Slashdot Mirror

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

Most non-profits have between 0 and a few months of operating expenses "in the bank." Why should Wikipedia be any different.

The only real "cures" to ongoing fundraising drives are to sell services, such as research services, advertising, subscriptions, or other "monetizable" services; raise an endowment; or have outside investment, which means selling out or going commercial. If they go commercial, they could go the Slashdot model, which is a "community forum" owned by a community-friendly commercial enterprise, VA Software.

Wrong job posting. That's for the Enterprise Edition team. Ours is here.

From the Sourceforge job listing: "US Citizenship or Permanent Residency required". See, that's the problem right there. You're discriminating against all the superstar illegal alien programmers, you ignorant clods!

Time to up the H1-B quota again??

http://www.vasoftware.com/sourceforge Sourceforge Enterprise Edition is a good, non-free application that does all of these things in one interface. It has a lightweight Doc Manager that can handle pretty much any type of document, an interface to either Subversion or CVS, Wiki, Software release management, Role based permissions structure, integration with Active Directory if you wish it, and some other features I haven't yet explored. It's not free but it's not astronomically priced either.

Check it out, what can it hurt?

(I don't work for VA Software.)

Slashdot is a part of/owned by OSTG, which is owned by VA Software. They used to state that this or that site was a part of the OSTG, but now, it seems that the VA (which, IIRC, stands for 'Value Added') brand has been brought back from the dead.

12-16 year old boys can apply to be a slashdot intern.

Eh?

The SEC Safe Harbour statement and disclosure is pretty much boilerplate that appears almost everywhere.

Talk about hypocrisy. But then again, this is slashdot.

Did I say anything about you being a marketdroid? I am hardly a hobbyist. I have founded several companies and have worked on the business development side of the house for years. My last company was sold to good old VA Software

"You are a hobbyist - open source doesn't have to be anything to you, except open, and source."

"Or it's suitable only for hobbyists, and people like you who are scared of success in the market."

Nice ad hominem attacks. As far this goes, its a minor affair, in fact I would use it as clear selling tool that we have exceeded our goals in growth. We didn't anticipate growth being this strong.

My point is this is a minor hiccup in a company's growth. As far being a successful businessman I have had more than my fair share of successes and failures.

Growing pains happen in every company. How you handle them is entirely indicative of the quality of the company.

Stop it with the ad hominem attacks, it's not helping your argument.

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.
• Linux Lab set up shop in Bangalore!
• Daniel Robbins decided to sell out his open source compatriots by taking a job with Microsoft in Redmond, Washington!

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to?

from the buy-lnux-please dept

Note that LNUX is good old VA Software, owners of Slashdot and also of this really sad graph.

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.
• Linux Lab set up shop in Bangalore!
• Daniel Robbins decided to sell out his open source compatriots by taking a job with Microsoft in Redmond, Washington!

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to?

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.
• Linux Lab set up shop in Bangalore!

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to?

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to? OSDN == Offshore Software Development NOW!!! Read how OSDN is helping to offshore American High-Tech to the Third World!

When you have a crime to investigate, and you have no suspects, where do you start? Obviously you begin by looking at the person or persons who have the most to gain by perpetrating the crime.

This is why we must consider: who had something to gain from the disasterous crimes of September 11th? Obviously not Osama Bin Laden, who would net no financial windfall from the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Although he has loudly applauded the "terrorist" acts of September 11th and even tacitly taken credit for them, there is no reason to believe that he is anything more than a bandwagon jumper. Being blamed for the destruction of the World Trade Center has done more for his image than any amount of militant Islamic rhetoric.

But if not Bin Laden, then who?

It so happens that on December 11th, "coincidentally" 2 months after the tragedy, Credit Suisse First Boston quietly agreed to pay out US$100 million in order to settle an 18 month old investigation into its handling of certain high-profile technology IPOs (Initial Public Offerings). One of the most controversial amongst these being the IPO of VA Linux Systems, Inc. (LNUX) .

