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Linux Software

LinuxOne Continued Complications 227

Posted by CmdrTaco from the shady-dealings-in-the-linux-world dept.
Derek Simkowiak writes "After I informed a potential IPO underwriter about LinuxOne, Inc., they threatened to sue me. What happened after that was even more disappointing". This is an interesting exchange of opinions, facts, threats, and retractions. I highly recommend anyone interested in the future of Linux and Business read this article.
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LinuxOne Continued Complications More

LinuxOne Continued Complications

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  • What's the probability that he was *really* seeking to do a positive writeup? I mean, come on.

    Oh...First post?

    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction

  • lawyer's letter (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @06:33AM (#1338564)
    The "threatening legal letter" from the Hotmail account appears to be an amateurish fake. I would be very surprised if it turned out to have been sent by a real lawyer. Notice also that when you send threatening letters through e-mail, you don't need real legal letterhead to print them on.
  • Sounds like LinuxONE is really, really afraid of the truth.

    kwsNI
  • I hope a false company wont make it. False product aqusitions? How could they claim to have "LinuxMac" and have no proof of it's exsistance? Something smells stinky about the situation :)

  • It isnt for the vendors to sort out (Score:4)

    by Alan Cox ( 27532 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @06:36AM (#1338567) Homepage
    Policing by competitors isnt right. The SEC is charged with protection of US investors from fraud. You should take it up with them, as should
    everyone else who is concerned and has hard evidence.

  • LinuxOne -- the case for the defence (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @06:39AM (#1338570)
    I asked a securities analyst what he would tell a client about this one; here's what he told me. Looks surprisingly positive in the circumstances:

    The value of LinuxOne's business is inestimable. The company has made an immeasurable contribution to the open source software, and can expect copious intangible rewards for doing so. The CEO has no small degree of experience as a tech-businessman, and will manage the company with his usual degree of skill for its entire future. Investors can look forward to profits of anything up to 500% more than the company is making now. This is an IPO which the investment community should be falling over each other to learn about.
  • First off, this shouldn't be suprising anyone. These days people sue just because they're upset about X. Wife left you? Sue her. Got a drinking or gambling problem? Sue the state. Didn't like your employer's hair? Sue them.

    Comeon, LinuxOne is just trying to fend off bad press until they IPO - this just further validates that claim. I don't think RedHat or 3Com would bust down my door if I wrote a bad review about their distribution or NIC cards. They'd either laugh at me, or take the criticism seriously and work to improve their product (perhaps by sending me a beta of their next product so I can critique it prior to release).

    Now then, anyone wanna take bets on how fast LinuxOne will crash and burn? Even if you lose - you can sue the government. Takers? Anyone? :^)

  • Mob action is not needed (Score:3)

    by Ground0 ( 63349 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @06:40AM (#1338572)
    A posse has to be organized not just thrown together. As LinuxOne could be a blemish to the OpenSource community, I think we do need to respond to the LinuxOne issue.
    But please, I beg people, an organized well thought out plan with good leadership should be the correct way to handle this instead of getting out the torches and pitchforks and storming Frankensteins castle.

  • Well (Score:3)

    by Otto ( 17870 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @06:42AM (#1338573) Homepage Journal
    I'll reserve my opinions about LinuxOne and fall back on Otto's Rule of Life #4:

    "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

    (Note: this is not original, as explained by Otto's Rule of Life #2: "If you have to, steal it.")

    :-)
    ---
  • CmdrTaco,

    Please stop posting this story. Anybody who buys this stock has not been paying attention to the financial sites or the open source sites. If you don't research your companies before you buy them you deserve what you get.

    Please stop running this story over and over again.

    Vanguard

  • Disgusting (Score:3)

    by seandunn ( 134065 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @06:43AM (#1338576)
    I really have to raise my eyebrows at any company that releases a rather shoddy product, makes a lot of noise (read hype), and offers support, which they charge an arm and a leg for; and I'm not talking about MS.

    But seriously, after reading the previous poor reviews [slashdot.org]. of LinuxOne and this mans story I have to wonder if its just a bunch of MBAs, and their MSCE friend who "saw that Leenux thing" and the RedHat IPO, who thought "Linux=Money".

    This is a sad state of affairs, but I'm reminded of other fly by night companies that I have run across, such as one company who wanted to get content from a magazine that my company publishes. After finding out that they use a redundant array of iMACs as their web servers (no, I'm not kidding) we turned them down.

    The best way to kill these companies is just to ignore them, they only live on hype and MBAs who want to IPO real quick to make money. If no one buys their stock, they shrivel up and die after their initial investment dries up.

  • Let them try to sue us then... :)

    I believe all this nonsense will reach a point where all authorities will eventually see that it's useless trying to stop all of Slashdot mirroring cryptographic source code.

  • This smells to high heaven (Score:3)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @06:44AM (#1338578) Homepage Journal
    The directors donate their stocks, piecemeal, to "charitable organisations" that they run, which no doubt get cashed in ASAP. Soon, the board of directors have liquidated their stocks, and are free to fly the coop. And there's not a damn thing anyone can do.

    Do I have hard evidence that this is their intent? No. Do I have any evidence at all? I have the evidence we've all got that LinuxOne is a rip-off. The RPM files speak for themselves, the documentation is a rip-off, the SEC filing is a clone of Red Hat's, there's nothing "value added" there at all, the ticker name is a blatant mis-use of the Linux name (and -may- fall afoul of Linus Torvald's trademark) and (as Bruce Perens has pointed out), some of their alleged financing has come from a corner store. Sorry, but most corner stores don't have $500,000 in the till, even if they had a till large enough.

  • This press is not good for Linux (Score:3)

    by 348 ( 124012 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @06:45AM (#1338579) Homepage
    Derek- I am the lawyer for LinuxOne, Inc. I have read with disgust the lies you have been spreading over the internet recently regarding the company, its principals and products.

