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Linuxcare Business Shuffle (UPDATED)
We've heard rumors that Linuxcare's upcoming IPO has been shelved for now, and that Linuxcare's CEO and CIO have been removed. This comes right after the roadshow was delayed, which now appears to be cancelled. At this time, I haven't heard back from Linuxcare, so haven't heard their side of the story. However, several reliable sources have said that there've been "irregularities" in revenue recognition, something that the linked article also touches on.Update: 04/07 11:22 by H :I've talked with Art Tyde, Founder of LinuxCare. He confirms that the IPO has been delayed - but that they believe an IPO is in their future. He also did confirm that the CEO, Ferdinand Sarrat, has parted ways with Linuxcare, but that the CIO has remained onboard, and that the management team remains committed to the values of the community and what the company was founded on.
As someone who works for a services company (no, not Linux-related), the IPO route is very difficult. We've been told repeatedly that our pretty linear growth curve will never hold us up as a public company. The management has been repeatedly denied in various plans to go public. Other similar service companies are wallowing around the penny-stock level. Plus the vendor we have allied ourselves with is actually our biggest competitor, and tends to sell it's services by giving licence and hardware discounts. (A similar situation with LinuxCare versus VA + RedHat?)
Linux might be a different story because the expectation is that it will undergo a huge growth curve. However, services is still a funny, people-driven business. Could LinuxCare even keep up with the Linux explosion when it happens? How do they differentiate themselves from RedHat and VA? Are they even better positioned than the numerous companies that have been doing UNIX-related services for years and have long Fortune 1000 customer lists?
The ultimate solution at my place was to move to become a product company, to start over from scratch. You already see this in Linux space -- RedHat selling dev tools for Windows and "secure" versions of their software. VA selling high end hardware. Linuxcare selling what?
-a coward
Anyway, seems like someone made some money, check out the insider trading data
Bob Young sold aprox. $60,000,000 worth of shares. This is just funny, what bunch of suckers would buy at that price?
Oh, well, as they say, these days the IPO *is* the product.
Anonymous Cow
ps. this is not a flame bait, it's simply critical of the get-rich-quick-scheme that the market has become. In no way does this note reflect on the quality of the Linux OS, Bob Young's character, the open source community's willingness to contribute to the wealth of a select group of investment bankers, venture capitalists, and multi-billioners, or the sex-appeal of TuX tHe PiNguIn.
1) Red Hat isn't a good company because they comply with the GPL. If they didn't comply with the GPL, their company would be sacked, and their employees burnt at the stake. Not to mention, their company would be sitting beneath 6 miles of lawsuits from the x-number of thousands of people who give them a product to sell. Myself included.
The important part is not that they comply with the GPL, but that they use the GPL voluntarily. All of the software they write and distribute (that's not subject to other people's licenses, like the RSA stuff), even when it contains no patches from people outside of Redhat, is under the GPL. They don't have to do that, and it is a positive contribution to the community.
4) Making money in the Linux community does make you evil, if you have to answer to anyone but the community. VA answers to a board of directors, now. Not the community. Same story with Red Hat. Their job is to turn a profit however they can--and thats their only job. Thats the only thing they need to care about, and consequently, that is the only thing they care about.
Ok, now that's just wrong. Have you never heard of people trying to do a "good job" because they want to? It's the same thing with companies. Some companies genuinely try to be good. And the fiduciary responsibility argument isn't a reason they can't be good; the CEO's of these companies are not going to be sued because they've been giving back to a community which expects to be given to. And if for some weird reason they decide in the future that they should screw over the community to help their shareholders, then you can say they're all evil.
You hate VA for various reasons and it's your right to hate them (personally I don't agree with many of the things you say, but that's beside the point), but generalizing and saying that all companies which attempt to make money from Linux are evil is ridiculous. Are all companies which try to make money in an way evil?
