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Linux Software

LinuxOne Lite: First Looks 221

Posted by CmdrTaco from the that-is-funny-as-hell dept.
Sensei^ from LinuxNewbie sent us their Review of LinuxOne. Basically, the distribution is "A Badly Repackaged Mandrake". Read this review: the list of problems is amusing, and it will cause your disgust of the corporate entity known as LinuxOne to climb to a new level.
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LinuxOne Lite: First Looks More

LinuxOne Lite: First Looks

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  • Fool.com has a good story about LinuxOne (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Fool.com has a good story [fool.com] about LinuxOne that really gives the lie to their whole IPO scam.

  • Re:The down side to open source. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I agree that the market will decide. I get tired of all the anti-capitalist /. readers that bitch about how some corporation is tainting some intellectually pure technology. None of us would have the luxury of even reading this - if we did not live in a market driven world.
  • Three Distros for the sys admins under the sky,
    Seven for the kernel hackers in their chairs of stone,
    Nine for the Linux IPOs doomed to die,
    One for the Lord Linus on his Transmeta Throne,
    In the land of Linux where the trolls lie.
    One Distro to rule them all, One Distro to find them,
    One Distro to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.
  • Three Distros for the sys admins under the sky,
    Seven for the kernel hackers in their chairs of stone,
    Nine for the Linux IPOs doomed to die,
    One for the Lord Linus on his Linux Throne,
    In the land of Slashdot where the trolls lie.
    One Distro to rule them all, One Distro to find them,
    One Distro to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.
    In the land of Slashdot where the trolls lie.
  • Three Distros for the sys admins under the sky,
    Seven for the kernel hackers in their chairs of stone,
    Nine for the Linux IPOs doomed to die,
    One for the Lord Linus on his Linux Throne,
    In the land of Slashdot where the trolls lie.
    One Distro to rule them all, One Distro to find them,
    One Distro to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.
    In the land of Slashdot where the trolls lie.
  • Ignoring for a moment the question of whether the "buyers" have ever even seem $500k, you've made a grievous error:

    If companies are going to be spending a half a million dollars on linux, and end up getting a product like "LinuxOne OS" which, according to this review doesn't work at all, they will be very unhappy with "linux" not with linux one.

    So FUCKING what?

    Really, will this affect your life one bit? NO! You will be every bit as free to use Linux as you've ever been. You will still find great support channels. You will still have access to all the source. You will still be free to browbeat your friends, neighbors, and children into using it. In short, your rights and freedoms will not be affected in the slightest.

    Advocacy is one thing. Trying to restrict someone else's right to, within the confines of the licenses, distribute software in a way that is less than effective, is fundamentally anti-freedom. Your personal fear that "the product I advocate might get a bad name" is not justification for restricting someone else's freedom.

    So don't buy stuff from these scumbags. Tell others to do the same. But don't whine about the harm they do as if it's the end of the world. It just isn't.

    Enough LinuxOne stories already. We hate them. Fine. Everything that can be said already has been. Stop beating the pulp that was once a horse.

  • Why is it people always say "Solaris x86 is slow cause, uh, the architecture sucks."?

    Fact: I didn't say anything about slowness on x86, just that the x86 platform sucks. Which everyone knows. No Open Firmware, or anything close. 16-bit init code. IDE. Need I go on?

    Furthermore, why do you call Solaris slow?

    Because it is?

    It scales very well.

    Check out the HOARD project and see just how well it scales. And that's just multi-thread memory allocation. So it runs on 64-processor machines. So does UltraLinux. Big deal.

    The file system is very fast. Maybe you find CDE slow?

    The filesystem is fair-to-middlin at best. UFS is a basic Unix filesystem that could easily have come out of a university textbook. It can't touch xfs for streaming media applications and it can't touch ext2 for overall performance. Sure, it's faster than FAT, but that says nothing.

    Actually, I don't find CDE at all. I refuse to pollute any system I'm responsible for with it. Thanks for nothing, HP.

  • I was trying to keep an open mind about LinuxOne and I figured "OK, so they started with Red Hat, chopped some stuff out and added their own stuff in, right?" I mean they wouldn't just blatantly copy Red Hat 6.x and remove all references to Red Hat, who would be so lame? Well this review finally explains it: they didn't copy Red Hat -- they copied Mandrake 6! What is gauling to me is that according to this reviewer they appear to have added absolutely nothing to the distro. If they actually did add a few new drivers or a new install maybe they could justisfy this, but new files are nowhere to be found.

    Sadly enough I'm still willing to give this company a chance to prove itself as adding some value. Maybe they need more time. Maybe they have good intentions but grossly underestimated how much work is involved in putting together a distro. Maybe they have something special in development. I still can't believe this is all they have to offer -- it's just too ridiculous to believe.

  • Modulo the fact that we can't send Linus' lawyers after them, Linus has, after all, explicitly blessed binary modules (with the warning about what might happen when the kernel changes, but caveat hax0r). Linus's copyright only extends as far as the kernel, so he has no say over what happens in user space.

    Most of the Linux distributions offer some binary-only stuff, even if it's just Netscape. Even Debian includes non-free options, I believe, although they're treated as an appendage rather than as part of the distribution per se. TurboLinux is quite explicit about offering proprietary value-add, and they're unquestionably offering something real.

    As for whether Linus should withhold use of the trademark, it's his call, but LinuxOne does appear to be in the Linux business, however tenuously (as opposed to Serious Domains, which was strictly trying to capitalize on the name, with no pretense at actually offering Linux-related goods or services). Withholding the trademark from LinuxOne puts him in the business of judging particular uses of Linux, which is a rather slippery slope. I'd be very surprised if he goes after someone offering a distribution (however cheesy) with legal use of the Linux kernel (respecting the GPL on the kernel source proper) unless they seriously abuse the trademark, maybe by saying that Linus endorses their particular flavor.

    But if LinuxOne's installation is as painful as it sounds, either they're not going to go very far or they'll quickly find out that it would actually help them to add real value.

    • The STOCK isn't a very good buy.
    Yes. I was rather amused when everyone was yelling about how their S-1 filing was almost the same as RH's, and that therefore the stock was no good. I think the real problem with the S-1 filing lies in the places where it is different. I.e. not only are they not making a profit, they don't have any revenue, or any expenses, or any debt. RH had plenty of those last three things which indicated to me that they were doing something.
    Hal Duston
  • That's a very good point. Now that slashdot is owned by Andover, who is in control of accepting adds? Does someone at the home office take care of that. Would CmdTaco realize what .gif file he's putting in until it's too late.
  • >As I understand it, they may (like Pacific HiTech) have some ability to provide tech support in native languages to certain asian communities. Or FAQs or HowTos. Any of those might be useful.