    This really upsets me. First off LinuxOne is not really the sort of positive culture we are looking to help promote Linux as an industrial strength OS, also with their history of "shadiness" it give the Linux community a black eye.

    Some say, any press is ggood press, but in this case I think Linux could do without the association with LinuxOne. With the statement above, (from a Hotmail account, feel the professionalism), the lawyer references lies which I would question which party is not being up front. The whole LinuxOne mess is going to dammage the Linux effort as a whole if it doesn't go away soon.

    We don't need firms with reputations as poor as LinuxOne waving the opensource flag.

    Never knock on Death's door:

  • From the article, I'd say he was seeking to do a positive writeup iff LinuxOne gave him anything to write positively about ... which didn't happen.
    --

  • Re:LinuxOne -- the case for the defence (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ROFL. 500% * 0 = 0. hehe
  • This is true, the other venders should not have to play watch dog for the whole group, but they do set the standards. If LinuxOne steps in silver and tarnishes itself to tin, it will reflect poorly on other Lunix venders. It seems from Derek Simkowiak story, the problem now is finding a way to deal with people who break the rules. Who/what will stop them? The federal government doesnt play uncle until things get bad.

  • Very suspicious, on both sides! (Score:3)

    by Duxup ( 72775 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @06:55AM (#1338585) Homepage
    This whole LinuxOne deal has gone beyond shocking to the point where it's just weird. To me it seems there's allot more going on than just what we've heard. A lawyer writing from a Hotmail account just screams of a prank (and not a very good one at that). I'm also a bit confused by Derek Simkowiak's stated intent to write "to clear up the nasty reputation they've received on the Internet" since he never actually explains how he intended to do so. This just seems awfully questionable since some key info is also not provided (i.e. the name of the investment firm he wrote). I'll wait until I hear some independent info before I believe this one.
    However regarding LinuxOne, I wouldn't' be shocked if the whole LinuxOne thing turns out to be a bizarre prank or something more than just a ploy to release an IPO and make some bucks, it just seems that there is something else there. Not to say it shouldn't be watched closely.
  • Students can get a free copy of LinuxOne OS or LinuxOne Lite mailed to them for free (no S&H). Check out:

    http://www.linuxone.net/misc/students.ht ml [linuxone.net]

    Only one copy per student, and only the first 100 students to fill the form get it.

  • Here are some interesting facts about LinuxOne and their distribution. Read them and see what you can conclude : 1. I've been trying to download a copy of this distribution for a couple of days at extremely different moments of the day (actually I was hammering on their site every half an hour). I have a very reliable connection to the internet (500kB/s to VAResearch, 70kB/s to SuSE's ftp, another 300kB/s to cdrom.com). Each end every attempt failed with a "there are too many users" mesage. 2. the only way of usage they support (at least in the web page) is from Windows. IMHO - why would I have (or want) to buy Windows in order to run Linux ? 3. Excerpt from their FAQ (hilarious I would say): Q: Can I acces the Internet ?Certainly. A : To access the Internet, return to Windows because the Lite version is built on top of Windows. As some would say : I rest my case.
  • Here are some interesting facts about LinuxOne and their distribution. Read them and see what you can conclude : 1. I've been trying to download a copy of this distribution for a couple of days at extremely different moments of the day (actually I was hammering on their site every half an hour). I have a very reliable connection to the internet (500kB/s to VAResearch, 70kB/s to SuSE's ftp, another 300kB/s to cdrom.com). Each end every attempt failed with a "there are too many users" mesage. 2. the only way of usage they support (at least in the web page) is from Windows. IMHO - why would I have (or want) to buy Windows in order to run Linux ? 3. Excerpt from their FAQ (hilarious I would say): Q: Can I acces the Internet ?. A : Certainly. To access the Internet, return to Windows because the Lite version is built on top of Windows. As some would say : I rest my case.
  • So we're expected to believe an "expert" analysis that is not only unattributed, but is posted anonymously? I think not.
  • Indeedie.

    Sounds simple to me.
    Claim to agree with the "demands" of this michael morrison creep, and then do nothing - after all, you'll have removed your "lies"...

    And no it does not constitute written demand at all either. Anyone can impersonate hotmail, and we *know* their security is non-existent anyway.

    Personally, I wouldn't have even bothered with the retraction type email; I don't see the point in sounding contrite over something of which I'm not guilty.

    I shall await LinuxOne's "lawyer"'s threats against me for this comment, with interest...

  • Ok lemme get this straight... (Score:3)

    by Merk ( 25521 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @07:00AM (#1338592) Homepage

    According to the warning letter [kd-dev.com], LinuxOne's lawyer uses a hotmail account. Sounds like a pretty prestigious law firm.

    The letter doesn't even look like a letter written by a lawyer. For example when does a lawyer call him/herself a lawyer and not an attorney? I, unfortunately, have received a "cease and decist" letter from a lawyer at one point, and this looks nothing like what I received. The one I received gave specific directions on what they wanted me to do, and legal specifics of what they were accusing me of doing. Maybe you poor folks who have been involved with the DeCSS stuff can comment on your legal letters? This one talks about "lies you have been spreading over the internet". Last I heard, lying on the 'net was legal.

    Btw, I'm a hot blonde, 6'2", 36-24-36... *grin*

  • I'm getting 530 Too many users as well (and have been for a pretty long time). Could they be deliberately trying to stop people from getting their distribution? Like setting maxusers to 0 or something? :)
  • Unfortunately, I did not enjoy your post.

    You'll hear from my lawyers in the morning...



    But seriously, folks, I'd be real surprised if this IPO made any money. If you want to talk lawsuits, I think the real lawsuits might come after the IPO tanks. Don't underwriters have some responsibility to ensure that what they are underwriting isn't fraudulant?

    (Or am I just being niave?)
  • "This constitutes written demand for you to retract your false and malicious statements within 3 days, failing which, you, and your company, will be subject to civil prosecution for your actions."