And measuring your contribution in MB is a bit misleading, don't you think? Propaganda's nice (I don't care for it too much, but other people seem to like it a lot) but its being half the size of the kernel tarball doesn't make it anywhere near half that much effort.
OK, as I understand it the CEO may have left because they weren't reporting income/profits correctly, overstating their case to hide losses, and that he left his previous job because they made up $11Mil of income that didn't exist. It also seems that the upper suits were hired by an investment firm, Kliener-Perkins. This doesn't sound right, if this Sarrat had a shady past, why did the investment firm hire him?
LinuxCare has been one of the bastions of the corporate-Linux movement, a one stop shop for software support. It is one of the main things that legitimizes Linux to the PHBs. I hope they get their shit together before their reputation hits the fan.
On a related note, I noticed no information on their homepage, how reliable is this source (g2news?) anyway? And who is this CEO, some corporate Mr. Fixit? Doesn't appear to be working, I've seen a couple of disgruntled LinuxCare people post.
'K. Enough ranting. Sorry you had to be on the receiving end of someone's paranoia.
Sigh.
>Theres a growing awareness among the real Linux community that we
I think you make a valid point there, Bowie.
I mean, who is the "Linux Community" exactly?
Is it the hackers? The users? Anybody who does business and uses the word Linux?
Y'know everybody has priorities, and as far
as I can tell, you don't get to be a CE/IO
because your top priority is making the world a better place.
This country is the most religious in the world. Our god is money.
Who can afford to be an infidel?
I'll have to "me too" that one. Definately one of the sites that got me started using Linux.
The more you know, the less you understand.
Sometimes, oftentimes, these days, I get the feeling that Slashdot ain't what it used to be. Too many American teenage jerks blowing off about liberty and communism and many other memes for which I feel they are particularly unqualified to comment on.
Then...
Every once in a while...
Comes along a thread that makes you realise that it's all worthwhile, that if you want to keep your finger on the pulse, you have to be reading here.
Heartfelt thanks to all the contributors with an inside angle who contributed to this thread.
All the Linux companies are either getting abandonned by their CEO's or have lost 75% of their stock value in the last 3 months. Red Hat has a larger market share than Apple yet Red Hat is trading at 1/4 what Apple is. Caldera is now $16. Linux wizardry systems is 3 1/8. The problem seems to be the margin from support and hardware isn't producing enough revenue to support application development. With all the support calls they answer, the only software RedHat can skim off their margin is installers but there's only so much you can do with an installer.
He indicated that they were, at least in the local area, having a harder time getting in the door at local businesses than they had expected.
If the business plan assumed that they were going to have huge numbers of service contracts, and that it would be really easy to set up service contract relationships, that nicely explains the failure of the business plan, and the resultant failure of the attempt to "go IPO."
I was pretty skeptical that they'd be easily able to sell service contracts... Of all the potentially legitimate Linux enterprises out there, LinuxCare seem to me to have the weakest case...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
have a look at this month's issue of Fortune Magazine.
If there is a URL, would you mind posting it? I just checked the Fortune Magazine web site but couldn't find the article. Thanks!
Ehttp://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
a failed revenue model for the open source software industry.
Overhyped, not failed. Most newcomers to the Linux world measure its success by its ability to generate revenue, which is not the reason Linux (or free software in general) was created in the first place.
It is so far relatively unimportant for the penetration of Linux that it be able to make some company money. If only technical support, userfriendlyness, etc can continue to be finessed and standardized without a particular corporate agenda, we are going to remain immune to the rise or fall of particular companies.
No, you don't need anybody in particular in life, but I have to take issue on you poking at Redhat and VA.
I work for Andover (being aquired by VA), and we work hard at trying to do things that will benefit the open source community. I suppose that maybe you had a bad experience somewhere along the line and feel slighted, and I don't know your exact situation. All I can say is that Andover is the best place I've ever worked and the people that I've met from VA are some of the most public conscious people that I've met. They do care about the community. I get paid to work on an open source project, and we do our best to help the public, and do things that will benefit the public.