    In case you didn't know, Pacific HiTech has changed its name to TurboLinux.

  • Do you think they can sell it for less than 2.99? That is what Linux Mall charges to send you a CD of any of the major distributions.

    Dastardly
  • Okay, I know this message might fit the technical definition of "troll" given that it expresses an opinion without supporting it with any arguments, but how can this be labelled a troll when the opinion expressed matches those of most (yes, a generalization -- deal :) of the folks around here? Just a thought :)
  • I think it would be a good idea for the likes of Mandrake and Redhat to take a look at this, find the places where LinuxOne plant their name in distribution and bury some code to force a crash or shutdown if it's found. Doesn't sound to me like these guys have got the brains to track this sort of thing down if the real distros are sneaky about it.

    Macka
  • well, one way to look at it is that people should have the freedom to make their own mistakes. if they make a mistake and don't understand why they made that mistake, perhaps they are not ready to learn after all.

    --thi

  • no worries, local minima are surpassed w/ momentum. usloth is a large local minima, but they too shall be overrun.

    --thi

  • I guess this means the public-at-large is less intelligent than the PHB's. Scary thought.


    Educational sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
  • (Sheesh. Somebody with the squishdot source want to open a new site?)


    It's been tried. Guess what? For practical purposes, the current version of Slashdot is CLOSED SOURCE! That's right, the only source they made available last I checked was Slash 2 and pre-3, both of which were only marginally useable. I HOPE someone forks off Slash development and manages it responsibly, because Rob "Mr. OpenSource" Malda talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk.

    "Waitaminute", you'll say: "Rob doesn't get paid to do support his source". Not directly, no... but he makes his money off the OS community, and even among big soulless corporations, it's customary to throw us a bone now and then. So nevermind 'support'... you would think that the least he could do would be to practice what he preaches, and put a fsking tarball of the scripts in his /usr/local/slash directory onto his sources page. That's all we ask.

    Then, the folks over at http://projects.is.asu.edu/mai lman/listinfo/slash-help [asu.edu] will be able to fix all his broken code, document it, and redistribute it like they did version "pre-3".

    Okay, so that strayed off topic, but it needed to be said. Rob, stop holding out on us please.
  • The untapped niche for Linux1 are projects that you want to fail. Really hate a manager? Convince them to buy the distro. Really hate your in-laws? Convince them to invest in LO.
  • Otherwise funny post, but... Jesus Christ. Why do people have such difficulty getting foreign names right?

    It's not such a complicated name anyway. Look.

    Chan.

    Dra.

    Sekh.

    Ar.

    Repeat with me: Chandrasekhar.

    See, wasn't so hard, now was it?

    Now let's try another one. Repeat with me: Schrödinger...
  • Not only that, but it can be argued that single-celled organisms never die of natural causes.
  • try it out and then:

    http://www.linuxone.net/support/evaluate.html
  • True, but it misses the point. The point is that we don't want to let the failure of a 'Linux product' tarnish the reputation of Linux itself, or the open-source community as a whole.

    Certainly anyone is free to install (or not) any distro they please, but is it in our best interest to stand aside like Kirk obeying the Prime Directive? I prefer to help them avoid the mistake in the first place and thereby win a friend, than to give them the 'freedom' to fuck up and gain an enemy. This is supposed to be a *community* after all, right?
  • ...are not likely to download a huge CDrom image and burn a Linux CD.
    For the most part you're probably right, but I know a guy who was about to do just that. (And in fact I did it myself when I installed my first Linux distro.) He is a longtime Win user who is otherwise pretty computer-savvy and was interested in learning about Linux. I quickly burned him a copy of RH6.1 to try out. If he likes that, maybe I'll give him Debian too.

    ...ANY of them will be thousands of times better than LO appears to be...
    Indeed!!
  • Recently, I've joked with my friends that I should start a .com, offer "linux solutions to real world problems" and quickly announce an IPO. Looks like someone just beat me too it.

    However, LinuxOne, in the future it would probably be easier to rip off one of those 2 floppy disk distro's. That way you wouldn't be pressured to rewrite and documentation.
  • The market, in the long run, given perfect access at no cost in real time to all information, will choose the most profitable distro over other, not as profitable, distros.

    The market doesn't give a shit about profitability, if anything increased competition will force profits down if anything else.

    But then again you don't know what the hell you are talking about. Come back and post after you've read an introductory economics text. I can recommend one for you if you want.

    (And to this crap like that post get marked insightful...)
  • The website that claims to have bought $500,000 of software looks like a gaudy high school kid's site

    Were you able to hit the site and get information? Was it available to you regardless of its aesthetics?

    run by a webmaster with a hotmail account

    So the webmaster published their email address and is available to be contacted, which is a lot more than I can say for other higher-profile sites out there in their genre. Did you try to contact the webmaster? Did they respond?

    A slashdot reader has called the number on the website before and woken the website's owner out of bed (it's his home #)

    So someone called a contact number and someone answered? How is this a bad thing? How many customer support or sales lines have you called and were put on hold or not answered at all? So what if it is someone's home? One could call that dedicated. He was woken up? Is it possible that the person answering the phone is NOT in same time zone as the caller? Wouldn't 24 hour phone access be desired?

    That doesn't sound like someone who has $500,000 to pay for software, now does it?

    I have a grandfather that was a medical doctor who had a private practice for over 20 years. He wears the same pair of pants every day of the week and drives a beat-up old Ford truck. By appearances one could say that he doesn't have much money.. but he donates huge amounts of cash to charitable organizations, invests heavily in the stock market, has huge trust funds for his offspring and their offspring, etc. Are you so sure you can tell how much money someone can spend by appearances or by what they choose to spend their money on, if at all?

    LinuxOne maybe a huge sham, but I think you need to re-work your judgments and get some facts. Scary stuff indeed: to be judged without reasoning.

  • Mine and his comments weren't about the LinuxOne prospectus, but about the orignial commenter's examples of "scary stuff" regarding website aesthetics, phone support availability, webmaster email account snobbery and what people choose to spend money on.

    I believe my points on judging people without reasoning were lost on you. Perhaps you would take the Linux community's "truth" about LinuxOne automatically without investigating the details?