VA Linux Systems, Inc., now known as VA Software, is widely derided as a poster child of the dot-com bust, though inexplicably still in business. At the time of the IPO, VA Linux (Software) shares opened trading at nearly 10 times their $30 offer price, closing the first day of trading at $239.25. This meteoric rise made many early investors rich, strangely on account of a company which purports to sell a hobbyist operating system which can be obtained for free on the Internet. "The VA Linux initial public offering is a prime example of market manipulation in an IPO by investment banks, their customers and the issuing firm," said Steven Schulman, a partner in the law firm Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, which specializes in filing shareholder suits.

"Because certain favored customers of the investment banks agreed to buy shares in a new issue at inflated prices in the aftermarket (in return for getting an allocation of the shares at the initial offering price) the share prices to which the IPO eventually soared were actually driven by artificial market forces," continues Schulman.

But what does the VA Software (Linux) IPO have to do with the attacks on September 11th, and what has that to do with the Credit Suisse settlement? Well, considering that VA Linux (Software) got CSFB into trouble in the first place, it stands to reason that the VA Linux (Software) Board of Directors were complicit in the stock fraud from beginning to end. As the investigation progressed against CSFB, the unscrupulous VA Software/Linux executives, their pockets bulging with filthy lucre plundered from trusting, hard-working investors, must have realized that their days in the country club were numbered if the SEC discovered their wrongdoings.

The SEC, or Securities Exchange Commission, is a federal regulatory agency, and cannot be bribed. Therefore, with a possible stint in federal prison looming large, Larry Augustin and the rest of the crooks, including outspoken gun violence advocate Eric S. Raymond, decided to undertake more active means to halt the investigation.

The Plan

It so happened that all the evidence in the CSFB/

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to?

OSDN == Offshore Software Development NOW!!! Read how OSDN is helping to offshore American High-Tech to the Third World!

When you have a crime to investigate, and you have no suspects, where do you start? Obviously you begin by looking at the person or persons who have the most to gain by perpetrating the crime.

This is why we must consider: who had something to gain from the disasterous crimes of September 11th? Obviously not Osama Bin Laden, who would net no financial windfall from the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Although he has loudly applauded the "terrorist" acts of September 11th and even tacitly taken credit for them, there is no reason to believe that he is anything more than a bandwagon jumper. Being blamed for the destruction of the World Trade Center has done more for his image than any amount of militant Islamic rhetoric.

But if not Bin Laden, then who?

It so happens that on December 11th, "coincidentally" 2 months after the tragedy, Credit Suisse First Boston quietly agreed to pay out US$100 million in order to settle an 18 month old investigation into its handling of certain high-profile technology IPOs (Initial Public Offerings). One of the most controversial amongst these being the IPO of VA Linux Systems, Inc. (LNUX) .

VA Linux Systems, Inc., now known as VA Software, is widely derided as a poster child of the dot-com bust, though inexplicably still in business. At the time of the IPO, VA Linux (Software) shares opened trading at nearly 10 times their $30 offer price, closing the first day of trading at $239.25. This meteoric rise made many early investors rich, strangely on account of a company which purports to sell a hobbyist operating system which can be obtained for free on the Internet. "The VA Linux initial public offering is a prime example of market manipulation in an IPO by investment banks, their customers and the issuing firm," said Steven Schulman, a partner in the law firm Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, which specializes in filing shareholder suits.

"Because certain favored customers of the investment banks agreed to buy shares in a new issue at inflated prices in the aftermarket (in return for getting an allocation of the shares at the initial offering price) the share prices to which the IPO eventually soared were actually driven by artificial market forces," continues Schulman.

But what does the VA Software (Linux) IPO have to do with the attacks on September 11th, and what has that to do with the Credit Suisse settlement? Well, considering that VA Linux (Software) got CSFB into trouble in the first place, it stands to reason that the VA Linux (Software) Board of Directors were complicit in the stock fraud from beginning to end. As the investigation progressed against CSFB, the unscrupulous VA Software/Linux executives, their pockets bulging with filthy lucre plundered from trusting, hard-working investors, must have realized that their days in the country club were numbered if the SEC discovered their wrongdoings.

The SEC, or Securities Exchange Commission, is a federal regulatory agency, and cannot be bribed. Therefore, with a possible stint in federal prison looming large, Larry Augustin and the rest of the crooks, including outspoken gun violence advocate Eric S. Raymond, decided to undertake more active means to halt the investigation.

