[ale] VALinux IPO

[Chris Ricker]

On Thu, 9 Dec 1999, Robbie Honerkamp wrote:

> I'm not sure where you're getting your information, but nobody
> from the ALE or ALS organizations recieved ANY Red Hat IPO 
> shares due to their involvement with ALE or ALS. Anyone who
> did got them through the standard procedures at Etrade or
> by knowing someone at Red Hat very well.

Um, no.  The RH IPO went to three groups of people:

* RH employees (and obvious bonuses for non-employees like Linus Torvalds)
* friends of RH (which they defined as people who sent in RH bug reports)
* Linux developers (which they defined as people in the kernel source tree,
	and maintainers of packages for competing distributions)

It seems fair to me.  Obviously, the employees deserve a crack.  And given
that there's a limited pool you can allow into an IPO, people who've
improved your product directly (bug reports) or indirectly (by improving the
kernel or the userland) seem like a good choice for the rest.

> > Again, I am NOT saying that these people did
> > not get what they deserved; however, the less that I
> > know about it the happier I am.  I use Linux at home
> > and at work, I do my part to promote Linux to my
> > friends and family.  It's just this notion that there
> > is an elite class of Linux folks that get IPO offers
> > that I don't want to think about.  Raises the blood
> > pressure, gives me indigestion, and just plain doesn't
> > help my day.

Why?  The simple fact is that IPOs can only go to a limited group of people.

Do I feel bad because I got two RH IPO offers, and you got none?  Not
really.  Linux development is open, and you could easily get your name in
the kernel tree if you wanted (and you don't even have to code to do it--I
maintain documentation, for example).  Similarly, it's not difficult to send
in bug reports, and if you don't use their product enough to even have bug
reports (no offense to RH, but their, and all, distributions are buggy
enough that if you use them you inevitably wind up reporting bugs), well
then it seems petty to me to expect to get in on their IPO in spite of not
contributing anything back to them.

Similarly, do I feel bad because others got VA IPO offers and I didn't?  
Not really.  I don't buy their machines, so I don't deserve to be in on it
for that reason.  I couldn't have volunteered for ALS even if I had the time
(since I now live in SLC UT).  Ditto for the other ways they selected people
for their IPO.  They just don't apply to me.  <shrug> and move on.

The groups aren't elite.  They're just, by the laws of stock offerings, a
subset of people, and they are, so far, ones you happen not to have fallen
into.

I, for one, appreciate hearing things like VA opening at $300 / share, even
when they don't affect me monetarily.  I can remember the bad ol' days when
Linus wasn't very busy, had time to write such things, and would announce
the latest 1.1.x development kernel with some absurd statement about this
one being the market-dominating one.  We'd all laugh, then get back to work.  
Now, it's not so much of a joke, and that's a good thing IMHO.  Hearing
things like VA's opening price reminds me of how much the computing world
mindset has changed since I started using Linux (and also how absurd Wall
Street valuations are--no offense to the VA employees on here, but you're
not a $300 / share company any more than RH is a $100 / share company ;-).

later,
chris

-- 
Chris Ricker                                               kaboom at gatech.edu
                                              chris.ricker at genetics.utah.edu

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