Heavy thinkers in the blogosphere are both commending and attacking Andrew LahdeIt for timing the financial meltdown correctly and apparently making a bunch of rich guys richer (by getting them out of the market at just the right time around mid September 2008). My only beef with him is a suggestion in his now infamous farewell letter that says (according to Alphaville):
"My suggestion is that (George Soros) start and sponsor a forum for great minds to come together to create a new system of government that truly represents the common man’s interest....This forum could be similar to the one used to create the operating system, Linux, which competes with Microsoft’s near monopoly.
He's got the genesis and status of Linux vis a vis Microsoft (MSFT) so wrong that I wonder how much of the other facts in his letter are accurate.
Linux was created by* IBM (IBM), HP (HP) and other former IT systems monopolists that realized that Microsoft was taking their systems monopoly away from them. IBM, HP, Digital Equipment (now part of HP), etc. had banded together for this purpose in the early 1980s while Linus Torvalds, the nominal creator of Linux and who now works for one of the groups IBM, HP, etc. put together for its trust-like purposes, was still in short pants. Ten years later, the consortium chose a small piece of software code, "forked" by Linus from some other code while he was in college, to complement the still ongoing technical development effort by IBM, HP, etc. to come up with "one Unix." What is today called Linux is the result of that one-Unix effort.
So far, from a marketing perspective, Linux has mostly replaced the old monopolists' own software (AIX, HP-UX, Digital UNIX, MVS, VMS, MPeIx, etc.) and has not slowed down the new monopolist Microsoft at all.
As for Laheldt's suggestions relative to the use of marijuana for non-medicinal purposes, I humbly suggest that his letter was the result of such a session. (*"Created by" is not an accurate way in technical terms to describe the development of any software for a variety of reasons but I will leave it be for purposes of this blog.)
.... Perhaps you should rename your blog, "Investment opinion on the leading enterprise software suppliers." That would be a lot more accurate.
Posted by: Michael Schwager | October 20, 2008 at 12:08 PM
Linux was created by Linux Torvalds. This is well-known documented history. It's time to print an apology to Linus and a retraction and an explanation of how it is you did 0 research before writing this might be required ....
...Stu
Posted by: Stuart MacDonald | October 20, 2008 at 12:29 PM
This might possibly be the most MISINFORMED article about Linux ever written. Please go check your facts (even something as simple as wikipedia will set you straight).
you aren't even CLOSE on the origins of Linux.
Posted by: Corey | October 20, 2008 at 01:39 PM
Thanks for the comments.
Sorry you don't get the point of the footnote but the whole OSF/Minix/ACC Corp/GNU/Apache/OSDL/Linux Foundation thing is a little bit too complex for a blog post...
And yes, of course it is an opinion. That's what a blog is.
-- Dennis
Posted by: Dennis Byron | October 21, 2008 at 06:43 AM