The Plan

It so happened that all the evidence in the CSFB/

Talking about outsourcing, here's an interesting article from The Register:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/19/offshoring _savings_sometimes/

It got rejected as a story, probably something to do with the fact that VA Software, slashdot's owner supports outsourcing.

VA Software, the owner of slashdot SUPPORTS OUTSOURCING.

Which is why they rejected this story, which claims offshoring is on its way out.

I'll post the final version ...

Hey Regis, Let's Make A Deal(TM): I'll sell you your last comment to you if you can guess which door leeds to Microsoft:
Door 1
Door 2
Door 3a
Door 3b

http://www.vasoftware.com/gateway/offshoreontrack. php

And basically they have no business calling themselves editors any more than the CNN Crossfire guys can call themselves reporters. They don't really do much of anything other than collect a paycheck and *maybe* type a couple comments in the article headline. When was the last time we even saw a new feature on slashdot (other than something that increased their profits)? Or how about making the site standards compliant? If this was still a volunteer site I'd cut them a lot of slack, but they're wholly owned by VA Software now, and all we've seen since then is more lackadaisical "editing" and more banner ads.

http://www.vasoftware.com/sourceforge/difs.php

And VA Software is "the guy" behind it.

Headquartered in San Mateo, Calif., InfoWorld Media Group is a wholly owned independent business unit of IDG, the world's leading IT media, research and exposition company. IDG publishes more than 285 computer magazines and newspapers and 500 book titles and offers online users the largest network of technology-specific sites around the world through IDG.net (http://www.idg.net), which comprises more than 200 targeted Web sites in 52 countries. IDG is also a leading producer of 110 computer-related expositions worldwide, and provides IT market analysis through 49 offices in 41 countries worldwide. Company information is available at www.idg.com.

IDG is one of those earth-flattening corporations which dominates everything. Look at their track record. Interestingly, they're not just interested in owning all the computer publications in the world. They also have their fingers in Brain Research. --Which looks on the surface to be a bit of PR angling, but 350 million worth? Whatever. Creepy.

Huge publishing conglomerates have mandates and agendas, (whether they realize it or not), so IDG publishing articles about Echelon is interesting to say the least.

By contrast. . .

Slashdot is owned by OSDG. (Open Source Data Group)
From the OSDG website

In the most recent release of Nielsen//NetRatings' @plan (Summer 2004), OSTG retained its top ranking across all competitive networks for delivering online buyers of computer hardware and software, visitors who purchase home electronics online and visitors who buy anything online. OSTG moved up in the rankings for many consumer technology categories, including visitors who are heavy spenders on computer hardware, visitors who purchase MP3 players, and visitors who purchase video games.

For the eighth consecutive quarter, OSTG has been validated as the number one network for delivering visitors who look for technology news online. OSTG reaches over 16 million visitors every month and delivers nearly 250 million page views.

OSDG is in turn owned by VA Software

[. . .]VA Software develops and markets SourceForge Enterprise Edition, an enterprise-grade solution for managing and optimizing distributed development. SourceForge Enterprise Edition provides a secure, centralized platform that connects heterogeneous tools and processes together with an integrated suite of project, change management and collaboration tools. Fortune 1000 companies and government agencies use SourceForge Enterprise Edition as a Global Development Platform(TM) to integrate disparate tools and processes, expand visibility and control, and improve development efficiency and collaboration.

VA Software appears to have its morals lined up nicely. That is, their goal appears to be data sharing and the facilitation of collaborative creative efforts. As the much maligned, (and biblically misrepresented), Christ advised, "Judge the Tree by the Fruit it Bears." This is one of the most outstanding bits of advice I have ever heard. Flowing all the way down this particular chain, Slashdot allows peculiar guys like me to speak my mind in forum on taboo subject matter. I have an enormous amount of respect for that.

Here's an article written by Carl Redfield, a guy way up at the top of th

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to? OSDN == Offshore Software Development NOW!!! Read how OSDN is helping to offshore American High-Tech to the Third World!