    Have you ever been inside a wal-mart? Flea market tables selling bargin bin merchandise.. yet they are an economic powerhouse. Can you really judge so much by appearances?

    Investigating the details indeed. LinuxOne never had a chance with any of you, did they? I'm not a LinuxOne advocate.. I think it and their prospectus is a sham, but not because of what /. tells me to think. I am, however, an advocate for sound reasoning. Let's make better arguments people.

  • On a minor note could someone create say an obfusicated version of the source code for release and then release the code so that it would take just a little longer to get ahold of?

    No. Term #3 of the GPL specifies that "the source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it." So you are free to write your own obfuscated code by hand, but passing it through some obfuscation program is not allowed.

  • Brilliant. What a load of crap gets posted on /., and yet something like this gets passed by?

    I guess the story about the folding lego was more important.

    (Sheesh. Somebody with the squishdot source want to open a new site?)
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Geez... it was strait out of MS Word! :)

    Now at least they have a semi professional looking page. They now need to have someone that speaks native english re-word it.

    Maybe some of you linux guru's are interested in working for them. They have a few job openings. :)


    I personally would be embarassed to do such... hehehe
  • Funny, maybe, but true; here [linuxone.net]'s the URL.
  • I don't see any reason why they couldn't have closed-source parts in it, as long as these are not derivatives of eg. GPL software. Distributions can come with any software, Linus has nothing to say to that. If it has binary-only modules to the kernel that is AFAIK OK to Linus as long as it doesn't require recompiling/modifying the kernel.
  • The point is not that they have broken any rules and such. Its just that they are not adding anything at all. The point the article is making is that you may as well just get hold of Red Hat or Mandrake and not bother with LinuxOne's product.

    Why did a company come out with a rip off of Red Hat that is worse than the original?

  • Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Well I had a hard time getting the page to load so I am posting this not only as a rebuttal to your crappy first post but to allow people to read it on a faster server (slashdot instead of the crappy/slow server that is was originally on).

    ==============================================


    Monday, 24-Jan-2000 15:44:53 EST

    Because Great Minds Think Alike








    LinuxOne: A First Look (What the HELL is this?!?)
    Written By: Avatar

    Pimping itself as the easiest to install and use Linux OS, LinuxOne finally put out both LinuxOne OS V1.2 &
    LinuxOne Lite V1.0 to the masses. Sounds good right?

    Test System A:
    Pentium II 400Mhz
    Asus P2B-F
    128MB PC100
    Voodoo3 3000 AGP
    PPA Zip Drive
    10GB HD
    32X CD
    4x4x16 CDRW
    3Com Vortex NIC (@Home cable modem)
    Gateway CrystalScan 17

    Test System B:
    Pentium 200Mhz
    Gigabyte GA586TX3
    64MB EDO
    Matrox Millenium MGA
    4GB HD
    32X CD
    Optiquest Q71 17

    I downloaded LinuxOne Lite, just to give it a trial and see what would happen. This version runs out of your
    Windows drive like WinLinux 2000. Since I didn?t have problems with WinLinux, I figured I should not have
    problem with this one either. Following the minimal directions, I downloaded and installed on Test System A.
    No sweat. Unlike WinLinux, LinuxOne Lite (to be referred to as LOL) did not put up an icon on the start menu for
    easy starts. LOL also does not have a configuration editor program for Windows so you can configure you setting
    before launching. (Just in case of a goof up.)

    And so I fired it up. Windows shut down, restarted in DOS mode, and started to load up LOL. That is when it all
    hit the fan. The monitor started blinking continuously making the screen nearly unreadable. I missed the console
    login, but caught ½ second glimpses of the X login once it came up. Braving it out I tried to login with the
    password given, but more than just the monitor must have been off because I couldn't get it typed. With that, I
    gave up on it and rebooted via CTRL-ALT-DEL. It took 6 times to get it to take. Once Windows loaded again, I
    deleted the whole thing and moved on to the full version, LinuxOne. (To be referred to as LO.)

    The FTP site for LO is fairly decent once you figure it out. It appears like any normal RH/Mandrake ftp area but
    everything is labeled LinuxOne. The one nice thing I found was a folder called cdrom. Download this and burn it
    to a CD and you're ready to go, complete with boot disk images. The ftp site also offers network boot disk for ftp
    installs. (I know, almost everyone else does too.) So, with the CD burned, I was ready to go.

    Not willing to give up Mandrake 7 for an unknown distro, (especially given the experience with LOL), I opted to
    install on Test System B. I figured it is such a generic system, the install should be just fine. Booting of diskette,
    I noticed it looked just like RedHat. And with good reason. The install is exactly like, if not, RedHat's. The only
    difference was that the RedHat name never appeared. Even older version of Mandrake let RedHat take some credit
    for the installation. Overall, the install was smooth and boring. If one has even installed previous versions of
    RedHat or Mandrake, there is nothing to new to see. Also, it only allows for making one user account: root.

    Upon reboot, the system fired up no problem, and at login I was greeted with the familiar Mandrake ANSI graphic
    of Tux. (Or at least a penguin if not the Lead Penguin himself.) Well, that explains why the install was so familiar.
    The whole thing is probably a revamp of Mandrake, right? Nope.

    I launched KDE to take a look for changes. None. Not a single change to be found. Not an icon, not a name,
    nothing. I kept looking for any reference to LO in the system, but only found 3 xpm files. "Not self advertisement
    on this one," I thought. Then I clicked on Netscape to see if the usual help file was there. And I got an error. The
    default help file was missing. I was a bit shocked at this. If a newbie installed and needed help, they were out of
    luck. So I started digging through the system to find the docs and found what I had suspected-Mandrake docs. Not
    only Mandrake docs, but Mandrake 6.0 no less. These guys not only couldn't get their own docs together, but also
    could not point Netscape in the right direction.

    Further checks confirmed the LO is, for the most part, a badly repackaged Mandrake 6.0 distribution. Xfree86 is at
    version 3.3.3.1, KDE 1.1.1, and kernel 2.2.12-2 are installed. In my opinion, LO is a "Why Bother" distribution.
    The website mentions ?sophisticated proprietary device drivers, but I couldn't find them on the CD. That doesn't
    mean they are not there, just that I can't find them, or any reference to them. Overall, I would say skip this
    distribution unless it is easier for you to get than a real version of Mandrake or RedHat.