When we put out a new release of Slashcode, I make sure that any developer gets credit on any of their contributions to the code, or even ideas that they contribute.
It's really hard to read a lot of comments here attacking the various Linux companies, when I know the truth of how hard we work at doing the right thing. All this vitriol that I've been reading about how we're just out for the money or profit, is just utter nonsense.
This Slashdot news item, and the story it links to, relies too much on unnamed sources, "reliable" sources, and rumors. Maybe there's a reason no sources are willing to have their names associated with this information.
Rogers Cadenhead (Web: http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench)
ROTLMAO! Maybe I am just slap-happy because the week is finally over. As immature as the post was, I am still laughing.... heeheeheeheehee......
C'mon, someone have a sense of humor and moderate the Coward's post up a bit, eh? = )
Bowie, give it a rest, OK?
It's over. Done with. History. Move along.
_Deirdre
I definitley agree with you on the budget concious, and direction. Desktop support was something of a week point.
I hoped Pat can bring things together. I never knew her. I have known alot of good Pat's though. Hopefully with her business since, and Art's people skills and vision they can turn that outfit around.
I am not sure NT laptops were the solution. Give people what they want! If it is a dual boot NT, and Linux laptop then so be it. Or Mac and Linux! What some people don't get is that Linux can't do everything. Alot of things, but not everything. Desktops being one of them.
The previous IT manager was a good guy. I liked him. I felt he had gotten screwed.
Here at Apple we have a very nice mix.
Cheers,
WFE
===========
Incidentally, CDW's site is built on ASP and SQL Server.
Most of what you had to say was right on, but WOW is the Herman Miller Aeron a nice chair.
> And call me chirs, I'm only 28 for gods sake.
So what's up, chirs?
Yahoo is making money. I think they have since June last year.
Je ne parle pas francais.
I don't think that was LinuxCare. Wasn't it LinuxOne that was shady and pumping hype?
Goes to show, too many LinuxSomething.com's out there...
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I think that this is a total overstatement. I don't work for any of these companies so I don't know exactly what goes on inside them but RedHat and VA Linux have netted a distinct positive for the communitty. Red Hat has always released its code until the GPL and is committed to doing so in the future. VA Linux owns Andover now so essentially they provide the money to make Slashdot go. They also do much the same for sourceforge and linux.com. Making money does not make them evil. If they didn't make money (or at least attempt to) they wouldn't be fulfilling their basic stated purpose as businesses.
Essentially go blow it out your ass. We don't need them, but don't negate what we have gained from them.
...but a buddy of mine worked at LinuxCare for a scant couple months, and left saying they "don't have their sh*t together." Anybody have other inside scoop that might confirm/deny this?
St. Lucifer's Institute for Moral Studies
Defending Alternative Morality since 1995
Well I'm no expert in the stock market but I do enjoy watching it and I can tell you that when your stock is trading at 200 in Jan and falls to 50 1/8 on April 7th that is not a good thing. True it was insanely overvalued at 200, but when a stock has as much negative momentum as this one that is not good at all.
I'm not trying to be negative but the shine has worn off Linux with the folks on Wall Street. Now that's not to say that things won't change, after all we are in the very early stages for Linux companies but I feel very bad for anybody who bought VA Linux when it was trading in the 200's because you have probably lost a good chunk of money.
It is often the case that you get a contract for services, and get money in hand for that contract. The tendency is to recognize that money as revenue. Unfortunately, you can't recognize the revenue until you actually perform and bill the work. It gets even more complicated when get money up front for software which you haven't yet delivered. Part of that money up front should be assumed development services, which you can recognize while you perform the development, part is product revenue which you can recognize when you ship. (Note: IANAL or Accountant)
It worries me if Linuxcare is running into trouble. Their Australian division has hired a whole bunch of good linux people (Paul Mackerras, Andrew Tridgell, etc.) who are developing a lot of important packages (samba, rsync, ppp, linuxppc for PowerMac). I would not like to see that effort broken up.
oh puh-lease. what the companies have contributed is arguably a helluva lot of cash for coders to work on free software, free webhosting and more PR for linux. always a good thing. youre just bitter cause VA screwed you over sourceforge but face it bub - a lot of us get free webhosting and dev tools because of slashdot and it benefits the community in turn. what have *you* ever done except propaganda (which you shut down) ? These companies have to turn a profit, but they also do help the community.
