“For weeks, the geeks who visit Slashdot pilloried the
leadership of Red Hat, the first Linux company to offer stock to
the public, over their ill-fated effort to spread some of the
wealth through a pre-IPO “directed share program”. Red Hat CEO Bob
Young and the rest of his Carolina crew were called everything from
elitist opportunists to incompetent boobs who were unaware of the
intricacies and complexities of arranging a stock set-aside scheme
that would help (as opposed to enrage or frustrate) chronically
capital-deficient geeks with little “investment history.”
“Well, guess which chickens have come home to roost?…”
“Several things (beyond the most obvious) make the IPO of
Andover.Net different from, for example, Red Hat’s public offering
back in July. Foremost, whereas Red Hat tried to use a
directed-share program to include the legions of developers,
programmers and geeks-at-large whose work contributed to the great
success of Red Hat’s Linux distribution, Andover.Net’s OpenIPO
is set up specifically to make sure all bidders have an equal shot
at the new stock.“