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  • Why would linus care? He hasn't gone after Caldera, or RedHat, or SuSe, which all distribute binary-only components.
    --
  • Mandrake has never pretended that it wasn't Red Hat-based. Credit was given where credit was due. Further, Mandrake wasn't just a rebranding, but it attempted to add touches that made it easier to use--like KDE.
  • Yes, I also found that quite amusing.

    For those not up on their TLA's (Three Letter Abbreviations), LOL == Laugh Out Loud
  • The linuxnewbie.org's web page has the ? problem. All the single quotes appear as question marks. This happens if the web page was edited using any Micro$oft software, because M$ once again decided to bastardize the standard (unicode in this case).

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but linuxnewbie.org is supposed to be a Linux web site. If so, one would hope they'd actually use Linux!

    ___
  • They're not a FUD site, or at least this writer isn't attempting to FUD.

    Avatar is Cobey Schmidt, a guy I used to know in the Army. He's an employee at VisionTek (a hardware company up in Gurnee, IL). He did the review on his own machines, on his own time and submitted it to Linuxnewbie just to help.

    As to others on the site? I dunno.


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  • Correction:

    At that event, Sun also is expected to announce it will open up access to Solaris 8 source code.

    That means, they're finally unveiling Solaris 8 and offering it for free. It is SPECULATED that they may make it open source. There's nothing definitive in the article saying they WILL release it.

    But if they do, that would be fantastic.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • LinuxOne's true product appears to be their shares. They are perfectly targeted at investors who don't know better.



    ----
  • It would be a VERY BAD THING if this Linux IPO suddenly goes the same way as RedHat or VALinux... I really doubt it, I think most investors at least have some common sense.

    On another matter, I think RedHat will end the year with less than half of it's actual stock value. The reason? Anyone can do what they have done. In sharp contrast, VALinux has the hardware business going for it. I think that, in the long run, VALinux is likely to start making more money, faster, than RedHat is ever going to be able.
  • I guess a line needs to be added to the GPL, then. If you want to use it, or sell products based on it, you need to contribute to it. I've read it and reread it, and it says nothing about this requirement. :)

    Seriously now, LinuxOne is just the first of many companies that will do this. Thanks to the GPL, every friend and foe of the Linux community can do whatever they like with Linux, so long as they make available any modifications they make to the source code in their shipping product.

    Why should they feel the need to add anything? Linux as a whole is making huge leaps in almost every area without their help... So in most cases a new developer would find that the work that they were doing was already being done by someone more established than themselves, and therefore their work would have no chance of getting included. And having a staff programmers require money outlays. Why would anyone want to hire on a staff of programmers when they can enlist a commnity of developers for free? It can only help the balance sheet...

    So far as your qualifications for what each company does... Surely you can thnk of something better than "Caldera ties Microsoft in up in Court?" For one, Caldera settled for a mere pittance of what they were originally seeking, and for two, simultaneous, since they've now settled does that now mean they're not a real Linux company anymore?

    If the lot of programmers working on Linux at night for free are upset about this, then perhaps they should investigate a different license? They didn't gripe with Redhat, Cobalt and VA Linux... And I'm sure there were people that made contributions and got left out of the crowd.
  • You won't be able to short LNUX for a couple of months after their IPO, I believe. Federal regulations. Too bad, because I think shorting is the best way to make money off this "company", and by the time you're allowed to short it, the other investors will have gotten a clue and the price will already be down where it belongs... in the pink sheets!
  • What LinuxOne are more vulnerable to is the possibility that people might figure out that...the STOCK isn't a very good buy.

    Why would this be a problem? If I make $20 million in an IPO, why should I care if people later decide that buying my stock was a bad idea? They got screwed, I got rich. Where's the vulnerability?
  • Then Linux would also have to sue Redhat, Storm, SuSE, Slack, Mandrake, Corel, Caldera, etc., etc. They all include closed source applications.

    Linus owns the Linux kernel (and a few fiddlibits). He does not own any other parts of a distribution. He has no say so at all about what programs may or may not use kernel services. In fact, he has a special exception to the kernel license that says essentially the same thing.
  • All LinuxOne has done is take someone else's product, rip their name out of it and slap their own sticker on it. Why use a cheap knock-off when you can own the original, made by a company that is committed to serving the community?

    Well, if they're smart, they'll sell it cheaper than Red Hat / Mandrake. They could make a killing just selling the same stuff cheaper and letting RH / Mandrake do the development....
  • Great... I'll post my CV here sometime as well, but more to the point..

    Hence, it is totally possible they'll get sucked into the latest tulip mania (or PenguinMania TM) and buy shares in LinuxOne. And get taken to the cleaners.

    Great... that's the way things are supposed to work. Why is everyone getting excited about this?


  • I also read somewhere (so this is hearsay) that the order was for $500k worth of software. Kinda like BillG making a $1million dollar donation to a Uni, when $500k of it is 500 $1 cds stamped with an image of W2K/BackOr^hffice. Oh, what a tangled web we weave..

  • LinuxOne is just groping for money. Either that or they are interested in selling Linux to PHBs for personal use...

    "LinuxOne, the Linux distribution for the dumber than average user. It's not any easier to learn than other distros, but more likely to fleece you".

  • I think the important part is that the installation scripts and the source they are using is not obtainable. With other distributions, I can at least get most of the source for non-proprietary products.

    However, i'm afraid they will opt out of this problem through a cheap method, as all other things relating to this company. They will provide a 56k website where you can download the source, hence, almost unattainable.

    While I know that other companies are doing such things as closed, binary-only distributions, I believe that we need some way to stop these morons from tarnishing the good name of Linux. And this might have been an option.

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau

  • Dude, you're the market. I'm the market. Everybody's the market. If you think LinuxOne is evil and Suse (or debian or redhat or mandrake or OpenBSD etc etc) is better, be the market. Buy yourself a copy of your favorite distro's latest release. Buy it full price. Buy it from the part of the market you want to support (be that VA, or the distro org. themselves, or from Ma and Pa computers down the street...) You have market power, use it. It's not just about supporting the community, it's about market economies and who is going to be there in 20 years. And with something like Debian, yeah, they'll prolly be there for 20 years if the global economy collapsed tomorrow. But support your favorite linux companies, because they wont stick around unless the market asks them to...


    itachi the econ geek
  • FREE to all: Story here [zdnet.com]

    Yet another rejected story...
  • ... Market Forces will choose the better distros over the worse ones.