I think this is a bad turn...How many more companies offer Linux support contracts?
I *know* they have more name recognition in companies. If you can call and get support==more linux used in businesses.
Steven V.
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
This is obviously a victory for the slashdotters and in-the-know people. The public outpouring of criticism must have hit a nerve someplace or else this company would have IPOd and made big bucks as people wallowed in the buzzwords "linux""support" etc.!
See, an organized; vocal; non-malicious approach works!
This also shows the inherent market checks and bounds as the SEC would have been all over these people if the had any "creative accounting" going on.
you can fool all off the people some of the time or
some of the people all of the time
but you can never fool all of the people all of the time
Your #3 comment states that "VA got smart and decided to purchase Andover".
I do NOT think is was a very smart purchase. VA paid almost a billion dollars for andover.net. Fiscally, this is anything but smart.
Now if VA would have bought Cygnus, or Inprise/Borland, or Corel, or LinuxCare, well... that would have been smart.
I like VA, but since the IPO they have made some poor financial decisions. Today their stock closed at 50 from a high of 320. As a linux user it is in my best interest that they stay in business. They have some really good people there that I'd like to see working at VA. However, if they don't wise-up financially then VA will end up being a footnote in the history of linux.
What do you suggest they use? Remember that being a Linux/Free Software/Open Source company doesn't mean that everyone working there is accustomed to using text-based email clients. Not to mention the fact that except for the beta Mozilla, there isn't a "full featured" open source web browser/email client available.
There are solutions on the way, but the browser & email client are two weak spots in the open source/free software lineup. Most people have just been using Netscape under Linux, but it's not Free (4.x and prior versions) and it's not a very stable piece of software.
I would imagine that many people at LinuxCare do use Free Software when they can. But it makes no sense to berate them over someone using OE for email.
Michael
Do you have ESP?
A few months back, RHAT announced that they were going to have a secondary public offering of 4M shares. If I recall correctly, that is how Slashdot reported it. Upon digging deeper, I noticed that the company was selling 2 2/3 M shares, and the insiders were selling 1 1/3 M. They assumed that investors were to stupid to notice. . .
This is pretty (at least somewhat) common, actually. The basic idea is that it's better for the stock price (and therefore, for the underwriter's reputation :-), if the insiders sell their stock in a controlled fashion, via a secondary offering, rather than just simply dumping them on the market. For this reason, it's actually encouraged, and the underwriters had to have given the insiders permission to sell before the lockout period had expired, so they could sell it as part of the secondary offering.
As far as whether or not the insiders should have sold, well, that's always a hard call. Even if you think that a particular company, whether it be IBM, Coke, Disney, AOL, or Red Hat, is the greatest thing since sliced bread --- holding all of your investing dollars in a single stock is rather risky, and diversifying is a good thing to do. So just because some of the employees are diversifying doesn't mean that they don't have faith in the company. They could just simply be trying to make some product investment decisions for themselves --- always a personal matter, and one for which I don't think we should give them too much grief about.
I thought the article was well written and to the point. You seem to be confusing negative lunix information with bad writing.
I thought the *most* interating articel on the page was reagrding *Lynx Real-Time Systems*. Now there is a peice of technology worth bragging about. These guys now how to write a hard, deterministic, POSIX compliant real-time OS. Not some fakey add-on like the linux real time mods are.
Do you really think it matters if their biz guys don't use Linux?? It's obvious that Windoze still rules on the desktop market, so why not use an arguably superior office suite to make your life easier, especially if you're just counting beans all day?
