it's not costing them anything, because they're simply selling additional shares, under the original terms. So the mechanics of how this is being done seems to be rather simple.
I believe what happened is that someone at E*TRADE suddenly realized that they are now facing a likely possibility of having to deal with several hundred (if not thousand) complaints going to NASD and SEC. When you have so many complaints thrown at you, something usually sticks. Despite repeated assurances from E*TRADE that they are only following all those nasty NASD and SEC regulations, they obviously do not wish to attract any regulatory attention to this mess.
It's also possible that Red Hat gave them an earful about it. This might be a factor but I believe that the potential for regulatory complaints was their main reason.
Although E*TRADE's eligibility requirements did not appear to be very consistent, many people who are now in the affinity program have moderate or high net worth. Oh sure, the backhanded hints from E*TRADE might've encouraged many people to provide misleading information regarding their financial status, but, in any case, many people in the program are probably very well off, financially. Getting several hundred complaints about them from wealthy and intelligent investors somehow didn't appeal to E*TRADE very much. You can't really blame them for that.
Furthermore, many people were kicked out of the process due to a surprise reconfirmation requirement, that E*TRADE unilaterally imposed in the wee hours of August 11th. If these people had the same reaction as I did to RHAT's steep climb in valuation, this must've motivated many of them into seeking action beyond just complaining to regulators. At the time I'm writing this, I am seriously considering going to arbitrarion as soon as I'm fairly sure that NASD has the ball rolling on the regulatory side. But now, I'm not going to wait for NASD to act, and I will be making some strategic preliminary moves immediately. I haven't reached a firm conclusion just yet, but right now I'm more leaning towards arbitration than I ever was, for reasons that explained below.
This latest development appears to be a rather brilliant move by E*TRADE. The more you think about it, the more sense it makes, from E*TRADE's perspective.
First of all, they're not using any of their own money here, since it's likely that they are getting shares by excersizing the overallotment option.
The people who stand to benefit the most from this move are the people who have applied for the minimum 100 shares from E*TRADE. These people will get everything they wanted in the first place. Well, almost. RHAT's price appears to have already peaked, and it's possible that they won't get the actual shares until the price has dropped somewhat.
Furthermore, I do not know for sure but it appears that people will get only the minimum 100 shares, if they apply for this extension. That's how it lookes to me, and this is consisted with the Wired story. I think it's rather unlikely that people will get all the shares that they initially applied for. E*TRADE is betting that people who applied for a larger amount of shares - 1,000 and more - will be satisfied with getting the minimum 100, and that will discourage them from complaining or going to arbitration. These people are the ones most likely to complain to NASD/SEC, or to seek arbitration.
It is not clear yet what happens to people who do not have sufficient funds to purchase 100 shares due to the IPO being repriced.
So, the interesting question is what will happen to people who've sent $10,000, or as much as $90,000 to E*TRADE, expecting to get thousands of shares? Are they going to be satisfied with getting their a few shares, and shutting up?
In essence, this appears to be very much like an offer of compromise. It remains to be seen if E*TRADE can pull this off. I believe that if someone accepts the 100 shares, they can still pursue some regulatory action or arbitration, but if they do, it's pretty safe to say that this reduces the chances of them prevailing. The transaction for 100 shares can be interpreted as a compromise that relieves E*TRADE of any liability. It's very much like a settlement in a court of law.
Some people got very teed off at E*TRADE. It is possible that they've already sent their complaints before E*TRADE back-pedaled. It is also possible that their reaction would be 180 degrees different, and that they would be offended at this apparently blatant attempt to calm down the barbarians storming the gate. Stay tuned.
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No offense, but at this point, the rule that I tend to follow is this: take what E*Trade tells you, and believe the exact opposite.
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I have a better idea.
Instead of kilobytes, call them kibobytes. Think James Parry will object?
Gawwwwwd... Looks like these people have too much free time on their hands. Why don't they just spend their free time trying to invent warp drive, or something? Leave this kind of stuff to Jay Leno, or David Letterman.
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Larry Augustin on Red Hat:
I think they've had some glitches they've hit around E*Trade. We want to look at that say, is there a way we can do that better?
Oh, my! Looks like E*Trade has stepped in a rather big pile of doo-doo here. Not only they are facing a prospect of having to deal with many potential regulatory complaints to NASD (they can count on at least one from me), looks like they'll also end up paying for it in lost business.
Something tells me that VA Linux is going to keep itself as far away from E*Trade as possible. Good for them. E*Trade has some bad karma about them.
E*Trade's rejections of applications were ground in nothing but arrogance, and they had no factual basis. E*Trade was completely capricious in choosing whose applications they will accept. Looks like they'll have to pay for that arrogance, in more ways than one.
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Do not expect to see any major development on the Red Hat/E*Trade fiasco until some time after the IPO happens.