    Actually, the whole thing sounds like one big ole' troll to me. In any case, there's no court in the US that's going to accept an email sent via hotmail as acceptable for "written demand". Notice the lack of any sort of attempt at a digital signatire, lack of proof that it was sent or delivered, anonymity of hotmail accounts, etc...
  • I can't blame the investment firm for being angry!


    Read it again Joe. The investment firm was interested in what he had to say. It was LinuxOne that was pissed off. Granted, he was not as diplomatic as he possibly should have been, but his points are valid nonetheless.

    We can't expect everyone in the community to be both master statesmen and master technologists now can we? I was satistfied that there were only a couple of spelling errors and the grammar was passable. :)
  • Protecting investors from fraud is the SEC's job, but enforcing the GPL isn't. If a linux company violates the GPL (whether LinuxOne has or not I do not know) it is in the best interests of Red Hat and others to do something about it.

  • Read it again, bozo - he received the threatening mail from LinuxOne's lawyer, not from the investment firm.

    And to the moderator who gave the above post an "Insightful": try reading the article yourself before moderating, so you actually know what all these posts are talking about...

  • He started at 2, dropped one for "flamebait", gained 1 for "Interesting" and 2 for "Informative".

    He Is correct, however, the SEC should investigate this as a case of fraud; that is their duty.

  • www.linuxone.net (Score:3)

    by phee ( 29089 ) <phee AT IsThisThingOn DOT org> on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @07:08AM (#1338602)
    Derek mentions in his letters to LinuxOne et al that telneting to www.linuxone.net resulted in a "welcome to Red Hat" type message. They've fixed that now (it claims "LinuxOne release 1.2" now) but they apparently don't even know how to hack the Apache code so that it too doesn't claim "Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) (Red Hat/Linux)".
    Try it yourself... [netcraft.com]

    "All truth passes through three stages: first, it is ridiculed; next it is violently attacked; finally, it is held to be self-evident."
  • I think that was a very subtle joke. Just check out the post of the AC that replied.

    Hint: I think that even profits of 5,000,000,000% more than they are making now are possible.

  • Yet
    Another
    "This is
    Repetitive"
    Comment

    ;)


  • You can actually get into their site (if you're very lucky), but it's incredibly slow (apparently a cable modem link, and we all know what the upstream speed is like for cable...), and they seem to have their maxusers set very low (2? 5? 10? Who knows?)

    In any case, they sure aren't making it easy to get in there.

  • The recent Business Week article [businessweek.com] basically pointed out all the major flaws with LinuxOne, for instance -
    LinuxOne's prospectus raises other questions. One red flag is the section where it lists its board of directors. Normally, companies have 8 to 12 board members. But LinuxOne lists only one, by the name of Paul Kraus, who is an architect and the owner of a lithography shop, according to the prospectus. Are LinuxOne's financial statements audited? Yes, by a Reno (Nev.) CPA by the name of Mark Bailey, who runs his own firm. A member of a Big Five accounting firm he isn't.


    Basically, they don't even have the money to hire real employees. This "lawyer" is probably an ambulance chaser who has no real experience, but I don't think the email was forged.
  • LinuxOne has had other "First 100 persons to sign up" offers. Of all of those who have signed up, nobody had received a copy.

    At Comdex 1999 in Vegas last year, I did not recall seeing LinuxOne, but aparantly they were there, becuase I brought back a LinuxOne CD. Perhaps if they are at any other large conventions, they can be confronted face to face about these issues.

  • Apparently LinuxOne can't even afford a real lawyer. Have you met one who would speak thusly?

  • What bothers me the most about the LinuxOne distrobution, is that they blatently *LIE* on their web page regarding the nature of their product. Over and over again, they claim to have developed 'LinuxOne OS', and how it includes all of the capabilities, etc..

    I *TRUELY* hope they end up with some software in their distro with a BSD licence, so someone can sue the pants off of the company..

  • 530 Message (Score:4)

    by shinji ( 34318 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @07:15AM (#1338612)
    Try this! That 530 message in not a real 530 message. They have posted it to fool you. FTP to
    140.174.127.95 (the site listed on their webpage).
    try Anonymous login. first you get back.
    530-There are too many users ...
    but next you get back a real 530 message
    530 Login Incorrect
    I think linuxone does not want anyone to download linuxone and make everyone think lots of people are downloading it

  • Motley Fools Covered LinuxOne Also (Score:4)

    by mssymrvn ( 15684 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @07:18AM (#1338613)
    http://www.fool.com/portfolios/rulemaker/2000/rule maker000106.htm

    Rob Landley didn't seem to have too many positive things to say about them. The article above is an interesting read. They go into a little more detail about the background of the founder(s).

  • Re:LinuxOne -- the case for the defence (Score:4)

    by Coriolis ( 110923 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @07:19AM (#1338614)
    I can't see anything to disagree with here:

    The value of LinuxOne's business is inestimable.
    There's no way we can tell how much this business is worth. Probably nothing.

    The company has made an immeasurable contribution to the open source software...
    The company's contribution to OSS does not register on any known scale of measurement.

    and can expect copious intangible rewards
    i.e., no money.

    The CEO has no small degree of experience as a tech-businessman
    Factually speaking, it's miniscule, not small.

    manage the company with his usual degree of skill
    Bear in mind his usual degree of skill, here...

    for its entire future
    Which is measurable in weeks.

    profits of anything up to 500% more than the company is making now
    Remember, 5 x 0 = 0

    This is an IPO which the investment community should be falling over each other to learn about.
    After all, you wouldn't want to invest in it by accident, would you?

  • The best way to kill these companies is just to ignore them, they only live on hype and MBAs who want to IPO real quick to make money. If no one buys their stock, they shrivel up and die after their initial investment dries up.

