“In this special interview, 32BitsOnline’s Mark Bashaw
(Senior Linux Editor) and Ronny Ko (Editor-in-Chief) put the
questions to the Director of Technical Projects at Red Hat, Donnie
Barnes.“
“32Bits: Donnie, what would Red Hat have done differently if an
IPO were held today?”
“DB: Oh, hindsight is always 20/20. Knowing what we know now we
would have probably been able to alleviate some of the bumps in the
community directed shares program. But when it was all said and
done, we were really happy with the result of that, and otherwise,
the IPO has gone well. We mailed 5000 open source contributors. Of
that, 1300 indicated an interest in participating. Of those, 1150
became Red Hat shareholders. We are very comfortable with that rate
of success. We would love to have been able to do a more
comprehensive search for open source contributors, but time didn’t
allow. All in all, I think things have gone well from a final
outcome perspective. It was a bumpy ride, but hopefully those that
follow will learn from it and do it better.”