...is open until next Friday (6.2 Euros per share). After that, it's going to be... market price! I guess that IPO is likely to be very succesful at least in Europe where it is easy to buy stock on Euronext.
The strong disclaimer is just there to protect Mandrakesoft from local regulation authorities that strictly forbid sollicitation for an IPO without a special authorization. Lawyer love to put disclaimer like this one.
So if your broker don't have any problem to access to the IPO nobody will forbid you to subscribe.
If your broker don't allow you to access to the IPO you can open an account in a french broker like Startfinance
Of course - it will be probably easyer to buy share after the IPO.
I have to recognize that Slackware has actually a particular status in my hearth because it's the Linux distro that made me discover Linux. Back in '95, it was already a full Linux distro, with most of the tools a Unix user could expect to program in C/C++, use LaTeX and so on. Anyway, times have changed and I wouldn't use Slackware anymore because I like modern OSes, with modern graphical interfaces, an easy way to install and configure devices and also a package system to install/uninstall softwares. That's the reason why I think a modern Linux distro looks more like Mandrake 8.0 than Slackware 8.0. Anyway, keep on the good work, there will always be some plain-old-Unix nostalgics to use Slack!:-)
Hi Scott - on http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/ everyone can read that IBM has key alliances with four different Linux partners: Caldera, Red Hat, SuSE and Turbo-Linux. A major Linux actor, a one with more market shares than Red Hat for individuals, a one that is truly international, neither American-centric nor Asian centric, a major Linux actor is missing. This Linux actor sells Linux products "to customers in 86 different countries worldwide" (according to their newly opened online store). This Linux actor is going public in July on a pan-European stock-market exchange place. Will IBM do a "key alliance" with this actor, or not? And why?:-)
Here is the summary (Slashdot "lameness" filters didn't allow me to post the entire text!):
1. Why are we conducting an IPO?
2. What market did we choose to enter?
3. When will the IPO happen?
4. What will be the amount raised and the valuation?
5. How will the stock offering be distributed?
Please understand that they go public on a *European* market. Economy in Europe is extremely dynamical compared to USA, as well as stock markets. Also, Europe will support any potentially big competitors against Microsoft and all the American high-tech companies. Europe has already succedeed do do that with Airbus vs. Boing. Also Mandrakesoft has a big community of users who are likely to buy a part of their loved company. Also, what if AOL sings a deal with Mandrakesoft to provide Linux easy distro instead of dealing with Microsoft???
Mandrake is actually not at all a Red Hat clone. All people using Mandrake whom I know like Mandrake but don't like Red Hat at all. I think Mandrakesoft future is brighter than Red Hat. In particular, think about what they have accomplished in two years... They became nearly #1 distro while they were totally unknown three years ago... I think Mandrakesoft has understood everything: let Linux be usable by everybody, open everything (code, documentation), do quality products, communicate much, run a low-cost company (remember there are as many guys in Mandrakesoft currectly as Red Hat 3 years ago!). So my bet is for Mandrake Linux/Mandrakesoft - the Microsoft challenger with the best potential I ever seen.
Linux-Mandrake News.
Between these two new features and Mandrake Forum, the availability of information on Linux-Mandrake is starting to rival that of volunteer distributions like Debian, where almost all information is available on-line. It is a model we strongly encourage for all distributions or development projects, since such a news source can do a lot to bind a community together, as well as providing a valuable historic resource.
(...)
Caldera News. This past week, some members of the caldera-users mailing list began to speak openly of moving to alternate distributions, due to frustration with Caldera and the lack of recent releases. No specific links are provided, since members of such a list should have the right to vent a bit without becoming a media focus. Nonetheless, if Caldera is still interested in having a user community, we certainly hope they are reading their own mailing lists. These people liked OpenLinux and don't want to leave it, but felt they are reaching a point where they have no choice.
2/ (http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/fnews.php3)
May 22, 2001 - New US Linux market figures - LinuxGram has released the retail market shares for the USA during the first 2001 Quarter (Source: LinuxGram Newsletter/PC Data). (...)
I think there are two ways to go with mail-encryption:
1/ Email is not encrypted on the client side, but all the "tubes" that transmit information (email client -> smtp server -> smtp server/pop server -> email client) are encrypted. I don't think it's the good way because if one part of the tube is hacked or listened by the governement, the concept is down.
