Slashdot Log In
Red Hat Announces IPO
Posted by
justin++
on Fri Jun 04, 1999 02:30 PM
from the details-sketchy dept.
from the details-sketchy dept.
The first of the big Linux IPOs is here: Red Hat has announced they
have filed for an initial public offering. Details are sketchy,
but the word on the street is that the stock will be very difficult to get ahold of. Now, when's the
VA IPO? :)
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Red Hat Announces IPO
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 179 comments
(Spill at 50!) | Index Only
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
|
2
(1)
|
2
Curious (Score:3)
So far, I've liked Red Hat for their stronger ethical stance on free software. Recently, they have been the best distribution from a free software/open source point of view, other than Debian. As such, I opposed SuSE and similar, which wrote their own proprietary software, put in other people's proprietary packages, and had no free software stance. Red Hat only used free software in their distribs, and released everything they wrote under GPL. Red Hat is loosing control of their own product by IPOing. Now, they may no longer be able to do that. They may keep majority share in the hands of ethical people initally, so they'll continue to be good for a while, but it's still a slippery slope. It's really east to sell a few stocks when you need some cash, and before you know it, you're controlled by greedy investors.
I guess they're still better than SuSE or Caldera, but they may no longer be one of the two saints amongst the distribution. Oh well. As Bob Young always says, if Red Hat starts misbehaving, it's GPL, so we can stop buying it from them. There's no harm in letting them grow. We should probably hold off judgment until they do something bad.
Oh yeah, and I'm guessing this is the first post (you can moderate me down for that).