My best guess would be that this Roland guy simply pays Slashdot. I'm mean, Slashdot has pretty much gone to the commercial hell (C) in the proverbial handbasket (TM). Look at the people the affiliate themselves with:

• Sourceforge ... Nothing wrong with the site itself, but Sourceforge's (the product itself) main implementation is to ease, improve and enhance outsourcing. Lost your job to some poor underpaid and undereduquated Indian fellow? Thank Slashdot for being part of the process that makes Outsourcing 'profitable'*
• IT Manager Journal ... I'm not even going to start on this one, just a whole bunch of articles that contain mostly paradign-shifting buzzwords with a ROI and synergy that extends en interoperated with various value-based precision-engineered web-based solutions, interlaced with a speck of non-buzword nonsense.
• Roland Piqqy ... Just a random bozo who steal links from various journals, cannibalizes the content, claims it to be his own work and then tricks sites with stupid admins (Yes, Slashdot admins. I'm talking about you idiots.) into proliferating his scam over the internet. I'm not sure wether Roland's continuous bullshit on Slashdot can be attributed to sheer ignorance to their own community (which would explain why the IT section's colour scheme is still painful) or simple greed and a few handy... donations.

So, to any subscribers out there; is the ability to see Taco's atrocious spelling 10 minutes prior to the rest of the world worth your money? If it is, would it make you feel better that part of your money is used to promote outsourcing and to write the software needed for outsourcing? So do yourself a favour, cancel your subscription or do not renew it and help Slashdot. Sometimes, you just have to let go and bury your fallen. It's time we buried Slashdot and tried something new... Heard FortKnow was coding up something...

* == Profitable in short term only. Short term roughly meaning "the average time it takes a CEO to collect a few multi-million dollar bonuses before ruining the next company"

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to?

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to?

The US government is actively supporting outsourcing

As is the owner of Slashdot. Kinda hypocritical for them to run this kinda story.

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to?

Slashdot is owned by OSDN, whose parent company is VA Software.

Lots of corporate money here!

Let's put this into perspective:

• Slashdot editors/admin allow, condone AND encourage link spammers/whores. ( Lo Roland, I mean you. )
• Journalistic value of Slashdot is close to 0. ( Plainly ripping of crap from other sites; What's the last time we saw something original? )
• Editorial blunders abound. ( Hello dupes, triples and sometimes quads... And think of the percentages in this (pdf) in the 4th paragraph )
• Based on a broken moderation system. ( Over/Underrated, the funny mod, worthless distribution of mod rights. )
• Developer/admin arrogance and incompetence. ( Regarding several long-standing bugs, errors, etc. )
• Backed by worthless company that promotes outsourcing. ( Slashdot -> OSDN/OSTG -> Sourceforge )
• Compete ignorance of what their customers actually want ( No more IT section which makes our eyes bleed. )

In contrast, slashdot is...

• ... Free! ( I pity the sucker who SUBSCRIBE for this though... I think you'd be better of burning your money, that would at least give you some warmth... )
• ... Fun! ( 100k people, there's bound to be a few with my sense of humour about! )
• ... Actual! ... Mostly... ( Ripping news from other sites makes sure the pathetic Slashdot editorial staff doesn't fuck those up, at least. )

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to? OSDN == Offshore Software Development NOW!!! Read how OSDN is helping to offshore American High-Tech to the Third World!

Keep Offshore Development On Track

Managing application development with both in-house and international teams is difficult, especially with 20th century LAN-based tools. Lack of visibility and control make it hard to stay on top of projects, changes and quality. IP security and traceability take on increased importance. And disparate tools, systems and processes create inefficiencies that contribute to project delays and higher direct and indirect costs.

The best way to streamline and manage distributed development is with a Global Development Platform: a centralized, secure, web-based system that can integrate with — and provide a common view into — heterogeneous tools and systems to optimize team productivity while providing superior visibility and control.

To learn more, simply complete the form below. An email will be automatically sent so you can download the "Keeping Offshore Development on Track" white paper.

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to?

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to?

The vast majority of people I know who bought PDA haven't used past the 3rd day of playing.
So they keep telling me not to waste my money.
I am talking a handful of people here (boss, neighbour, friend, sister, cousin, etc)
But hey I want to play too! :(

Now most PDA's run Windows so that is a no-no.
Sharp Zaurus are difficult to get in the UK you could use an import service but you get no pound sign - having said that I noticed you can't get a pound sign here too

Can the owners tell me why? (you bunch of disgusting outsourcerers)

... Anyway, back to the main subject I was gonna buy the extremely expensive Psion Netbook
but the Linux-PDAs wave saved me from burning many-pound-sterlings unecessarily.
The Malay version more than doubled in price so am not going there ... site is off air anyway.