2/ Encrypt messages directly - for instance with PGP. With this method, the "tubes" don't have to be encrypted because the message itself is encrypted. This leads to the problem that the sender's client has to know how to encrypt the message intended to the receivers'client. That means that the sender has to know the receiver publick key before sending the message (correct me if I'm wrong).
So if the free-software community could show the example and imagine a standard common implementation for all the email clients, that would be great and at the same time, that wouldn't be too difficult to implement. We can imagine a very simple protocol that includes users' public keys at the very end of every message, under a standard format for everybody. For instange, somthing like " . Or better (because public keys are generally very long): maybe just an URL to the public key could. Or we can also have a standard that understands all the "fashions" of including the a public key.
So if everybody uses that (through non-encrypted emails at the beginning of the process), the email clients can maintain a list of all the email addresses for which they know a public key = for which they can send encrypted messages. Then, by default the clients can encrypt the messages without any human interaction:-)
Now imagine that Kmail/Evolution/Mozilla-mail/Emacs-mail/Mutt... decide to use that system, beginning to Day D. At date D + a few hours (or a few days for those who don't use much email!), most of the open-source community would communicate through encrypted emails and we could claim "Hey Microsoft users! everybody can read clearly your emails because you use Eudora or Outlook, but inside the free-software community, we communicate with strong encryption!".
Wouldn't be that good? Wouldn't be a demonstration that the entire Free-Software community can impose new concepts, new ways of living the Net?
You are not paying only for the content. You are also paying for distribution and reseller. Don't forget that distributors + reseller (retail) take generally more than 60% of the gross margin price. So take $5, remove taxes (in Europe it's generally from 15 to 25%), you have 4$. Remove 60% for distributor and reseller, you have $1.60. Remove $0.5 to $1.0 for the media (the range can be more, it depends of how many your press), it remains $1 to be share between artists and music industry. It's only 20% of the final price. As $15 is the usual price for CDs in Europe, the margin is more confortable ($3 per CD), but it's not so much.
I think if we want CDs cheaper, they have to be distributed directly on the net so you cut distributors & reseller margin and you can decrease the final price.
Considering that the current market capitalization for Red Hat Inc. is $911.5M, I wonder what would be a correct market capitalization for Mandrakesoft... 50% of RedHat's? 80%? More?
You are talking like if you are sure that Mandrake is going to go public on NYSE. Did you read such informations somewhere? My own thought is that they are likely to go on a European place because the main company - Mandrakesoft SA - is France-based.
They have a page if you want to tell them that you are interested. Maybe that can help... The page is at http://www.mandrakesoft.com/ipo/
By the way there is not any information about which market they plan to go. I guess a European market. Does anybody know about the best European markets to go public for a tech company?
Really I don't follow you. Shareware is closed source and I guess some companies do sharewares, not only individuals. It's not at all the same as free-software.
1/ I think Mandrake has changed a bit its wording lately, replacing "donation" by "voluntary contribution"
2/ They pay all the taxes, so it's not legally a donation and they have the right to do it (there was an article about that on linuxtoday but I can't retrieve the URL because it's currently down).
3/ They give a large choice to everybody, from giving nothing and downloading the distro to giving money without getting anything back.
4/ They regularly give the community. The latest action was a check to FSF Europe in last january. Also employing people to work on open-source projects, like KDE, Linux kernel or... Mandrake-Linux! helps.
5/ I think the best option is to go public for them!!! Go Mandrake, go public you'll have all the community behind you and they can take a part of Mandrakesoft. I love this idea. I've heard because they have put this page lately on their website: http://www.mandrakesoft.com/ipo/
Two years ago, there were already some people working on a Mandrake for ibook/imac. There was a domain name called "imandrake.com". Actually, they didn't release anything until the Mandrake version was full-featured enough and easy to use to respect the Mandrake way! They didn't want to release anything that would have been too difficult to install or with the need to go through MacOS (with BootX) to launch the system. Now Yaboot seems stable enough for that purpose. Anyway I don't know if they ported Diskdrake yet! That would be a revolution in the Mac/Linux world. (BTW, if you need some Mandrake t-shirts they just have opened http://www.mandrakestore.com)
Slashdot Mirror
it will run Mandrake. It's the nicest Linux distribution available: robust and friendly. Traders won't use something they don't understand.