...
I generalized but you get the idea
----- rL
Good post. But it's worth pointing out that those linux stocks are still trading well above their IPO price. It's obvious that the initial fervor in demand was a huge misjudgement, though.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
you said _met_ deirdre, not _know_ deirdre. /. poster who has no idea what he's talking about.
once again, you are another
you might as well have posted something or other about natalie portman...
I have a
troll. leave eric alone.
I have a
This goes way beyond market fluctuations. Clearly in order for both folks to get the boot, something is wrong with the management (not the business model of Linux companies in general).
Note that Linuxcare is a unique company from most of the other Linux IPO's to date. VA Linux started out mainly as a Linux hardware vendor and integrator, RedHat is a distributor and has now branched out into services and greater development. Linuxcare was services based from the start.
r/
Dave
Granted, Lizard vouching for someone else ethics is somewhat dubious...
Somebody moderate the parent to this post up, it was acutally funny!!!
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
Red Hat isn't dead, see (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/000406/nc_red_hat_1.html) . I don't always think the 'stock price' actually reflects the value of the company. It might have something to do with prestige, but the money generated by the IPO stays with the company. The stock price just affects shareholders. Red Hat seems to be a pretty quality company and have not, like Linuxcare, had problems at the top. Linux may not be ready for the desktop soon, but in the server area it's going great!
You get around a lot. Didn't you get turned down by that company that was doing the GNOME file manager, too? (No offense, I do like your posts)
Hmmm... CIO and CEO positions open... Linux services company... Bets that a couple of high-profile Linux types are going to move in and take over?
-RickHunter
Last time around, Dole placed himself obviously in big Tobacco's pocket.
Is there any reason why the right HAS to be owned by business?
hello, troll.
i don't suppose you've heard anything about how volatile the market is lately, have you?
nearly all stocks, especially those that could anger MSHAFT, are taking a beating.
a lot of people starting getting into IPO's to make money fast, then pull out. they had no knowedge of what the stock market is actually intended for, and no interest in the product being created.
exactly which dotcoms (excluding HSHAFT and EBAY please) are doing well now? mp3? fool? amazon?
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Didn't Microsoft have some Linux openings a few months back? These two sound like they'd do well in Redmond.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
the whole market has been sliding all over for the last few years. many people are expecting a massive downward correction, or at least a lengthy period of flat earning while the PE's return to something more sane.
it's terrible the way these IPOs have made a few people rich, while all the new employees end up getting fired or laid off after a short period.
the stock market, by almost any measure, has gone insane.
there are a couple things that may prevent a negative outcome:
1) the possibility of some type of global integration wherein the western states drag the third world up via value based trade, not strong arm tactics. for this to happen, the infighting has to stop, and teamwork has to begin. the internet could be a crucial element in this.
2) certain advances in technology (Fusion, in particular) could radically improve the living conditions for everyone on the planet, as well provide an incredible boost to the global economy.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
RHAT was a tool used by Intel and IBM to break MS. Now that it looks like MS is going to be punished by the govt., who needs Linux? In the same article notice that IBM appears to have filed to sell 750,000 shares of RHAT.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: These corporations didn't get involved with Linux because they love you.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Cygnus-- This company gets paid by device makers to port the GCC to various archs. The software for a huge amount of devices out there was developed using the GNU compiler and libs. Cygnus was profitable years before RH purchased it.
Taos-- On-site support of commercial Unix, Linux and Free BSD systems. They have been extremely profitable over the past several years.
Oreilly-- Simple. They sell books about popular free software.
Cobalt-- These guys make Linux server appliances. Very popular.
Linux gadgets are sure to be a money maker. Already things like Palm, mp3 players and gaming consoles are selling well. Using Linux in these systems is good for the bottom line, because there's no royalty. A royalty can really add up when you're selling thousands of $50 devices.
If you don't believe me, read this interview I did with Metrowerk's CIO about Linux and devices. He makes a lot of sense.