    I disagree. The best way to kill them is to expose them to the light. While Derek's methods were somewhat unconventional and his narrative is a bit weird, he does manage to raise and not get answers for some very fundamental questions.

    1. Where is the source code?
    2. What is up with Dr. Chio being on the board of Global Village? This just stinks to high heaven.
    3. Where are the Chinese and Japanese products, do they even have alpha builds to share with the community
    And so forth. I say beat on them until they cry, "Uncle!" or come clean. This is what the community needs; clear, insightful analysis and collective oversight. Saying let them go public and caveat emptor is irresponsible. And if LinuxOne is perpetuating a scam or fraud at any level, it makes those of us with some insight into their motives complicit in their actions.

    That's just my opinion. I could be Wrong.

  • I posted this [slashdot.org] yesterday. Basically, we should be avoiding LinuxOne because of the differences from RH, VA, etc. not because of the similarities of their S-1 filing.
    Hal Duston

  • hellooo, mcfly,... the investment firm
    wasn't angry, the LinuxOne crooks were. if
    the creeps at LinuxOne get rich off of this
    scam i swear i'll move to Guam and live like
    a pygmie for the rest of my days.
    ...dave
  • "Derek- I am the lawyer for LinuxOne, Inc. I have read with disgust the lies you have been spreading over the internet recently regarding the company, its principals and products." principles, not principals. good god some people are stupid.
  • I have to agree with you on this one.. I can't possibly imagine that any legit law firm, or corporation for that matter, would use Hotmail as a corporate email system. I mean come on, how many people do you know have used an "anonymous" hotmail account to send a nasty email to someone you didn't like? Besides that, the "demand" for a retraction is awfully flaky, and to my understanding has no legal backing. Even still, a real attorney would certainly send this kind of order by mail, on company letterhead. Although, if this law firm is using Hotmail, they probably don't have letterhead. Some disgruntled or bored person probably saw a copy of the email at the investment firm and set that back out.
  • I looked up the lawyer (Michael Morrison) named in the demand letter in Martindale-Hubbell http://lawyers.martindale.com/marhub which is probably the best place to look up a lawyer to see if the lawyer is really a lawyer. I found a Micheal J. Morrison licensed in Nevada and a Michael J. T. Morrison licensed in New York. Who knows whether or not the guy who wrote the letter is really a lawyer? Maybe the lawyer will post to Slashdot - but only believe the post if the guy provides a bar license number that anyone can lookup at the appropriate state bar webpage. The whole situation is very weird. By the way I tried to download a copy of Linuxone and I got nothing! Ed

  • Re:lawyer's letter (Score:5)

    by Chuck Milam ( 1998 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @07:32AM (#1338622) Homepage

    "The "threatening legal letter" from the Hotmail account appears to be an amateurish fake. I would be very surprised if it turned out to have been sent by a real lawyer. Notice also that when you send threatening letters through e-mail, you don't need real legal letterhead to print them on."

    It would surprise me as well to see an attorney for a "technology" firm using a hotmail account to send offcial correspondence. Some things that raised the red flag for me in this "lawyer's" E-Mail:

    • "Derek- I am the lawyer for LinuxOne, Inc." Hmm. Most of the legal correspondence I've seen is certianly more formal than this, even when delivered via E-Mail. For example, Instead of "Derek-" the greeting would be "Derek :" or "Mr. Simkowiak:". Also, most lawyers refer to themselves as "attorneys," not lawyers.
    • "I have read with disgust the lies..." This certianly seems to be an inflammatory statement, not something a good attorney would open a letter with. Again, it just seems too informal.
    • "This constitutes written demand for you to retract your false and malicious statements within 3 days, failing which, you, and your company, will be subject to civil prosecution for your actions. Your immediate action would seem most prudent.: Something just plain smells fishy about this statement as well. Don't attorneys usually cite some legal code or at least make it sound more formal when they insinuate that there has been some sort of wrong committed against a client?
    • "Michael J. Morrison, Esq." Attorneys usually close with the name of their firm. I would hope the LinuxOne isn't using a single, independent attorney instead of a larger firm to conduct their business.

    Overall, this whole message just seems too informal. Most legal communication follows a strict style, including snail mail addresses, formal greetings, closings, and well-defined paragraphs and sentence structure. My guess is that this is someone "playing lawyer." Or maybe they got one of those "Sally Struthers You CAN Learn to be a Lawyer at Home!" kits?

  • The Linux community and business: oil and water? (Score:3)

    by InsomniacsDream ( 60934 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @07:36AM (#1338624)
    Not that I have anything against Linux and business, but the two don't really mix very very (at least in the traditional business model). I mean, business is all about competition, and Linux is all about cooperation. However, if Linux DOES succeed (in the marketplace), then it may very well change the way people think about business in general.

    One of the concepts that LinuxOne has apparently not managed to grasp yet is that you can't isolate yourself from the Linux community and still expect to succeed. This does work in the traditional business model where competition is the rule, but not in a community founded on the principles of cooperation and sharing ideas openly.

    I have no doubt that many investors will get burnt by LinuxOne and related scams, but that is just because they are ignorant of the 'way Linux works'. These investors probably deserve to lose their money because they did not spend the time researching the company's credentials. When they lose their money, however, they will learn a valuable but harsh lesson.

  • This sounds a bit awful... (Score:3)

    by seebs ( 15766 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @07:37AM (#1338625) Homepage
    Why would a potential underwriter share the information about the complaint *with the company*? If I'd given him permission to share my name with colleagues, I would *NOT* expect him to share it with the company under suspicion, but rather, with other people who might be affected if the suspicions were correct.

    Am I just crazy?

  • check them out (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It'd be nice if someone on their lunch break would drive over and check out:

    LinuxOne Worldwide Headquarters
    201 San Antonio Circle, C250
    Mountain View, CA 94040
    Phone: (650) 948-6201
    Fax: (650) 948-2932
    Email: robert@linuxone.net [mailto]
    URL: http://www.linuxone.net/ [linuxone.net]

    Here's a map [yahoo.com].