Worth a look: http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/ppc.php3
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1191& lang=en : "Download speed has been decent at 30 K/s, but better get it before Slashdot announces it *grin*."
Dernier means last quotation.
Have a look to PC DATA (US retail market) and have a look to Google with the keywords: "caldera mandrake suse redhat poll". And you'll see that all the polls show Mandrake to be one of the most used distro:u se+redhat+poll&btnG=Google+Search
http://www.google.com/search?q=caldera+mandrake+s
...is open until next Friday (6.2 Euros per share). After that, it's going to be... market price! I guess that IPO is likely to be very succesful at least in Europe where it is easy to buy stock on Euronext.
years ahead of Mandrake, don't make me laugh...
So if your broker don't have any problem to access to the IPO nobody will forbid you to subscribe.
If your broker don't allow you to access to the IPO you can open an account in a french broker like Startfinance
Of course - it will be probably easyer to buy share after the IPO.
I have to recognize that Slackware has actually a particular status in my hearth because it's the Linux distro that made me discover Linux. Back in '95, it was already a full Linux distro, with most of the tools a Unix user could expect to program in C/C++, use LaTeX and so on. Anyway, times have changed and I wouldn't use Slackware anymore because I like modern OSes, with modern graphical interfaces, an easy way to install and configure devices and also a package system to install/uninstall softwares. That's the reason why I think a modern Linux distro looks more like Mandrake 8.0 than Slackware 8.0. Anyway, keep on the good work, there will always be some plain-old-Unix nostalgics to use Slack! :-)
Hi Scott - on http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/ everyone can read that IBM has key alliances with four different Linux partners: Caldera, Red Hat, SuSE and Turbo-Linux. A major Linux actor, a one with more market shares than Red Hat for individuals, a one that is truly international, neither American-centric nor Asian centric, a major Linux actor is missing. This Linux actor sells Linux products "to customers in 86 different countries worldwide" (according to their newly opened online store). This Linux actor is going public in July on a pan-European stock-market exchange place. Will IBM do a "key alliance" with this actor, or not? And why? :-)
Here is the summary (Slashdot "lameness" filters didn't allow me to post the entire text!):
1. Why are we conducting an IPO?
2. What market did we choose to enter?
3. When will the IPO happen?
4. What will be the amount raised and the valuation?
5. How will the stock offering be distributed?
Please understand that they go public on a *European* market. Economy in Europe is extremely dynamical compared to USA, as well as stock markets. Also, Europe will support any potentially big competitors against Microsoft and all the American high-tech companies. Europe has already succedeed do do that with Airbus vs. Boing. Also Mandrakesoft has a big community of users who are likely to buy a part of their loved company. Also, what if AOL sings a deal with Mandrakesoft to provide Linux easy distro instead of dealing with Microsoft???
Mandrake is actually not at all a Red Hat clone. All people using Mandrake whom I know like Mandrake but don't like Red Hat at all. I think Mandrakesoft future is brighter than Red Hat. In particular, think about what they have accomplished in two years... They became nearly #1 distro while they were totally unknown three years ago... I think Mandrakesoft has understood everything: let Linux be usable by everybody, open everything (code, documentation), do quality products, communicate much, run a low-cost company (remember there are as many guys in Mandrakesoft currectly as Red Hat 3 years ago!). So my bet is for Mandrake Linux/Mandrakesoft - the Microsoft challenger with the best potential I ever seen.
Did you read the document??? They don't enter a US market, they go public on a pan-European stock market (Euronext)
Linux-Mandrake News. Between these two new features and Mandrake Forum, the availability of information on Linux-Mandrake is starting to rival that of volunteer distributions like Debian, where almost all information is available on-line. It is a model we strongly encourage for all distributions or development projects, since such a news source can do a lot to bind a community together, as well as providing a valuable historic resource.
(...)
Caldera News. This past week, some members of the caldera-users mailing list began to speak openly of moving to alternate distributions, due to frustration with Caldera and the lack of recent releases. No specific links are provided, since members of such a list should have the right to vent a bit without becoming a media focus. Nonetheless, if Caldera is still interested in having a user community, we certainly hope they are reading their own mailing lists. These people liked OpenLinux and don't want to leave it, but felt they are reaching a point where they have no choice.