    The market, in the long run, given perfect access at no cost in real time to all information, will choose the most profitable distro over other, not as profitable, distros.

    Basically, must market mavens have imperfect info, have no idea what Linux is, and don't even know the ls command, let alone their mother's maiden name. I wouldn't count on them to choose wisely.

  • Come back and post after you've read an introductory economics text.

    I was just cleaning out my closet this morning for one of those chairties, and kept three of my economics text books. Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, and Canadian Business Economics. I've got a 2 year Business Admin certificate from Capilano College, in addition to three other certifications, military training (TQ4), the usual college 4 year, Oracle Developers Certification, and a Data Resource Mgmt post-grad certificate from the University of Washington.

    The market doesn't care about profitability per se. It it merely a method of balancing buyers and sellers. However, investors (those who buy and sell shares) invest their money for a return, expecting a premium for placing money in stocks, a less liquid form than bonds or cash or certificates of deposit.

    Hence, given an amount of stock in Red Hat equal to an amount of stock in LinuxOne, and where Red Hat provides service to technogeeks and LinuxOne charges tons of dollars for service, thus meaning that, even though Red Hat has 1 million copies of their distro shipped each year (or downloaded) and makes 10 cents off each, while LinuxOne ships 100,000 Chinese language copies of Mandrake repackaged and then charges more for support calls but the tech support is asian-friendly, it is totally possible that LinuxOne could be more profitable.

    Personally, I doubt it. It's probably a grand rip off. And if Red Hat is more profitable and regarded as less risky than LinuxOne, then the stock market over the long run should value Red Hat stock more highly than LinuxOne.

    But right now, 95 percent or more of investors in Linux stocks haven't the faintest idea what they're worth and probably don't know much about Linux either. Hence, it is totally possible they'll get sucked into the latest tulip mania (or PenguinMania TM) and buy shares in LinuxOne. And get taken to the cleaners.

    Here endeth the lesson.
  • The author sent that to me in I guess some Word format. I tried editing out the ? marks, but I guessed I missed a few--I use pico. thanks for pointing that out tho.
  • In a word, yes.

    The FSF is very willing to test the GPL, but has not found a test case yet. But they do have money set aside to retain lawyers yet.

    Frankly, I think that all this noise about how the GPL hasn't been tested in court is BS. People don't say that about the MS EULA, but I've never heard of it being tested in court either!
  • I see their next product as a software package, like Mandrake's PowerPack. Except it would be: "Really Obsolete Trash For Linux"
    --
  • Some media outlets may treat LinuxOne as a serious player in the market. They will be embarrassed and learn to verify their sources in the future.

    I have seen zero positive press on LinuxOne aside from their own press releases. The Linux community should respond strongly, quickly and accurately to positive LinuxOne press. This will prevent LinuxOne from growing into a significant problem.

    We used to say Linux is good now we must qualify the statement to Good Linux is good.

  • Reviews like this are amusing for people who know a lot about Linux to read, but we should be getting this sort of information out to the people who don't know a lot about Linux.

    You wouldn't consider visitors to LinuxNewbie.com to fit the above description? Aside from some of the bigger general computing sites (ZDNet, Cnet, etc.) I couldn't think of a more fitting site to warn would-be-installers of the potential pitfalls awaiting them if they try to install LOL.
  • What people really don't like (myself included) is that people can make insane ammounts of money from something that is inferior.

    So you must really hate it every time you load a tape in your VHS recorder, hey? This is one of the classic "inferior product + superior marketing = winner" situations. Sucks but it's true. Shit, just look at DOS/Windows.... :)

    However seriously if you did half-assed work at your professional job how long would you be employed? Unless you know hypnotism not a very long time.

    Hah! How many large, moronic beauracracies have you worked in? Dilbert and the Peter Principle are still alive & kicking. Not even "downsizing" gets rid of the dead wood - they manage to cling on.

    One can only hope that the next 5 to 10 years will help purge the bloated, non-performing corporates where incompetants can hide. Of course, knowing the way the universe works, they'll rise up to become CEO's or consultants who dream up new ways to screw up a company :)
  • In economics, there is a concept called price discrimination. Usually, it is discussed in terms of a monopoly which can charge different customers different prices, based on location or some other sorting criteria. But there is another situation where it can occur easily enough. Where the product can be diversified, giving different customers different packaging, there can be price discrimination.

    This is precisely why in the end, there will be more than one Linux distribution. There is room for several with different goals. There is no reason why one can't specialize in merely bundling the latest stable versions of everything, while another goes for rock solid security, and a third concentrates on an easy install and good support for new users.

    And that's what's great about open source. The barriers to entry are low. But as LinuxOne is demonstrating, they aren't zero. If you want to introduce a new distribution, you have to at least make an attempt. The Linux community will shread you if you don't. Now, will Joe Newbie read the reviews on Slashdot? No. Will J. Random Reporter for some magazine that Joe reads read us? Probably. Will Big Retail Software, Inc. read us or a source that does read us before they stock their shelves? Almost certainly. If you don't do a credible job of putting together a real distribution, you aren't going to be taken seriously.
  • They already release 'free' or near-free versions of the Solaris 7 source. I wouldn't count it as news that they plan on continuing the tradition.

    But I do agree the 'free-license'ing of Solaris 8 is significant! Have you seen some of their current fees??
  • I don't know if anything like this exists already, but this story made me think that Linux fans should be doing something to inform the general public about Linux. Not only should we be telling people about the benefits of using Linux, we should also be informing people what to look for in a Linux distribution and what to avoid.

    Reviews like this are amusing for people who know a lot about Linux to read, but we should be getting this sort of information out to the people who don't know a lot about Linux.

    I know some people who have been completely turned off of Linux because they had so many problems with an inferior distribution that wouldn't install properly.

    It's one of these cases where one guy ruins it for all the rest, and the only way to solve this problem is by helping non-techie people understand Linux better.

  • Hmm..could it be they are just in it for the money? As Linux continues to grow in both the corporate and consumer sections as it has over the past year, I expect to see more and more companies trying to cash in by simply repackaging an existing product.
  • Actually, when that ticker says LINX and the market notification of IPO pops up, it is highly likely that a number of non-techies are going to shove a lot of dollars into it real fast.

    I for one would not do any such thing and I would not be considered an expert in the stock market. Maybe if perhaps other people have already invested in the stock then people see a pattern they might just go along with the rest of the people. In fact if you want to make a quick and dirty buck try this some time. Just buy into any startup company wait for a short while or until you thing that the price of stock has increased enough and then sell. Bingo instant increase and said little crappy company may enjoy it's downfall.