  • Yeehaw! Let's start a geek militia and kick those Brits with their damn "government" bs, out of here. We're Americans...we don't need no steenkin' gover-ment!

    (bonk)

    Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla [sourceforge.net]
  • Or maybe it's just slashdotted? And they don't have much bandwidth because they don't have the money, hence the IPO. Sounds feasible. I'm sure there's lots of /. that's dying to get their hands on this distro, if only so that they too can be men and LinuxOne bashers.
  • Yeehaw! Let's start a geek militia and kick those Brits with their damn "government" bs, out of here. We're Americans...we don't need no steenkin' gover-ment!



    (bonk)

    Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla [sourceforge.net]

  • Oh yeah, moderate down the parent post just because it is a little different than the normal Slashdot opinion.

    Oh, come on, this has to be a troll.

    Maybe if you all pulled your heads out of Richard Stallman's dirty asshole you'd have a more rational worldview.

    What a load of crap... I'm out of here.

    Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out...on second thought, do. :)

    Only time will tell if Mr. Chiou's attempt to sucker the gaijin pans out...

  • You are missing the point! This is not about protecting dumb investors. This is about protecting the quality of Linux. If Linuxone goes IPO, they will thrash the quality Linux has, better to be safe than to be sorry. The word Linux stands for all things good, we don't want it to mean evil tomorrow.

  • I expect they meant "principals," as in "necessary people to run the company," not "principles" as in "beliefs and values."

    It's a nice lawyerly word, don't you think?
    --

  • Order now! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As recommended by yhaoo.com [yhaoo.com], LinuxOne is now available for online ordering!

    Check out http://gabriel.linuxopen. com/linuxone/ordering/order.html [linuxopen.com]. What, it's not a secure server? Why worry about your credit card number getting sniffed in the clear, when you are already transmitting it directly to theives?

  • I find it somewhat interesting that they want your Student ID number in order to get the free CD shipped to you. Are they actually going to call up the school and check the enrollment records?

    And I am not going to be giving out my SSN (Purdue Student ID = Social Security Number) to LinuxOne!
  • There is a directory called the "Martindale-Hubble" (sp?) that lists law firms large and small in the US. If a lawyer needs to sue someone (or defend a suit) in a state where they are not licensed to practice, this is how they find a someone with a ticket. If he's real, he's in there. So find someone that has one of these and look him up (or not...)
  • How do we deal with people who break the rules? Everybody tell your broker! Tell them exactly what is wrong with LinuxOne, and point them to documents.

    Many, if not most, of the reasons behind the troubles we see at LinuxOne make sense to financial types; you don't have to explain technical concepts to them. If enough brokers and financial types get enough LinuxOne anti-buzz about this, they will send in researchers, and show them exactly what to look for. The results of that research can get the financial community to avoid LinuxOne in droves, taking their investors with them. Remember, these people don't like being wrong.

  • It interests me that there are several Anonymous Coward comments that are trashing someone as a "60 minutes wannabe," etc. when in reality he was asking valid questions. After reading some of the material on the main story link, I'd be nervous about buying into LinuxOne. Frankly the close ties that the CEO has to Global whatver (the company he donated 50% of his stock to) just seems a little too odd for my tastes. And the writer was right on when asking things like about stock freezes for that other company. I looked at the site for LinuxOne a while ago, and wasn't to impressed. After hearing all of this stuff being tossed around, I think that LinuxOne is not on the up and up. What do you guys think given the recent deveopments? That would be an interesting poll ;)
  • These are the keywords from the meta tag of one of their pages..

    meta name="keywords" content="Linux, LinuxOne, kernel, S.O., Distribution, Labs, Red Hat, Redhat, Caldera, OpenLinux, SuSE, S.u.s.e., applixware, news, resources, Operating, System, OS, KDE, GNOME, GNU, Server, Network, application, Penguin, Onestop, Free, Download, commerical, support"

    Interesting that they'd want someone searching for Red Hat or RedHat to come to their site...

    ---

  • Cashing in on LinuxOne the right way. (Score:3)

    by segmond ( 34052 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @07:59AM (#1338643)
    I smell lots of $$$. How? First of all, it took these guys age to figure out that they had to edit /etc/issue to make their red hat box say linuxone whatever. I could have cashed in on this, by telling them how, and having them pay me. As everyone knows, their webserver still says redhat, we can cash in on this too. Hey, how about we modify apache for you to say linux one for only $500. They kludged the ftp server to give message that the server is full. But it is obvious, heh, we can hack your ftp fake message to appear more authentic for only $5000. These guys are porting windows programs to linux and stuff, they said so. In order to do this, they need developers, Heh, why don't we code for them. I will port notepad.exe and calc.exe, I will leave clock.exe and paintbrush.exe for you. This is money making opportunity people!


  • The same rules that make Linux free and available to people who will promote it are the same rules that allow people to exploit it. Is it wrong? It sure is. But there will *always* be people who exploit a good thing for their own gain. Let the players take care of LinuxOne and let us move on already. There's too much good stuff going on with Linux to waste energy swatting away the flies.

    Paul

  • Fun with nmap (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Although it appears LinuxOne has figured out how to change the /etc/issue.net from saying "RedHat" to saying "LinuxOne" they still don't know how to secure a system:


    nmap -sS -O www.linuxone.net


    Starting nmap V. 2.12 by Fyodor (fyodor@dhp.com, www.insecure.org/nmap/)

    Interesting ports on (140.174.127.98):

    Port State Protocol Service

    21 open tcp ftp

    23 open tcp telnet

    25 open tcp smtp

    53 filtered tcp domain

    80 open tcp http

    98 open tcp linuxconf

    110 open tcp pop-3

    111 open tcp sunrpc

    113 open tcp auth

    515 open tcp printer

    974 open tcp unknown

    993 open tcp simap

    998 open tcp busboy

    1003 open tcp unknown

    1024 open tcp unknown

    1025 open tcp listen

    6000 open tcp X11


    TCP Sequence Prediction: Class=random positive increments

    Difficulty=2275189 (Good luck!)

