[plug] Red Hat becomes like M$

[Christian]

Bret Busby wrote:

> > As I mentioned before, I didn't particularly like Red Hat the
> > distribution but Red Hat the company certainly has my vote and it gets
> > very old very quickly when ill-informed people start spouting off with
> > stupid, snide remarks about a company that actually puts its money where
> > its mouth is when it comes to Free software, morality and community.
> >
> 
> Ill informed?

At the very least.

> How many people were able to invest in Red Hat, that were not experienced, rich,
> exploitative speculators?
> How many people with less than 10,000USD, or 15,000AUD, and without proven share
> exploitation experience, were allowed to invest?
> How many people, who had a genuine interest in the copmpany, and the product,
> and the open software philosophy, and therefore, intended to invest on a long
> term basis, were allowed to buy shares in the IPO?

I don't know, but it's rather irrelevant how many were or weren't
because I'm not making any statement about this.  All I'm saying is that
your Red Hat bashing was, and is, stupid.  Red Hat is not responsible
for the grass-roots developers being denied from buying shares.  E-Trade
was responsible for that.  If you're actually suggesting that Red Hat
was responsible for that then maybe you know something that no one else
knows (very, very, very doubtful).  Imagine if Red Hat were responsible
for denying those developers invited to participate in the IPO - it
would make them incredibly stupid.  Firstly they go and offer a whole
group of people (most of whom they would *know* were ineligible) a
special go at the shares.  This would have been very stupid since, when
those people were denied, they were bound to make a huge fuss about it. 
I don't know much about share trading and the stockmarket but one thing
I gleaned from some of the articles discussing this IPO was that the
last thing a company wants when it makes this initial offering is a lot
of bad publicity.  If you are going to criticise Red Hat for anything
then it would have to be for not checking out E-Trade's eligibility
requirements and the vigour with which they are applied before it sent
out emails offering developers to be involved.  This was not, however,
what you were criticising Red Hat for.  Drawing mindless comparisons
between Red Hat and Microsoft in this matter is so unbelievably stupid
and misguided that it almost reminds me of something ZDNet would have
published a year ago.  (And the responses to you on this list like the
subsequent posts to ZDNet's Feedback forum.)

> Was it for the benefit of the Linux users or developers? How many of them were
> allowed to buy shares in the company, via the IPO?

I don't think the sharemarket works for the benefit of Linux users or
developers.  Nevertheless Red Hat *tried* to give something back to the
community who made them successful.  Certainly not something to
criticise them for!

> Are you saying that all the developers who could reportedly not take up the
> personal offers that they were sent, were lying? If so, does that mean that
> Linux itself was developed by dishonest people, and is therefore as unreliable?

Ummmm... excuse me?

I don't know whether to be worried or just laugh!

> Was the last minute share offer price increase of 20%, in a way that prevented
> people other than the exploitraive speculators, who spend all their time
> monitoring the share market goings on, a move that benefitted people who were
> trying to buy shares? (Read the information - they had a few hours after
> notification to respond to the move, and, even then, a particular, concealed
> action was required to be taken, of which the buyers were apparently not
> informed)

And this was part of Red Hat's secret plan to deny people it had made
special offers to from taking advantage of those offers?  Sounds
plausible. NOT!

> Was the releasing of the shares through companies that do not respond to
> queries, to the benefit of the public?

E-Trade certainly screwed things up.  I suppose this is another part of
Red Hat's secret evil plan for world domination in choosing an
incompetent brokering company.

> Was it really a genuine public share offer? Or, was it done in such a way as to
> keep the common people out?

The emails sent to Free software developers giving them the opportunity
to take advantage of the IPO was certainly a good tactic for keeping
people out... </sarcasm>

> If so, why have people who have not been able to buy shares in the IPO, and
> people who, having got past stage one to buy the shares, and, having had the
> sudden 20% increase imposed on them, so they, even then, were prevented from
> buting the shares, requested that the SEC investigate the share release?

I believe this was done by one particular person who asked the SEC to
investigate E-Trade and their policies/handling of the share offer. 
Once again, nothing to do with Red Hat.

> Considering that slashdot is supposedly a Linux-friendly organisation, why have
> they published so much information about the goings on? Or, is slashdot not to
> be trusted?

Their information is probably as trustworthy as most out there on the
web.  But like other news sites they cannot be held accountable for
difficulties their readers may have in properly understanding the
information contained there.

> Ill informed?

Yep.  But other phrases spring to mind also.

> Well, I suppose if slashdot, and news.com. and all the other sources, and
> personal experience, cannot be trusted, then, there is no way that we can be
> informed at all.

I'm beginning to think that there is no way _you_ can be informed at
all.

> And, if researching something before writing about it is stupid, then so be it,
> and I will not make any comment about the mentality of people who do research,
> or theses and such.

Fortunately the people who cannot properly understand and assimilate the
material they read rarely get the opportunity to do any meaningful
research.

> As for Red hat putting its money where its mouth is, how many of the developers
> who were sent personal share offers by Red hat, were allowed to take up the
> offers? Is that what you mean when you refer to putting money where one's mouth
> is; offering something, when the offer can't possibly be taken up?

I don't know how many were or weren't - the point remains that them
being denied had very little, if anything, to do with Red Hat.  Hence
Red Hat had not really done anything wrong in this matter.  Hence your
criticism of them was, at best, ill-informed.

Regards,

Christian.

-- 
Five years from now everyone will be running free GNU on their 200 MIPS,
64M SPARCstation-5.
				- Andrew Tanenbaum in 1992 explaining why
				  the i386-based Linux kernel had no future.