    Never underestimate the intelligence of the average day trader, nor that of your average stock broker.

    Well I guess that means that me without any formal business training can do any of those tasks because they do not require talent right? I live in a world where if people do something wrong then they suffer for it. Usually in the form of unemployment of some sort.

    Hey, it says Linux, right? So it must be good ...

    With all the FUD that MS puts out you would think that the average person would not think this way. Oh well...
  • I agree that the market will decide. I get tired of all the anti-capitalist /. readers that bitch about how some corporation is tainting some intellectually pure technology. None of us would have the luxury of even reading this - if we did
    not live in a market driven world.

    What people really don't like (myself included) is that people can make insane ammounts of money from something that is inferior. If it was good I would say that they deserve all the money (maybe). However seriously if you did half-assed work at your professional job how long would you be employed? Unless you know hypnotism not a very long time.
  • "Oh no! They used Redhat's distro, and removed reference to Redhat in the installer". The GPL allows that, no?

    As long as you give out the full source code then all is forgiven. On a minor note could someone create say an obfusicated version of the source code for release and then release the code so that it would take just a little longer to get ahold of?

    "They changed nothing in KDE." That's bad? I never change KDE either... It'd suck if every distro decided that KDE should have a different color scheme, and/or resize the icons a couple pixels larger or smaller.

    One of the things I like best about something new is it's look. I can pretend that I am using win95 to a degree with modern window managers. Part of setting yourself above the rest is to give a good reason that anyone should use you and that means? Making things different in some way.

    With all the bantering recently about how awful they are, of course no one's going to give them a fair shake. I hate to say it, but so far as the LinuxOne saga goes, I'd just as rather wait for a ZDNet review of their distro than read one
    from a "Linux" website.

    Well for what it's worth I think that at least some analysis on the situation by an "average" person instead of an editor of a column of some internet publication is a nice thing. Would you have even the slightest curiousity about that neighbor of yours if someone came up to you and said that perhaps he was a wanted felon? Don't tell me you wouldn't even bother to take a close look at him?

    The Linux sites have already declared Redhat, Caldera, Debian, SuSe and Mandrake the winners and LinuxOne to be the loser.

    Simple first impressions are the most important for anyone and everything. If I have a new car from a Ford dealership break down on my first week of use I would not be in the mood to buy any more Fords in the future. All of the other distributions (even the Newest Mandrake) are more tested than one that isn't. We can safely assume that linuxone is in fact that terribly good or at least not terribly well tested from this even slightly opinionated information.

    I really do hope that they do well on their IPO and use that money to become a "real" Linux company that everyone will love to hate.

    In the meantime everyone will hate them more and more. This will cause the company to eventually go broke or the founder to magically escape^H^H^H^H^H^H vacation in the Cayman Islands for 7 years or so.
  • what do you know about repackageing an existing product? the bottled water people have been doing it for years! just run tap water across sand into cool shaped plastic bottles! call it "good for you" and sell the heck out of it!

    Why does there have to be extensive research on this topic? Is the use of repackaging to be encouraged in the least? I really would say that it is not. There is some scientific basis for what people actually say. For instince the FDA has a few little rules that basically say that you have to have truthful packaging and such. Now I assume that if you were to test the product (in this case the bottled water) against "standard" tap water for many people the bottled water just might be slightly cleaner because of their process. Now does that mean that it will improve your life in any significant way? No.
  • [Plant tongue firmly in cheek; this is from LinuxOne.net]

    We at LinuxOne, Inc. are committed to making your installation and use of Linux as easy, reliable, and advantageous as possible. We will provide:

    the easiest Linux operating system [LinuxOne Lite -- order the easiest Linux OS to install which runs under Windows] and software to install for both workstations and servers;

    the best collection of device drivers anywhere: table, fully functional, and fully supported; the most useful and complete set of application software;

    and a commitment to full-spectrum support and services, including education, consulting, and seminars.

    How will we accomplish all this? Through in-depth Linux experience leveraged with hard work; through extensive worldwide contacts and alliances; and, most importantly, through our dedication to your service and satisfaction. [/END SARCASM]

  • Of course we all know LinuxOne is a fully owned subsidiary of Microsoft, Inc. doing this to spread FUD. Couldn't be that anyone is out to just scam the public, or that anyone is plain incompetent.
  • "Oh no! They used Redhat's distro, and removed reference to Redhat in the installer". The GPL allows that, no?

    Not really. We aren't talking about code changes here (code changes are perfectly ok), we're talking about COPYRIGHT changes.
    s/(c) 1998 Red Hat/(c) 2000 LinuxOne/g is definitely NOT a change that is ok.

    What the Mandrake people were doing in their 6.0 and 6.1 versions (Leave the Red Hat copyright in, adn add their own, along with some changes to the installer) is ok.

    I just wonder if we really want them to acknowledge our copyright - after all "Oh, LinuxOne is (c) Red Hat. LinuxOne sucks, so Red Hat sucks." ;)
  • They know their product sucks - they aren't using it on their server.
    The server is running Apache 1.3.11 (they're shipping 1.3.6), and a couple of days ago (before they blocked the telnet port), you got the /etc/issue.net of Red Hat Linux 6.0 when you tried to telnet in. :)

  • -1? (Score:2)

    by chandler ( 98984 )
    I don't normally complain about moderation, but this is clearly wrong. The article about LinuxOne, and their upcoming IPO is very relevant (also, other posts about the IPO were not moderated down.) Methinks that the moderator just didn't like this guy's point. So? As I often say, if you don't like it, reply with a logical list of reasons why. His point should be refuted decently, else you (the moderator) are no different than the hot-grits and f1rst p0st trolls.

    And yes, I'm willing to lose karma for this guy's right to express his opinion.

  • So I'm of the opinion that there is no 'one true distro.' Each distro is targeted at a specific group.

    I agree. But, after reading the LinuxNewbie site [linuxnewbie.org] I quickly come to believe that LinuxNewbie doesn't understand this. In my eyes, they are so wide of that mark I got to wondering: What are their credentials? Are we sure it's not a FUD site?

