[ale] VALinux IPO

[Jim Kinney]

Normally, I wouldn't respond to this. But I think a brief address will
explain "the letter".

All companies that are "going public" have the option of selling a limited
number of shares to "friends and family". The SEC justification is that
were it not for these "friends", the company wouldn't be in a position to
be going public. This is what both RedHat and VA did. People with a
history of helping the company _before_ the IPO announcement were given an
opourtunity to cash in on the IPO. But it has only been with the recent
spate of Linux affiliated IPO's that the cash has turned into CASH! Most
IPO's are not profitable for the investors for a number of years. That's
why the qualification for buying into an IPO are much stricter than for
just buying stock. The risk is much greater.

I didn't get in on the VA IPO. I have never bought a machine from them. I
did get in on the RedHat IPO. I have bought every RedHat CD that they have
released. I have found bugs for some installation problems and notified
them with details. I have been a vocal advocate of Linux in general, and
RedHat for the machines I admin, for years.  I think this is why I got the
RedHat letter. I'm also using some the CASH! from the RedHat stock to go
through the RHCE program. I also replaced the gutters on my house. :)

Congratulations are due to those people who got the VA letter as they were
a part of the success that let VA go public. I hope that Linus got some of
both RedHat and VA. A little Andover.net and Corel would be nice, too.

Jim


>   There was another "special letter" that 
> went out to certain people in ALE (basically the ones
> who did the work for the Showcase), who were allowed
> to buy into both this IPO and the one for Red Hat.
> 
> Jeff Waldrop
> 

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