Hypothetically speaking ( wink, wink, nudge, nudge ) people are going to wait until the IPO. This way, they can put a dollar amount on lost income due to E*Trade's questionable activities.
This story is NOT going away.
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A lot of this is due to the fact that there's a lot of bad blood between Microsoft and pretty much everyone else: Oracle, IBM, Dell, Gateway, and others.
Microsoft is currently reaping the rewards of their arrogance and bullying of the past. Oracle sees an opportunity to package a complete top-to-bottom database solution that kicks a lot of ass, and write Microsoft completely out of the picture. Initially, they picked Sun and Solaris, but that was before Linux took really off. If they had to do "Raw Iron" again, they would go with Linux -- no doubt about it.
A rather unique feature of Oracle's database design is that each database client is serviced by a separate task (well, that was true the last time I checked, a few years ago, but I'm sure that's still the case today). This is unlike their competitors - Sybase and Informix - whose database engines are basically single processes which multiplex themselves amongst all currect clients. The latest versions of their servers do support multithreading, but because multithreading is implemented differently on pretty much every *nix, they may not be able to take advantage of any particular platform's unique multithreading abilities.
Meanwhile, Oracle's database servers had separate processes servicing clients for at least a decade now. Which means that on SMP machines Oracle servers should be able to kick some major ass. I never actually had a chance to play with Oracle on a multi-CPU box, but knowing the way their servers work, I would expect them to positively smoke.
No wonder Oracle is salivating over Linux now. SMP on NT is a pathetic joke. With Solaris, you have to sign over your bank account to Sun, in order to purchase a multi-CPU license (I'm not sure if Solaris x86 even supports SMP). An Oracle solution on a Linux box with a couple of Xeons should have a rather impressive price/performance factor.
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So what do we have?
This is a sham. For a *real* challenge:
Standard install of Windows 2000, IIS, and Microsoft Office 2000, installed according only to information that comes with the manuals included with the software. NO OTHER INFORMATION can be used in configuring the machine.
Now, put THAT outside the firewall, and see how fast it gets cracked.
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Mistakes happen. :-)
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E*Trade pretty much tells you to lie. This is their way of relieving themselves of any imagined or real liability. If you lose your shirt, this way they can say that you've lied, and that they're not responsible.
Frankly, I'm completely disgusted at the way they've done this. There's virtually no chance at all that the SEC will investigate, but, on the chance they do, some heads will definitely roll.
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Kernel 2.4
XFree 4.0
XFS
IA-64
Some days it's good to be alive.
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Enuff said. The article had nothing to do with spam.
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I think it's quite an accomplishment that Evan Leibovitch even understood what Bob Metcalfe was talking about. Usually I don't even get that far. Most of the time Bob Metcalfe makes as much sense to me as Jerry Pournelle.
Now THAT is a frightening thought: get Bob Metcalfe and Jerry Pournelle debating each other on any subject. The winner will be the one who is the first to bore the other guy to sleep.
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Oh, cut it out. There have been some legitimate questions raised regarding inconsistent and bizarre handling of this IPO by E*Trade. E*Trade should be forced to come up with an answer regarding a number of perfectly valid and reasonable questions regarding their suspicious handling of this IPO.
I had compiled a whole bunch of inconsistent statements that were coming out of E*Trade over the course of about 72 hours. It has to be a pretty wild stretch of imagination for all of them to be true. See http://www.concentric.net/~mrsam/etroubl e/ (shameless plug).
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If they do want their site to be visible in China, perhaps that new QOS gizmo from Cisco can be used here.
Or, there are also a few tricks you can play with DNS, if you're in the hacking mood. Identify the specific netblocks used by the Chinese government, then rig your DNS server to send a different A record for the web site, in response to queries by the Chinese government. Put up a mirror of the controversial web site on some crappy 486, running Linux of course, and let the Chinese government bomb the blazes out of the poor machine that nobody but themselves uses...
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"Ender's Game" was cool. "Speaker For The Dead" was a disaster. It was like the two books were written by two completely different people. Seems to me like "Ender's Shadow" should've been the sequel instead.
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The only way for Amazon.com, or anyone else, to have their domain registration-related E-mail traffic disrupted would be if amazon.com willingly subscribed to the MAPS RBL feed.
NSI is whistling through their ass here. MAPS RBL is a purely voluntarily blacklist. If someone does not wish to have their mail to/from NSI blocked as a result of the RBL, it will take approximately five seconds for them to disable RBL filtering on their mail server/routers, or provide an exception for NSI's IP address space. Someone should ask the Looney Tune who wrote that letter whether or not he would have any objections if someone were to have him sign up to a few thousand mailing lists, on a condition that every one of them will have a working remove address. According to this Looney Tune, as long as there's a functioning remove address, there's no problem, so he will have no reason to object.
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