    Example: Look at their Samba advice: download the source and build it... no wait, it's better than that, su root and with "blind-faith", build the rpm!. No mention of Debian or Slackware or SUSE... no mention of the samba binary that undoubtedly came with your own distro, no mention of rpmfind or pulling down a binary. This isn't newbie advice! This is screwbie advice! Anybody know if that version they encourage is compatible with the kernels found on store shelves?

    So, after reading that, I went and looked at the "why I chose NT over Linux" article on their front page. The guy who wrote it started seeming a lot more sophisticated to me than the inexperienced person he makes himself out to be. And the "discussion" they've got going about that article: I might as well be reading BillG's mail folder!

    OK, then I saw it in their credo: cross-platform, other OSes... their own original content, none of that "confusing" other doc that's out there... to me it says "linux-screwbie," through and through.

  • Maaan I read slashdot way too much.
    Here goes this has already been talked about in previous LinuxOne stories. The website that claims to have bought $500,000 [poso.com] of software looks like a gaudy high school kid's site and is run by a webmaster with a hotmail account. A slashdot reader has called the number on the website before and woken the website's owner out of bed (it's his home #).
    That doesn't sound like someone who has $500,000 to pay for software, now does it?

    Motley Fool [fool.com] ran a story debunking them a while ago that was posted on slashdot...the references to waking up the owner of the powersource site appeared in a slashdot post before they appeared on motley fool.
  • I couldn't think of a better acronym for this distribution, nor a more appropriate one! :)

    Lets just hope LinuxOne doesn't laugh all the way to the bank :(

    -BK
  • Well, I guess there is a bad side to open source. We can't stop someone from taking a product, modifying it for the worse and then selling it.

    Even better, first they offer an IPO to raise $35 Million.

    kwsNI

  • I don't think this is really a downside -- LinuxOne can, and will, meet its end as it is crushed by its obviously more superior competition. The freedom of market and distribution Linux offers gives companies like LinuxOne the opportunity, but the same freedom ensures their failure, and that's great.

  • Money-grubbing so-and-so's (Score:3)

    by Phaid ( 938 ) on Monday January 24, 2000 @10:40AM (#1342206) Homepage
    These folks are clearly in it for the money. Read their website, it's like a brochure for an IPO. It's full of "we will"'s and "leverage" and all kinds of silly superlatives that they provide no evidence to support.

    I think the worst has to be the little "LinuxOne Receives Another Initial Software Order" blurb on the sidebar. What's this supposed to be, a subliminal message?

    Just reading their site makes me feel like I've been coated in a fine mist of smarm. Yes, these folks have a right to redistribute whatever they want and make claims about it etc. etc. just like anyone else can with GPL'd software.

    But it still stinks of greed and a fast-buck mentality.

  • Um, no. (Score:3)

    by Christopher B. Brown ( 1267 ) <cbbrowne@gmail.com> on Monday January 24, 2000 @10:39AM (#1342207) Homepage

    If you look at the boxes on the store shelves with names like Corel Linux Deluxe or Red Hat 6.1 Deluxe you will find some "closed source"/"binary only" components.

    RMS's head might be pressured by all of this; that's not the point.

    The thing that they are vulnerable to is of someone demanding to receive copies of the source code to things that are licensed under the GPL, as is their right under the provisions of the GPL.

    What LinuxOne are more vulnerable to is the possibility that people might figure out that:

    • The distribution isn't a very good buy, and
    • The STOCK isn't a very good buy.

    Hopefully most of the "figuring out" of this will take place before they buy anything.

  • If my disgust at LinuxOne gets any greater, it'll pass the Chandrasaker Limit and undergo terminal gravitational collapse.

    Mind you, if that takes LinuxOne out, in the process, it might not be such a bad thing.

  • They never even had a chance. (Score:3)

    by um... Lucas ( 13147 ) on Monday January 24, 2000 @10:30AM (#1342209) Journal
    "Oh no! They used Redhat's distro, and removed reference to Redhat in the installer". The GPL allows that, no?

    "They changed nothing in KDE." That's bad? I never change KDE either... It'd suck if every distro decided that KDE should have a different color scheme, and/or resize the icons a couple pixels larger or smaller.

    With all the bantering recently about how awful they are, of course no one's going to give them a fair shake. I hate to say it, but so far as the LinuxOne saga goes, I'd just as rather wait for a ZDNet review of their distro than read one from a "Linux" website.

    The Linux sites have already declared Redhat, Caldera, Debian, SuSe and Mandrake the winners and LinuxOne to be the loser.

    I really do hope that they do well on their IPO and use that money to become a "real" Linux company that everyone will love to hate.

  • Re:The down side to open source. (Score:3)

    by ben_ ( 30741 ) on Monday January 24, 2000 @10:25AM (#1342210)
    I suppose it depends if you believe in The Market or not. If so, then Market Forces will choose the better distros over the worse ones. Unless LO adds sufficient value over and above Mandrake or RH, why buy it? Personally, I choose RH 'cos I'm familiar with it, and Mandrake (or any other RH-based distro) doesn't give me any value that I think is worth the (admittedly minor) hassle of changing.
  • It should be pointed out in the quest for free software, that better software does not mean a more successful company.

    Take Company A (lets say RedHat). They make a great product, they put it out there, people can get what they need done, they don't need to call support. Any support they do need, they get in the free first 180 days of support.

    Now take Company B (lets say LinuxOne). They have a buggy LinuxOne Lite, which people need a lot of support for. They have a repackage of a repackage of a distribution. They are missing help files. There's an excellent chance that people won't be able to get to their support forums. They will most likely need support.

    Now, Company A's software is more likely to be used in the first place, but there's a good chance that someone could be using Company B's software, throw it away, and just go with Microsoft. Either way gives a bad name for Linux, but Company B is more likely to make money as they have users that 'require' support. And if any of the hype of the LinuxOne Marketing Machine ('You too can have a successful company through marketing!') realize that there might be people out there that are almost forced to use this distribution.

    Anyway, with free software, all bets are off in the idea of 'what makes a successful company.' Sometimes, technological markets have a stranger basis than technical merits. I mean, look at DirectPlay from Microsoft. It is *not* better than id's networking code, but it sure is used a lot more...

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau

  • Linus' lawyers... (Score:3)

    by GoNINzo ( 32266 ) <(GoNINzo) (at) (yahoo.com)> on Monday January 24, 2000 @10:26AM (#1342212) Journal
    Do you think we can send Linus' lawyers after them for distributing a new distribution with closed source parts to it? They have some parts that are 'binary only' and I believe that RMS would explode and make a huge mess if this is true...