Cygnus - owned by RedHat. Stock dumping.
Your statement in no way disproves the ecconomic viability of what Cygnus does. If they can do it, so can others.
O'Reilly - whoring off Open Source
Is that the best you can do?
Cobalt - they MAKE HARDWARE
SO DOES DELL, GATEWAY, COMPAQ, ETC. The only difference is that Cobalt has to release its OS changes back to the community, while Dell and it's cousins are at the mercy of whatever crap MS spews out.
Taos - not really Linux.
They do Solaris, BSD and a little Linux. The point is that Taos's support model works, and easily applies to Linux. Taos makes no money from Sparc sales, they just benefit from it's popularity.
THIS IS MORE FUD SPREAD BY VA/ANDOVER/MALDA TO KEEP THEIR PATHETIC STOCK FROM DROPPING EVEN LOWER
I see. Although my statements are entirely factual, they're all lies.
Try again dumbass.
It is nice to see the market returning to some sanity. It was a bit nauseating watching these bogus ".com" companies without a prayer sell their stock certificates to greedy idiots.
Nice bike site. I'll keep in mind.
A few months back, RHAT announced that they were going to have a secondary public offering of 4M shares. If I recall correctly, that is how Slashdot reported it. Upon digging deeper, I noticed that the company was selling 2 2/3 M shares, and the insiders were selling 1 1/3 M. They assumed that investors were to stupid to notice. . .
Its like going to a Mercedez garage to buy a new Merc and seeing the Sales Manager in a Cadillac. If he doesn't believe in his product enough to buy it himself, why should you buy it from him?
1000s Warcraft Gold while you sleep
Herman Miller chairs in conference rooms? Please. My employer has the right formula... make the conference room chairs *really* uncomfortable so as to keep meetings short and sweet, while being nice enough to put the H-M Aeron chairs in all of our offices. Now *that's* the secret of success.
Ooooh, I want a road-show too! If they were selling sex instead of worthless stock IPO speculatory securities it would surely be called prostitution!
Why the delay? What are they afraid of? Can we get a wiretap order on them to see whether their recent business dealings have caused them to suddenly transfer over $10,000 out of the country?
Now that they've delayed their IPO, I wouldn't trust 'em.
Yes, good point. But certainly it is a good thing that open source initiatives like Linux continue to get the respect, if not simple mindshare, of the corporate world. I say this because these companies have started to supply drivers in both binary and source, publish hardware specs, port software and games, and so on. Of course, they do this because they see future profits growing with the adoption and success of linux and other open source OS's. If they start to doubt that future market, they may decide that supporting it is not a good investment, and go back to the Mac/Win-only realm. This would not hurt us directly, but it would limit our choices of hardware and software.
-- Don't call me "Sir," I increase entropy for a living!
Business is hard, and good business is even harder. The community supports you when you are up, and often kicks you when you're down. For example, many Linuxcare employees were papered with job offers from VA the minute the press hit. As much as I love VA, I find the "elite dude," mentality annoying on /. so why would I want to deal with that at the office.
The CEO was a sharp mind, but extremely poor manager and brought all the old bad IBM stuff with him. He brought in the CIO sight unseen because of his paper credentials. He also (perhaps unknowingly) assembled a steller management team. Linucare was flooded with notes saying the new CIO was bad news. Rather than act on this info they gave the guy a chance. Perhaps that was a mistake... but in this community, no one seems to deserve a second chance... He did build one giant infrastructure- perhaps that investment will pay off when the company scales. As for the financial accusations, they are bullshit. The ex-CEO got nailed before for revenue recognition issues and as a result Linuxcare has been crawling with auditors since day one. Linuxcare has clean books, end of story.
