[NTLUG:Discuss] More Shaddy Stuff From LinuxOne

[Christopher Browne]

On Mon, 10 Jan 2000 22:35:33 CST, the world broke into rejoicing as
Cameron <hrothgar at endor.hsutx.edu>  said:
> There's always gotta be someone that screws up everything.  Read this
> little article by Bruce Perens about the latest dealings of LinuxOne:
> 
> http://technocrat.net/947050541/index_html
> 
>   "In a recent press release, LinuxOne announced a $500,000 software
>   order from "Power Source" of El Cerrito, California.
> 
>   "What LinuxOne didn't mention is that Power Source runs out of a
>   tiny storefront, and their "distributors in 130 countries", an
>   exaggeration, run flea market tables.  One of these distributors is
>   usually seen at the Livermore Ham Radio Flea Market here in
>   California, where he occupies one of the $10 tables."
> 
> LinuxOne is talking about having a $23M IPO in the near future.  Anyone
> else have anything to add?  This is the first I've heard of LinuxOne's
> poor representation.

This would-be IPO is, to my mind, a *good* thing.  It establishes
quite clearly that people have to have a certain amount of skepticism
at looking at investments.

--> Not every salesman has something for sale that you ought to
    consider buying.

--> IPOs should not be considered synonymous with "making vast
    quantities of money."  Indeed, if you look at the IPOs of 1999,
    there were quite a lot that *didn't* make money.  The
    Linux-related ones, and technology offerings in general, did quite
    well, but there were retail-related offerings that didn't do so
    well.

--> The questionable repute of LinuxOne is reasonably evident to
    anyone that can read with a little skepticism.

You might believe that LinuxOne is going to make you million$ if the
emergence of free software actually represented a fundamental change
in the way economics work; it won't and it's not.

I'd like to hear the nice folks at LinuxOne list the 130 nations in
which they have distributors; my suspicion is that this probably comes
from something along the lines that they've done deliveries through a
courier service that operates in that many countries...

--
"Catapultam  habeo!  Nisi  pecuniam omnem  mihi dabis,  ad  caput tuum
saxum immane mittam !!" (I have a  catapult!  If you do not pay me the
money you owe me, I will hit you with a big rock !!)
-- Simon Gornall <simon at unique-id.com>
cbbrowne at hex.net - <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>