“It’s difficult to tell exactly what California startup and
IPO candidate LinuxOne is up to, but it seems to involve a highly
derivative Linux distribution and mysterious dealings in China.
Many eyebrows have been raised by the firm’s seemingly vaporous
business plan, but at least it’s now produced a product or two.
Sort of….“
“In any event, my main concern was a bit closer to home:
LinuxOne is based in Mountain View, California, practically in my
backyard. It’s the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most active
and concentrated Linux communities in the world — a metropolitan
region boasting nine active Linux user groups, none of whose
members had ever heard of LinuxOne or its founder, Wun C. Chiou
Sr., Ph.D. How was this possible?…”
“What would be special about it? LinuxOne didn’t say, really,
except that it would be “the easiest Linux operating system and
software to install and use….” I’ll add that this would be the
first distribution I’d ever heard of with no public beta cycle.
Developing a Linux distribution totally behind closed doors is
rash, because you close yourself off from peer review. Even
distributions with proprietary components, such as Corel’s, go
through a public beta process.”