    I mean, he does own the name Linux so....

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau

  • Doesn't this seem just a bit odd? (Score:3)

    by CentrX ( 50629 ) on Monday January 24, 2000 @11:48AM (#1342213)
    From the LinuxOne Product page:
    With its open source code...

    All good and well right? Well, far down below on the same page:

    LinuxOne OS will support these new technologies with its sophisticated proprietary device drivers

    Now, aside from the fact that they're using proprietary device drivers, which in and of itself would take away my vote for them, they are also hypocritical. It seems to me that the only purpose of this company is to make money while bringing nothing new to Linux users.

    Chris Hagar

  • Sun is NOT releasing the Solaris 8 source. They are distributing Solaris 8 fee-free. They should have been doing this for years, but apparently the S/W division liked it's 'revenue earning' status in the corporate hierarchy.

  • Re:The down side to open source. (Score:3)

    by slashdot-terminal ( 83882 ) on Monday January 24, 2000 @11:01AM (#1342215) Homepage
    Well, I guess there is a bad side to open source. We can't stop someone from taking a product, modifying it for the worse and then selling it.

    I don't think it's terribly bad. It just has a positive factor in feedback for other attempts. If they see how badly linuxone fails then they will not be tempted to do something this stupid again.

  • New potential users of Linux... (Score:3)

    by BaptistDeathRay ( 126948 ) on Monday January 24, 2000 @10:46AM (#1342216) Homepage

    are not likely to download a huge CDrom image and burn a Linux CD, they're more likely to go to CompUSA and buy Corel Linux or Red Hat or Mandrake or SuSE or Caldera OpenLinux...

    and while some of those distros may be more appropriate to newbies than others, ANY of them will be thousands of times better than LO appears to be...


    +----------------------------------------------- -------

  • Scary stuff. (Score:3)

    by Bad_CRC ( 137146 ) on Monday January 24, 2000 @11:03AM (#1342217)
    I read on the linuxone website about the agreements they are entering into.

    Receives Initial Software Order For $500,000.00 [linuxone.net]

    It strikes me as very bad for linux. If companies are going to be spending a half a million dollars on linux, and end up getting a product like "LinuxOne OS" which, according to this review doesn't work at all, they will be very unhappy with "linux" not with linux one. And it could harm linux in extreme ways.

    LinuxOne, and the others which are sure to follow, will do what noone has been able to do before, give linux a bad reputation as a buggy, useless, inferior software.

    I for one am very worried.

  • religious wars (Score:4)

    by Shoeboy ( 16224 ) on Monday January 24, 2000 @10:31AM (#1342218) Homepage
    So I'm of the opinion that there is no 'one true distro.' Each distro is targeted at a specific group. Debian is for the true blue gnu freaks, turbolinux offers excellent support of pacific rim languages, corel is for newbies etc...
    So what market is linuxone targeting? I've wrestled with this question and come to a conclusion, it's for people who want the pentium optimized binaries of mandrake, but find the term 'mandrake' to be offensive. If this describes you, then you should check out this distro. If you do not find the term 'mandrake' offensive then you should probably take a sensitivity training course you sexist/speciesist/whatever bastard!
    Yeah, it's not a serious post, but it's not like linuxone's a serious company/distro.
    --Shoeboy

  • From the LOL FAQ (Score:4)

    by mircea ( 28953 ) on Monday January 24, 2000 @11:31AM (#1342219)
    Q: Can I access the Internet?

    A: Certainly. To access the Internet, return to
    Windows because the Lite version is built on
    top of Windows. Another option is to use
    LinuxOne OS.

    Ummm...no, thanks. I'll stick to a regular distro for now :)

  • Shenanigan! Shenanigan! Shenanigan! (Score:4)

    by bkeeler ( 29897 ) on Monday January 24, 2000 @11:06AM (#1342220)
    "Now, boys, what's all this?"

    "We want to call Shenanigan on these people"

    "Now, you know you can't just go around calling Shenanigans on people without good reason."

    "But they sold me this Linux distribution and it won't even boot!"

    "Well, we'll just have to see about that. Let's try it on my police laptop..." (Vendor deftly switches LinuxOne CD for Redhat 6.1) "Well, now, there you see, boys, it boots just fine!"

    "But..But...it didn't work! They're crooks!"

    ..etc...

  • Amusing? (Score:5)

    by AstroJetson ( 21336 ) <gmizell@carpe-noct[ ]net ['um.' in gap]> on Monday January 24, 2000 @10:37AM (#1342221) Homepage
    ...the list of problems is amusing...
    I, for one, am not all that amused. How many new potential Linux users will install this (or try to) and fail miserably, then conclude that Linux is crap. How many of them will tell their friends about their misfortune? Will Big Bad Bill point to this and say "See, we told ya! It's hard to install and buggy. Come back to us and we'll hold your hand and make it all better."

    We know that LinuxOne != Linux, but newbies may try to equate the two. This could end up alienating many converts to the light side. We are now between a rock and a hard place: we want LinuxOne to bite turf, but we don't want Linux itself to crash and burn with it.

    In our advocacy of Linux, let's be sure to point people to some of the many fine distros that are available and steer folks away from LinuxOne.

  • Re:I hope their IPO doesn't rocket... (Score:5)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday January 24, 2000 @12:48PM (#1342222) Homepage
    Red Hat stock seems to be doing OK [stockmaster.com], while VA Linux seems to be in a screaming dive. [stockmaster.com] It's probably too late for a third player, especially a flakey one.

    Incidentally, VA Linux does not make hardware. They're a reseller for a small PC assembler in Fremont, CA. Read their SEC filing.

    Historically, there are very few examples of companies that had huge price/revenue ratios and eventually grew up to generate enough profits to justify them. (Exercise for investors: name three.) But there are many examples of speculative bubbles.

    The Linux stocks aren't the usual growth company situation. Usually, you have big revenue, big expenses, and small profits. The classic good example is Amazon.com. (The classic bad example is Buy.com, which has a business model of selling at a loss and making it up on volume.) But both Red Hat and VA Linux have small revenue, no profits, no valuable assets, and a huge market cap. That's not a growth company. It's something else, and it's not good.

    The current market is running on what's called "greater fool theory", the hope that, even though you own something that's overpriced, there's some sucker out there who will buy it for even more money. As with all Ponzi schemes, eventually you run out of suckers.

    There is going to be a bloodbath in these stocks. Probably this year.

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