slashdot.org/articles/99/07/20/2129218.shtml
Newsletters - 10 TechJobs - 11 Slashdot Broadband 12 Search 13 X 14 Welcome to Slashdot 15 It's funny. Sections 23 Main 24 Apache 25 Apple 26 Askslashdot 27 Books 28 BSD 1 more 29 Developers 1 more 30 Games 10 more 31 Interviews 32 Science 2 more 33 YRO Help 34 FAQ 35 Bugs Stories 36 Old Stories 37 Old Polls 38 Topics 39 Hall of Fame 40 Submit Story 41 About 42 Supporters 43 Code 44 Awards Services 45 Broadband 46 Online Books 47 PriceGrabber 48 Product News 49 Tech Jobs Red Hat IPO Surprise 50 Red Hat Software Posted by 51 CmdrTaco on Tue Jul 20, '99 04:28 PM from the doing-the-right-thing dept. An anonymous told us that they recieved a little surprise in their inbox from Red Hat today: The NC boys have reserved a chunk of shares to be purchased on E*Trade by contributors to the open source comunity before the masses get their chance to super inflate them. Change The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. You have the chance here to sell the stock as soon as it starts trading, potentially for a higher price. You also have the chance to lose your shirt if the stock tanks. It is, however, a nicer deal than going through the market to buy, because it may be that only people who get in before the IPO have the chance to purchase the stock at the offering price. This is not different from the sort of offer many corporations give their board of directors, except the directors have a chance to purchase larger amounts. This is not costing Red Hat much to do - they are selling you the stock at the same price they'd be selling it to the institutions who generally get in to IPOs. However, they are taking a public-relations risk, and that takes guts. The only problem here is that you need money to get in the game. Some of the people who were chosen won't be able to play because of that. Red Hat employees and a few special people are most likely being given "options", which means they can purchase the stock at a fixed price (which can range from pennies per share to the initial offering price) for a number of years. Options are a much better deal because you don't have to buy until you know you'll make a profit, but it costs RH much more to offer options because the artificially low price of the options dilutes the market value of their stock. This is just the sort of thing that spammers need to legitimize their actions, and shouldn't be used. I am glad to see them offering the community these options; Get Bent (Score:1) by 71 the red pen (3138) on Tuesday July 20, @06:10PM ( 72 #1793067) Overly juvenile. Now, I know what you're going to say (after "duh") you are going to say that you need to indicate your interest in email in some public way before you should get it. Well, at least 75% of the email I get is unsolicited in this way. It is sent directly to me by people who think that I want to get it or should get it for some reason. Sometimes they're wrong, but I don't make a big fuss over it. The truth is, these people attached their email addresses to Open Source projects so that people could contact them with respect to their work. This mailing was in regards to their work, although not directly. Y'know, telecommunications tarriffing in Europe is, put simply, TOTALLY FUCKED. It's really a subject for totally different thread, but stop whining. That action had nothing to do with the way Debian as a whole feels or believes. I am an individual and I posted the mail on my own, and not on the behalf of Debian. I do think many of us do feel violated by a company that we thought held the same values as us. But they do this and make themselves no better than cyber-promo (you gotta remember these dorks). I PERSONALLY think RedHat is demonstrating it's MS'ishness. I have been told numbers of both $1000 or $2000 for opening an E-trade account. For point 2, I know you don't have to take them up on it. Regarding point 4, I have said before that I am glad they are making this offer. I simply object to the delivery (spam), and thus by extension, the possible ways the list for spamming may have been made. Regarding point 5, it was an honest question, I have no idea what the correct answer is. Regarding point 6, certainly it is nice to be given the chance. I would love to buy some Redhat stock but I am not a developer but the lonely CEO of a open source e-commerce company. It's not often that you get the chance to safely triple your money. And I ask you too, can I redirect all spam I get to YOUR mailbox? Redhat is trying to let these developers have a piece of what RedHat itself will make from the IPO. How else are they reasonably going to get the word out on fairly short notice? By targeting lists directly, they are much more likely to get the word to people who are busy coding, not web surfing. I can't believe people are going off sideways about this; In really unusual circumstances, some rules don't apply. Telling people you're giving them a piece of your multi-million IPO is one of them. The good in this case so far outweighs the minor annoyance that any frothing about it merely makes you look stupid. The system rewards the drinking buddies of the founders. Y'know, the guy who makes it the IPO as "Director of Nothing in Particular" and disappears after the first round when the auditors figure out he's just an oxygen thief. A lot of companies end up with this guy -- the "Pete Best" of the corporate world. Maybe he joined the company in the beginning before people knew how useless he'd be. Maybe he invested a few thousand back when everybody was maxed-out on their credit cards. Whatever the case, he ends up a millionaire for no particular reason. It's a a flawed attempt to reward people who deserve it but wouldn't necessarily get squat. Yes, once again, the net has failed to meet even my low expectations of human discourse. They're trying to get Debian devotees to invest in RedHat, making it against their interest to continue developing for Debian, their competition! A lot of those emails went to people that couldn't even use the offer. I appreaciate the intention, I'm just not sure it was the right way to do it. But most people can afford to invest (reasonably heavily) in Redhat's shares, I suppose? Now, I know what you're going to say (after "duh") you are going to say that you need to indicate your interest in email in some public way before you should get it. Well, at least 75% of the email I get is unsolicited in this way. It is sent directly to me by people who think that I want to get it or should get it for some reason. Sometimes they're wrong, but I don't make a big fuss over it. I'm happy to receive mail that is in some way relevant to something I've posted or attached my email address to - I wouldn't have put the email address there otherwise. There's a difference between mailing one person about something they've written (which is unsolicited (possibly) and email, but not bulk) and a company related to something I've written only insomuch as they sell and develop open-source software sending me (and a large number of other people, without overly rigorous checking as to who gets it) an advert trying to sell me stuff. The major difference is that the second is bulk, and thus the second is spam. If I attach my email address to the open-source movement in some way, that doesn't mean I want to buy Redhat shares. The truth is, these people attached their email addresses to Open Source projects so that people could contact them with respect to their work. This mailing was in regards to their work, although not directly. One fairly obvious solution would be to provide a form on their website for interested people who could then list their contributions. Once these had been checked, they'd have been given the information. But that's not the issue - the onus is on them to make sure that the only people paying for receiving this information are the ones who are interested. Y'know, telecommunications tarriffing in Europe is, put simply, TOTALLY FUCKED. It's really a subject for totally different thread, but stop whining. Hell, I know the telecommunications industry in Europe is far from optimal. Network traffic costs money no ma...
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