    Boy that looks like crap....
  • Actually, I agree with Alan. With all the bickering using words such as "Fraud", "IPO, etc, the SEC really is the only organization that has a possibility of affecting the outcome of this, whichever way it goes.

    For one, THERE ISN'T A MATTER BETWEEN LINUXONE, ITS INVESTORS AND COMPETITORS. The investors don't seem to have any problems, as they've given their money. They can divest themselves at anytime. Their competitors don't seem to have any problems. Is there a link on Redhat's homepage that says "Go here to see how we feel about LinuxOne?" No. If (and I'll only say if) LinuxOne is as half-assed as everyone here hopes they are, then their competitors have nothing to fear... They can sit quietly, smirk, and laugh at people who get burned.

    This is an issue between the Linux community that does not want to see LinuxOne IPO and no one else. LinuxOne seemed to have been looking the other way until they finally got egged on. I've said it before I'll say it again. The GPL allows what they're doing. That's why I don't particularly like that license, but apparently all of you did, and this is exactly what it gets you. But you are all supposed to be coding for the joy of coding and not care about such things as money...

    I believe in all that American stuff, like "innocent until proven guilty", etc, and feel that they should be allowed to proceed. Sure, they can have their IPO... maybe they'll raise another $100 million on a second round offering. And maybe they'll do something that hadn't been done before. They haven't violated the GPL... They may seem a little bit shady, but give them a chance.
  • In Haiku:
    • Yet, another one A repetitive comment This is getting old.

    -Jordan Henderson
  • In most industries, competitors are the ones who enforce all standards of accountability.

    Consumers do not have the money or power, and cannot usually get sufficiently organized to do such. The end policing may be done by an official agency, but the initial call to alarm (at least the one that gets noticed) is almost always done by a competitor.

  • Standard Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer However, I know that it is illegal in most states for a person to claim to be a professional (architect, engineer, doctor, etc.) when they are not so. I suspect that if this email was sent by someone who is NOT a licensed attorney, then either LinuxOne may have a problem of a different sort, there.

  • Re:*bash* *bash* (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    These days people sue just because they're upset about X.

    I totaly disagree!

    1. No one gets upset about X (except when your setting it up and you don't know your frequencies).
    2. SuSE has release new servers for 3dfx.

    I would never sue X. :o)

  • Most of the legal correspondence I've seen is certainly more format [...] seems to be an inflammatory statement

    This was IMO an attempt to scare him of, not really a legal document.
    I don't know, if I were their lawyer (I'm not a lawyer though), I might have done the same to imply "Hi, we don't really want a lawsuit, we'd prefer an informal solution (just shut up!), but I'm a lawyer, so if you don't want to comply, we can get formal about it!"
    The only odd thing about it is the hotmail address...

  • The Lawyer exists! Enough Already! (Score:5)

    by IrishLeo ( 36793 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @08:21AM (#1338654)
    A quick search from www.adanet.org nets:

    MICHAEL J. MORRISON
    1995 Ridgeview Dr.
    Reno, Nevada
    (Washoe County)

    ADMITTED: 1976

    LAW-SCHOOL: McGeorge School of Law (J.D.)

    COLLEGE: United States Air Force Academy (B.S.)

    BORN: 1945

    ISLN: 902352344

    The IPO was filed in Nevada was it not? Seems to me that this could be a legit lawyer.

    URL: Abanet link to Mr. Morrison's Info [martindale.com]


    Also of interest is the Business Address cited in the LinuxOne S-1/A:

    BUSINESS ADDRESS:
    STREET1: 1495 RIDGEVIEW DR
    STREET2: SUITE 220
    CITY: RENO
    STATE: NV
    ZIP: 89509
    PHONE: 7758276300


    URL: FreeEDGAR S-1/A Filing for LinuxOne, Inc. [freeedgar.com]

    Conclusion. This e-mail was most likely sent by a real lawyer working for LinuxOne. Unless, of course, you want to get really paranoid and say that they saw the name on the building while renting their fake business office and decided to steal it for harassing honest, hardworking netizens...

    Read the S-1/A a little further down and find:

    With Copies To:

    Michael J. Morrison, Esq.
    1495 Ridgeview Drive, Suite 220
    Reno, Nevada 89509
    Telephone: (775) 827-6300

    My guess is they had a real lawyer involved with the filing of their IPO material.

    Nuf Said...

  • LinuxOne FTP Server...? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Their web page lists their FTP server as residing at IP 140.174.127.95.. However, if you finger ftp.linuxone.net, it says the IP is 216.101.248.93... Four directories, /bin, /etc, /lib, and /pub. /lib is the only one with any files in it. Netcraft reports no information on this ftp box, as port 80 is shut off.

  • Whose Jurisdiction is it? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    My honest opinnion is that if they are claiming to have a product that does not exist, then they can be screwed legally. I'm wondering however if its the FBI or the SEC's jurisdiction over the matter.
  • Why would a potential underwriter share the information about the complaint with the company?

    To get their view on it?
    I'd do that (without mentioning his name though).
    It's always best to get the opinion from both sides, and maybe some neutral parties, before making a decision.
  • Uh, read it again. He was pulling your leg so hard it came off in his hands.


    ...phil
  • They seem to be working on at least modifying some of the messages for the default installation of Apache:

    http://140.174.127.44/

    Another thing. Mr. Chiou is using Windoze, acording to queso. (How did I found out the IP address for Mr. Chiou's computer? It's a simple matter of searching thru all the records for their DNS server, which btw are a very few)

    I would thought that a pre-IPO company would have thousands of computers (well, hundred maybe) available for testing, programming, sales, management, etc. But the DNS only shows 25 records.

