[plug] Red Hat Shares non-offer

[Bret Busby]

John Menzies wrote:
> 
> Bret,
> 
> The reality is probably a whole lot different.  I know not these lads but:
> 
> In the lead up to an IPO - initial offer on the excahnge - things do tend
> to go a little mad - there are demands from every quarter and the best laid
> plans can go out the door - particularly if the demand for stock is
> enormous - the company is in a maddening rush to get to make before the
> window to raise money closes etc.  I have been involved in a few of these
> and often the backroom of the brokerage house is not as good or efficient
> as the advertising.  Now you could be right  - they might be a couple of
> rouge developers with no regard for the industry except to creat a quick
> exit for themselves.  But I would think not from what I have seen -
> precious little I might add.
> 
> Hopefully you will get your turn to float an inovative agressive market
> leading software product and you will then understand - can send a young
> lad like moi grey - might already have.
> 
> I personaly would take the view that if you can not get the stock - maybe
> that is a good thing!
> 

Whether it is a good or bad thing, I will never know.

It is obviously way out of my league, as with the kernel developers, as
complained of at salon.com.

I realise that I will probably appear naiive, and, no doubt, many would say
stupid for this, but, as a person who is using Red Hat 5.2, I thought, it would
be good to get a couple of hundred dollars worth of shares (a hundred shares).

Many years ago, when I was young, I was able to buy and sell parcles of shares
worth $20, on one occasion, and, about $150, on another occasion.

I was not interested this time in speculation, or, in making millions of
dollars, only in owning a small parcel of shares in a company that distributes a
product that I use.

I know not of the hair-wrenching that you describe, involved in filing for an
IPO.

But, I believe that a company like Red Hat should have posted a notice on Linux
User Groups maling lists, and should have offered small parcels of shares to the
developers and users of the product, before going after the effluent speculators
and corporate investors.

But, then, I am an idealist.

I believed that Red Hat, and Linux, are about the little man.

I was wrong.

Such is life.

I would have been quite happy to pay the full retail price for a retail package
of the Oficial Red Hat Pack (or whatever it is called), but now, I have the same
attitude to Red Hat, that many have to the Big Bodgy Software Company; why pay
for software that can be got for free, or for the price of a blank CD.

One thing that particularly irritates me, apart from the issue of the offer
being restricted to the effluent, is that the underwriters, goldmans sucks, and
ertrade, and, the anz, which has some business arrangement with ertrade, all
cannot be bothered responding to email.

We may be small, but, there are many of the small.

Bret Busby
.............................