2/ (http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/fnews.php3)
May 22, 2001 - New US Linux market figures - LinuxGram has released the retail market shares for the USA during the first 2001 Quarter (Source: LinuxGram Newsletter/PC Data). (...)
(...)
1/ Email is not encrypted on the client side, but all the "tubes" that transmit information (email client -> smtp server -> smtp server/pop server -> email client) are encrypted. I don't think it's the good way because if one part of the tube is hacked or listened by the governement, the concept is down.
2/ Encrypt messages directly - for instance with PGP. With this method, the "tubes" don't have to be encrypted because the message itself is encrypted. This leads to the problem that the sender's client has to know how to encrypt the message intended to the receivers'client. That means that the sender has to know the receiver publick key before sending the message (correct me if I'm wrong).
So if the free-software community could show the example and imagine a standard common implementation for all the email clients, that would be great and at the same time, that wouldn't be too difficult to implement. We can imagine a very simple protocol that includes users' public keys at the very end of every message, under a standard format for everybody. For instange, somthing like " . Or better (because public keys are generally very long): maybe just an URL to the public key could. Or we can also have a standard that understands all the "fashions" of including the a public key.
So if everybody uses that (through non-encrypted emails at the beginning of the process), the email clients can maintain a list of all the email addresses for which they know a public key = for which they can send encrypted messages. Then, by default the clients can encrypt the messages without any human interaction :-)
Now imagine that Kmail/Evolution/Mozilla-mail/Emacs-mail/Mutt... decide to use that system, beginning to Day D. At date D + a few hours (or a few days for those who don't use much email!), most of the open-source community would communicate through encrypted emails and we could claim "Hey Microsoft users! everybody can read clearly your emails because you use Eudora or Outlook, but inside the free-software community, we communicate with strong encryption!".
Wouldn't be that good? Wouldn't be a demonstration that the entire Free-Software community can impose new concepts, new ways of living the Net?
I think if we want CDs cheaper, they have to be distributed directly on the net so you cut distributors & reseller margin and you can decrease the final price.
Considering that the current market capitalization for Red Hat Inc. is $911.5M, I wonder what would be a correct market capitalization for Mandrakesoft... 50% of RedHat's? 80%? More?
You are talking like if you are sure that Mandrake is going to go public on NYSE. Did you read such informations somewhere? My own thought is that they are likely to go on a European place because the main company - Mandrakesoft SA - is France-based.
By the way there is not any information about which market they plan to go. I guess a European market. Does anybody know about the best European markets to go public for a tech company?
Really I don't follow you. Shareware is closed source and I guess some companies do sharewares, not only individuals. It's not at all the same as free-software.
2/ They pay all the taxes, so it's not legally a donation and they have the right to do it (there was an article about that on linuxtoday but I can't retrieve the URL because it's currently down).
3/ They give a large choice to everybody, from giving nothing and downloading the distro to giving money without getting anything back.
4/ They regularly give the community. The latest action was a check to FSF Europe in last january. Also employing people to work on open-source projects, like KDE, Linux kernel or... Mandrake-Linux! helps.
5/ I think the best option is to go public for them!!! Go Mandrake, go public you'll have all the community behind you and they can take a part of Mandrakesoft. I love this idea. I've heard because they have put this page lately on their website: http://www.mandrakesoft.com/ipo/
Two years ago, there were already some people working on a Mandrake for ibook/imac. There was a domain name called "imandrake.com". Actually, they didn't release anything until the Mandrake version was full-featured enough and easy to use to respect the Mandrake way! They didn't want to release anything that would have been too difficult to install or with the need to go through MacOS (with BootX) to launch the system. Now Yaboot seems stable enough for that purpose. Anyway I don't know if they ported Diskdrake yet! That would be a revolution in the Mac/Linux world. (BTW, if you need some Mandrake t-shirts they just have opened http://www.mandrakestore.com)
I wouldn't put Mandrake as a beginner distribution. I would rather put it as one of the most advanced distribution available to all...
With Jacques Le Marois (CEO & Co-Founder of Mandrakesoft) on: http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/05/22/1 754212&mode=thread
With Gaël Duval (Creator of Linux-Mandrake & Co-Founder of Mandrakesoft) on: http://lwn.net/2001/features/MandrakeSoft.php3
Worth a read.