    Seeya!

  • Did LinuxOne Lie About Red Hat? (Score:4)

    by cburley ( 105664 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @09:17AM (#1338668) Homepage Journal
    A lot of people forget than [sic] a large number of programmers were promised stock by Red Hat and never received any.

    That quote comes from the 5 Jan 2000 10:01:22 -0800 email Robert Philips wrote to Derek.

    Being a recipient of the famous email Red Hat sent out to contributors to invite them to participate in the RHAT IPO, I don't recall any promise made that we would actually receive stock.

    Can anyone provide actual evidence of such a promise, or is this just a case of Mr. Philips inflating his rhetoric to make Red Hat look bad (and, therefore, LinuxOne look better by comparison)?

    Note that this could be considered "splitting hairs" by some -- I'm distinguishing Red Hat offering contributors the opportunity to purchase shares from an actual promise that they would receive shares. There's no need to accuse Red Hat of the latter, which is what Mr. Philips appears to have done, if all they did was the former. (It's like the distinction between right to free speech and the right to be heard -- the former is not equivalent to the latter.)

  • That 530 message is not a real 530 message. They have posted it to fool you. [...] first you get back: 530-There are too many users ... but next you get back a real 530 message 530 Login incorrect

    Which is just what the ftp server they're using does when there are too many users.
    It first send some 530-Whatever-the-admin-puts, then a 530 Login incorrect.
    This is perfectly valid according to the RFCs, as long as all but the last line have a "-" after the 530.

    I wrote the server program they're using, so rest assured I know how it behaves.

    It's entirely possible, though, that they set a limit of 1 user and they have that one permitted connection opened for themselves - I can't get in either.
  • I challenge you to demonstrate that this exchange of words ever happened.

    It did happen, but only inside my head.

    I have no doubt that you have provided us a patent fabrication.

    You are absolutely right, your deductive prowess amazes us all.

    You are a shameless asshole with your own agenda of fraud to submit such a post.

    You, on the other hand, are unable to spot the output of the Dilbert Zone's Performance Review Generator, despite there being at least three posts in this thread which correctly identified my original post as an almost-funny parody.

    Gawd, slashdot likes to think of itself as a place for intelligent people, but is it? As a longtime resident of "trolltalk", I've recently taken to posting the most extraordinary rubbish on threads, and you can guarantee that at least one person (usually more) will be taken in. This wasn't even meant to be a troll, just a joke, but it ended up pulling in at least five sincere responses (including two rather angry ones -- how smart you all must feel)

    Particular kudos must go to the moderators who scored (4, Funny) to a line-by-line exegesis of a joke which only received (3, Funny), albeit that it also received (1, Interesting) from another goat.

    Do yourselves a favour, lads. Don't ever invest, in anything. Or do me a favour and check out my IPO Prospectus [farmsex.com] for the Brooklyn Bridge.

    jsm
  • Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, available now and for a limited time, I present you Dr Chouia's miracle cure for what ails you!

    Want to run Wintel programs on your Mac?

    Want to run Wintel programs on your Wintel box?

    It'll do that and more! It runs Linux programs on Wintel too! It cures bad breath, athletes foot, bad grades, hair loss and the common cold!

    It invisibly translates Chinese to Japanese to English! It improves your sex life!

    And, as an added feature, at no extra charge to you, we'll pipe /dev/null to \Windows\temp just in case you really wanted that output and have a little extra disk space!

    But act fast, because this offer is only good for the next 30 days, or as long as we are in town!

  • I'm also a bit confused by Derek Simkowiak's stated intent to write "to clear up the nasty reputation they've received on the Internet" since he never actually explains how he intended to do so.

    Well, I don't know whether this is an elaborate hoax or not, but if so, Derek's statements, at least, make sense. He's giving them the opportunity to assuage the Linux community's misgivings about the company by explicity asking the questions that everyone wants the answers to. This gives them the ability to respond and explain why they've done things the way they have. If they are legitimate, they should have decent explanations, even if they only say that they screwed up and explain how they will fix the matter. If they are not legitimate, they will continue to hide behind psuedo-legal bs and dodge questions as long as possible.

  • Re:It isnt for the vendors to sort out (Score:3)

    by dillon_rinker ( 17944 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2000 @09:56AM (#1338681) Homepage
    Policing by competitors isnt right.

    If by "policing" you mean "law enforcement", then I would agree; only the government should be arresting, charging, convicting, and fining people.

    But if by "policing" you mean "Verifying compliance with the law and reporting noncompliance to appropriate authorities," I'd have to disagree. No one is more interested in a company's compliance with the law than their competitors. No one else has as much potential to be damaged. Law enforcement doesn't know as much about a particular industry as the players in the industry. In short, I believe that if a company violates the law in a subtle way, the company's competitors are in the best position to recognize the violation and are most influenced by the violation.

    I further disagree with this because I feel it places an unrealistic burden on law enforcement. They can't be everywhere; they can't know everything. They depend on the citizenry for much information about crimes. I do a fair bit of "policing" in my neighborhood. I don't expect that the police department can be as aware of goings on in my neighborhood as I can be.

    When a Rottweiler is loose in my neighborhood, I call Animal Control. When I see an unfamiliar car cruising slowly down the dead-end road I live on, I call the police. When somebody dumps concrete on my lawn, I call the city codes department. I could wait for law enforcement authorities to do their job and not try to do it for them; I could sit back and say "Hey, policing by the citizenry - that's a police state! That's anti-American! That's Naziism!" And taken to an extreme, yes, it is. But I feel that common sense would dictate that I'm responsible for myself and my surroundings, and the government is a tool that I can use to influence them. They are not a safety net or security blanket or even an organization I can rely on to do the right thing.




    (Off-topic moderation rant)
    As I look at this comment, I see it was moderated up as "Informative." Informative in what way?
    Policing by competitors isnt right.
    Opinion.