Now this seems like a tempting and very humble solution. It runs Linux, so a nice toy to play and learn.

Here's the original.

Welcome to Soviet Russia, motherfuckers.

VA Software pimps SourceForge as a tool to help companies ship jobs overseas. They're using the fact your project is hosted on SourceForge as proof their product works.

Just thought you might like to know.

...It would be funny if it weren't so painfully fucking accurate.

Welcome to 2004. Here's the rundown, incase you fell asleep:

o VA now pimps SourceForge as a tool to help companies ship jobs overseas. Go ahead, count the number of times you see the word "outsourcing" on their page. Thats right -- That lovely free hosting space your project has? Salesmen inside VA now point to projects like yours and go "See? It works! Now you can fire your employees, and replace them with this handy-dandy website!" They're making an example out of you. Wise up.

o Red Hat isn't interested in talking to you, looking at you, or hearing from you. Be sure to read the fine print at the bottom of the page..the part that reads "The Fedora Project is not a supported product of Red Hat, Inc."....Those friendly folks at Red Hat just want you to keep the mill wheel turning, cranking out those security fixes and updates for them to sell. It's real simple. You grow the grain, cut it, and haul it all to the mill, where they'll bag it, and sell it, and let you go hungry. Now, in 2004, rather than being part of the business model, you are a distraction to the business model -- Sorry! No more Red Hat for you! (Fun Fact: They were making money off their end-user desktop distribution -- just not enough to justify listening to your noisy and distracting comments.)

Yaaay! Open source is GRRRREAT!

..will the last one out please turn off the lights?

Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to?

Surprise -- The site you posted your reply on, Slashdot, is owned by a company (VA Software) who makes their bread and butter selling software that helps companies ship jobs overseas.

Have a look for yourself: VA Software

They're fucking proud of the fact they've taken code written by American software developers, and have turned it into a tool to help eliminate positions held by American software developers.

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to?

maybe you should stop reading slashdot altogether.

VA Software Uses Own "Offshoring" Experience To Tune Flagship Product For Hot Growth Market

Creator of SourceForge Enterprise Edition Applies Product to Manage its Own Outsourced Development in India
Big Increase in Development Efficiency Sparked Decision to Tailor Product to Offshore Outsourcing Market
Company Eats Own "Dog Food" and Finds that it "Tastes Great"
FREMONT, California -- December 8, 2003 -- Like many U.S. companies today, VA Software Corporation (Nasdaq: LNUX) has been focused on controlling costs while improving productivity and quality. While achieving these goals, the company has also gained valuable insight into tailoring its flagship product for a fast-growing new market.

VA Software was a relatively early adopter of offshore outsourcing. In 2001, VA retained Cybernet Software Systems, Inc. (CSS), to provide development and maintenance engineering services for SourceForge Enterprise Edition, the VA product that provides a common development platform for companies creating and maintaining software applications. VA and CSS put SourceForge to work as the shared repository for all code, requirements, project plans, emails, and other documents related to the engagement. VA Software even added an extra level of protection for their intellectual property by creating a "gated community" area within SourceForge that hosted projects specific to their outsourcing partner, sequestered behind VA Software's corporate firewall. And VA Software leaders closely monitored vendor performance and specific project status by using management features in SourceForge.

Using SourceForge to manage its offshore outsourcing, VA was able to realize the substantial cost savings offered by its offshore partner while actually improving team efficiency and project manageability. VA achieved total returns greater than 400 percent on its offshore efforts and nearly doubled its development capacity. "There's no way we could have gotten returns like this without using SourceForge," said Colin Bodell, senior vice president of product development for VA Software. "We saved a huge amount of management time by using our own product to stay on top of the relationship with CSS; we used SourceForge to track everything, identify and fix project bottlenecks quickly, used audit trails to keep an eye on our IP; and we accelerated time-to-market by using SourceForge to hand work back and forth seamlessly between India and the U.S. The more we used SourceForge to manage SourceForge development, the more we realized that our own 'dog food' tastes great and provides an excellent solution to many of the problems our customers faced with offshore outsourcing. We have used our own experience to tailor the product for this fast-growing market."