I am told that the internal morale situation is on a real upswing. Many employees feel as though the management team and founders got sick and tired of the CEO's political games and lack of cluefulness, stormed the hill and took back the flag risking both employment and professional reputation. What it says is that the LC management team is willing to do whatever it takes (including shelfing the IPO) to build the best possible business with the best people in the Open Source community. Yeah, you'll ocassionally find a Windows machine at LC and you'll also see some Sun. Many people at LC are MSCE and CNE's, hell- one of the founders is a ex-390 guy. So what does that say... it says shut the hell up and experience the reality check that is business.
There are always disgruntled people that will say just about anything when they feel wronged. There are also people who have been casualties of the growing pains or vengeful CIO. The simple facts are, Linuxcare is an open source company that supports the community in all sorts of ways. Linuxcare dosen't flaunt that shamelessly. Most employees are satisfied with the work situation, all understand that fast growth can sometimes be painful. Over the years, the LC founders have shown that when things get in the shit, they'll do whatever it takes to fix the situation. That this is also true for the management team, IMHO, is a bigger win for Linuxcare than any IPO.
So what? I use Linux as my primary system, but occasionally I still have to use Microsoft or other proprietary software. Unfortunately, Linux has no (yet, I hope) full-size office tools, let alone 100%-compatible with Microsoft ones. Hell, we don't even have working browser with HTML4/CSS support, as of now (Netscape, unfortunately, doesn't qualify as "working" - it's hardly half-working). I know that's hard to do and that's not Linux fault, snd many brilliant people do their best to fix it - but the fact is it isn't here yet. Reality is you have to do unpleasant things in your life, like using Word and Outlook...
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
Now I'm going to slither out of here before Rick Moen figures out who this is...
I don't look under rocks that small.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
So, there you go. I'm trying not to get myopic about how things are percieved in the outside world. It's easy within any group of any kind to lose objectivity, if you do, it's the end. But what's cool about Linux and such is that, unlike most companies we have people who are more than willing to call us on crap all the time, all we have to do is pay attention. And call me chirs, I'm only 28 for gods sake.
Chris
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
My post was not intended to be an advertisment. Sorry you took it that way.
Certainly giving your support team the tools to do their jobs is critical, but the impression I got was that management wanted to generate tools to actually do the work. I've seen lots of companies try to do this and fail. I have never seen such a set of tools that handle more than 5% of customer requests. What's far more important is making sure these tools document information so that they can be of use internally as well as externally.
Hopefully I misinterpereted things, and LinuxCare is already working on these issues.
-josh
I don't know that, having been fired from Linuxcare, being turned down by a company while job hunting is "get around a lot." The turndown was based on my resume, not an interview, so apparently they believed I wasn't a fit. As it happens, I had already accepted another position, where I'm currently working.
I won't deny that there were things I liked about SM, but I don't feel he got screwed[1]. And, you have to admit that, since you were his favorite employee (hand-picked and all), you have a different perspective. Just as RonBob and BobRon (as we called the pair underneath the CIO, having initial trouble telling them apart) have about the current CIO.
I know how other people fought to have basic respect for their jobs and themselves.
[1] He had a long history of short stints as a manager -- 3 to 6 months, so pretty clearly he'd run into these same issues before. He's also been, just from people I know, at at least two places since. I remember hearing Talin saying that he'd left a position not too long ago.
_Deirdre
Since this is a former linuxcare employee thread. (Not fired though, left of my own will.) Fernand brought maturity to Linuxcare. He brought in seasoned managers. Managers who knew and understood the fortune 1000. What I think happened, was that there maybe wasn't a balance with the people who understood Linux as a whole. Dave Sifry, and Art Tyde are shining examples of people who do. When I was there had an influence on Fernand. Fernand was a performance based individual. You did good you kept your job. You did bad, wham!
I left about a month before Nasuer started. But Linuxcares IT infrastructure when I was there, had all the physical pieces in my opinion. It just needed a good orchestrator. Maybe Naseur would have been good in other environments, but not in this one.
On the other hand starting with a certain VP of engineering, linuxcare had a habit of screwing good people. (don't read into this to much, I was not one of them.)