    The SEC is charged with protection of US investors from fraud.
    Common knowledge.

    You should take it up with them, as should
    everyone else who is concerned and has hard evidence.
    A plea for good citizenship.

    No disrespect is meant to Alan Cox, but the moderation of this comment looks a LOT like hero worship. Of course, there's no way to tell if the person with user id "Alan Cox" is male, or is named Alan Cox, or is the Alan Cox we are all familiar with.
  • Nothing sent through a Hotmail account could remotely be considered a legal document. I would have ignored this particular communication; acknowledging. And I would NEVER communicate with a lawyer without retaining one of my own; that struck me as particularly suicidal.
  • Look, some jerk-weed put a brand right on his chest. He looks like he's owned like a horse or cow, instead of the free-wheeling, herring-eating flightless bird I once knew.
    At least they got a better web designer for their new page. It doesn't look like a 5 yr old designed it anymore.
  • What's wrong with this picture?
    • Mailed from a Hotmail account.
    • No contact information, phone, or address for the lawyer.
    • There is no such thing as "civil prosecution". There's criminal prosecution and civil litigation.
    So it's probably a bluff.

    I just ran a Dun and Bradstreet report [dnb.com] on LinuxOne. I highly recommend this to investors.
    As of January 10, 2000, LinuxOne has 10 employees, including the three officers, and 2500 square feet of rented office space. This is way too early for a full-scale IPO. Usually, at this stage, you go for venture capital funding. Or you make some profits and reinvest. They don't claim to have any unique intellectual property that makes them valuable; they're a me-too company. This is not good.

    I've received threats twice in the past when I exposed various scams. My usual response is "I am represented by (name of attorney). Send them the paperwork." Nobody ever did, although one bozo made a big deal of calling me up to ask for my attorney's name and address.

    Advice to people who expose scams: follow the Associated Press Libel Manual, buy a liability umbrella policy, and don't worry too much. The last thing most scammers want is a real libel suit, because you get to do discovery on them, examine their records, and question their people, creating a public record of the inner details of the scam.

  • "The Associated Press Libel Manual" -- have you got a link for that, or a source, or an ISBN? Sounds like it could be very useful. Lord knows I don't generally have much time for Katz, but his ranting about "corporatism" does have a kernel of truth: it's hard for the individual to stand up to big corporations on such matters, and often knowing the law can help a great deal.
  • Per request, here's the amazon.com link for The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual [amazon.com].

    That book is US-oriented; British law, for example, is quite different. In the US, generally anything you say which is either factually accurate or is obviously an opinion is safe from libel claims. You can go further than that under US law; read the book if you want to act like Rush Limbaugh.

  • So please explain, then. Why the run-around, the legal threat, the impossibly low user level for the FTP, the questionable stock practices, the general lack of fulfillment of grandiose promises?

    As it is, anyone who actually thinks your company is anything other than a fraud is a gullible moron. Prove me wrong. I'd love it, actually, to see a company put serious improvements (hopefully GPLd) into Linux, but all proof points to nothing ever coming out of LinuxOne except lawsuits.

  • I did in fact get throough to their server and downloaded a couple of files. I'm at work, not near my Linux machine so I can't see if any of them are actually real files, but they seem to be out there.

    Virtually all the files in their Source directory seem to be from Mandrake, just as alleged... and none of the source seems to be for anything I haven't heard of before. Where's the value-added?
  • LinuxOne Worldwide Headquarters is at 201 San Antonio Circle, C250, Mountain View, CA. This is in the Old Mill Office Plaza, a nice little office complex where San Antonio Road crosses the railroad tracks. This office complex dates from the 1970s, and is in the classic California style, with an interior court open to the sky with a pond and well-maintained, mature plantings. Unfortunately, it's now surrounded by strip malls and a condo complex.

    The complex contains four connected buildings, A through D. Outside Building C, there are the usual business directory signs. Suite 250 is listed as "Pacific Microelectronics" and as "NetUSA". (No surprise there; these two companies are the previous companies of the founder of LinuxOne, according to Dun and Bradstreet.) There's no mention of LinuxOne. On the lobby directory, we see the same two names, but this time there's a post-it note with "LinuxOne" glued to the NetUsa sign.

    Upstairs, at suite 250, there's a little office with "Pacific Microelectronics" on the glass door. A big "LinuxOne" banner hangs on the back wall. There's a receptionist desk but nobody sitting at it. All the offices have glass fronts, and there appear to be a few adjacent offices belonging to the company. One has a nice fish tank. The office space is consistent with the headcount of 10 previously reported. Unclear how much of the operation is LinuxOne vs. NetUSA. [netusa.com]

    So that's LinuxOne. Now how much were they claiming the company was worth in the IPO?

  • And I am not going to be giving out my SSN (Purdue Student ID = Social Security Number) to LinuxOne!

    Use 078-05-1120. This was a number printed on millions of demonstration billfold inserts. The Social Security Administration has retired it permenantly. For more info, look here [ssa.gov].


    ...phil

  • I think that's a common trick - put competitor's names in the meta tags.

  • Pacific Micro is one of the CEO's companies, supposedly the one that was to do the Linux-Mac stuff... Apparently even won a contract from "Steve Jobs" (quotes because wouldn't you win it from Apple??)
  • FYI: It appears that Capital West is underwriting LinuxOne's IPO.

    Here's some info:
    http://www.hoovers.com/co/ capsule/6/0,2163,61366,00.html [hoovers.com]

  • Sorry, I should have been more specific.

    That the SEC is the Securities Exchange Commission and that it is tasked with protection of US investors is common knowledge to anyone within its jurisdiction, and to anyone who has any knowledge of investing within the US.

    And if you're outside the US and don't invest in the US, then knowledge of what the SEC is and does is fairly pointless.

    Regardless, my point was simply that spelling out the duties of a fairly prominent US govenrmental department doesn't rate an "Informative" moderation.

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