Today, VA Software announced the release of SourceForge Enterprise Edition 3.5, which has further enhancements for offshore outsourcing use (see separate news release). SourceForge Enterprise Edition is evolved from the software used by more than 750,000 developers worldwide on www.SourceForge.net, the global nexus for open-source software development projects. SourceForge Enterprise Edition 3.5 adds enterprise-grade security and management features, resulting in a product that helps companies cut application development and maintenance costs while improving quality and reducing risk.

CSS is one of the first SourceForge users to experience version 3.5. "We think this product is better than great," said Shiv Kumar, CEO of CSS. "The Global Development Dashboard in 3.5 will give real-time, location-transparent visibility into project status to our India-based managers and VA Software counterparts. We've already achieved excellent communication and collaboration between the Indian and U.S. teams thanks to SourceForge Enterprise Edition. The new release will make our teamwork even better. We're now talking with VA Software about the best way for us

GForge: Fork of Alexandria code by former Sourceforge developer. Rips out foundries and is for optimized PHP and Postgresql and Apache. Patches for Oracle in beta, refuses mysql patches.

Why? No seriously, I wouldn't support a project once I encounter this kind of attitude. People often go "Well, it's their project so they have the final say about it.", which is bullshit. If you're going to start your own OS project and be a complete jackass to people who use it, ( In short, your developers, bugtesters, QA people, support staff AND users all in one. ) then DO NOT START A DAMNED OS PROJECT. Look what's happening to Xfree86 for example; they went anal about licensing and voila, the OS community gave them the collective middle finger and it's highly likely that in a few years time Xfree86 wil be nothing more then an interesting little footnote in computing history. Remember people, don't just open your source, alos open your mind. And for the love of Eris, get rid of that crap "No matter how fucked up/lacking things are, my will be done. Infidel." attitude.

On a slightly different note, doesn't this whole idea about SF, one of the flagships of the OS community, is actually closed source and used to promote offshore outsourcing seem painfully ironic? Especially when one considers Slashdot is actually part of VA Software? Don't you subscribers love to know that your hard-earned money might one day be used to A) buy these people a penis extension on four wheels with an engine and B) fire this guy and replace him with Deeptendu Chakrapani from Bangladesh? At least the spelling will improve, though...

GForge: Fork of Alexandria code by former Sourceforge developer. Rips out foundries and is for optimized PHP and Postgresql and Apache. Patches for Oracle in beta, refuses mysql patches.

Why? No seriously, I wouldn't support a project once I encounter this kind of attitude. People often go "Well, it's their project so they have the final say about it.", which is bullshit. If you're going to start your own OS project and be a complete jackass to people who use it, ( In short, your developers, bugtesters, QA people, support staff AND users all in one. ) then DO NOT START A DAMNED OS PROJECT. Look what's happening to Xfree86 for example; they went anal about licensing and voila, the OS community gave them the collective middle finger and it's highly likely that in a few years time Xfree86 wil be nothing more then an interesting little footnote in computing history. Remember people, don't just open your source, alos open your mind. And for the love of Eris, get rid of that crap "No matter how fucked up/lacking things are, my will be done. Infidel." attitude.

On a slightly different note, doesn't this whole idea about SF, one of the flagships of the OS community, is actually closed source and used to promote offshore outsourcing seem painfully ironic? Especially when one considers Slashdot is actually part of VA Software? Don't you subscribers love to know that your hard-earned money might one day be used to A) buy these people a penis extension on four wheels with an engine and B) fire this guy and replace him with Deeptendu Chakrapani from Bangladesh? At least the spelling will improve, though...

VA Software is pimping off SourceForge as a tool to help companies ship jobs overseas. Go look for yourself.

Infact, here's a link to their main page. They don't even hide the fact they're ass-drilling their own industry.

Go look for yourself. VA is pimping SourceForge off as a tool to help companies ship jobs overseas. They don't even hide the fact.

Have a look for yourself: VA Software

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.