“Ready or not, here come the Linux IPOs, portending a shift in
the high-tech landscape that almost certainly will widen the
crevasse between the community-minded Linux developers and the
bottom-line bean counters. First out of the gate among Linux
vendors making initial public offerings will be Red Hat Software
Inc., which is likely to offer 6 million shares of stock as early
as next week, sources close to the company said.”
“Others expected to follow include hardware maker VA Linux
Systems Inc., which hopes to file papers this fall, and operating
system distributors TurboLinux Inc. and Caldera Systems Inc.”
“Although the Linux operating system kernel will remain open,
developers are not required to give away Linux appli-cation code.
As a result, publicly traded Linux vendors could be under intense
pressure from shareholders to distin-guish themselves from the
competition by creating and selling proprietary Linux
applications.”