Cheers,
WFE
===========
Having worked there, I know the corporate directive was use what you know to get the job done. You don't give the CEO's secretary a linux box with GNOME. Nor do you give a graphic artist red hat box with gimp, when he has been using photoshop all his life.
Cheers,
WFE
===========
Their Australian division has hired a whole bunch of good linux people (Paul Mackerras, Andrew Tridgell, etc.) who are developing a lot of important packages (samba, rsync, ppp, linuxppc for PowerMac). I would not like to see that effort broken up.
This is a situation in which a company such as VA Linux, RedHat, or TurboLinux could step in and do some real good, should LinuxCare stumble or fall. Perhaps Andrew Tridgell, Paul Mackerras, and the others could be hired by one of them, creating in part their "Austrialian Office" but more importantly able to keep food on the table while continuing to develope samba, etc.
Whatever happens, I'm sure none of them would remain unemployed for very long, before someone (hopefully not Microsoft) would snap them up.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Thanks for the reply, Mr. DiBona. Didn't really mean to pick on your company too harshly in my post, but it stuck in my mind this week, and I probably went a little overboard because of the bogeyman thing. I wouldn't expect you to air the internal details here, but I do think that it's excellent that some accountability is being taken for the IW 2000 thing.
I think that in a market -- the Linux market -- in which emotional arguments and religion play such a huge role, there can easily be a tendency to look closely at good things and just shrug off any bad events as being caused by outside persecutors. In the long run, the willingness to confront and address the bad things, like you did in your post, will be much more helpful to any company's future than will ever be any number of Slashdot posts from the fans proclaiming everything to be perfect.
Thanks again, and just curious, but were you at the show Wednesday morning? I exchanged hellos with one guy, but I didn't check any name tags, so I have no idea who was there at the time.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Underwriters have found that presidential elections negatively affect IPOs and so discourage them, regardless of market sector. I'm sure this is a factor in what's going on.
If you go back and read my response carefully, you'll see that I didnt say "Anyone who makes money off Linux is evil."
I said, anyone who makes money off Linux -at the expense- of the community, is evil. Theres nothing at all wrong with making money off Linux. Good examples of this care Copyleft, Cheapbytes, LinuxMall and others.
Try to read what I write a little more carefully next time. Its all too easy to fly off the handle with an opposing point of view.
Bowie J. Poag
Project Founder, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://metalab.unc.edu/propaganda)
Bowie J. Poag
Call up Red Hat. Tell them you're trying to get a job, and ask them if you may list someone within their company as a job reference, since your work is included in their distrib. They wont even know who you are.
Lets suppose you did some work for VA instead. Call em up and ask if you may list someone within their company as a job reference on your resume'. The answer will be an equally flat "No." because they dont know who the hell you are either.
They dont know who you and I are. They don't know who you and I are because they dont care who you and I are. They dont care who you and I are because they dont have to care. They dont make any money by caring. See how it works yet?
Bowie J. Poag
Project Founder, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://metalab.unc.edu/propaganda)
Bowie J. Poag
Well, lets see...What have I done for Linux.
;)
I had a paper published in Linux Journal a few years ago, when InSight blew up. Our head coder (Hi Ben) had absolutely nothing to show for 6 months of work between late 97 and early 98.. I ended up donating my end of the workload to Gnome and Red Hat. A measly thousand icons, some music and a few icons. Anyway--back to the article in LJ.. I didnt have the money to afford a patent-filing fee, so, I let that idea (and others) go for free. Someone later built it, and added it to the Gnome CVS tree. A nice thing.
Then theres TFUG, my local Linux users group here in Tucson. I've given more than a few talks there over the yeas, and have spent virtually every other Sunday of my life since 1996 there helping people enjoy Linux, both new and old.
Then there was the little matter of the Gnome Style Guide in summer of 98. 3 or 4 months of my spare time went into that until it dissolved into a convoluted mess of bickering and flame. It got people thinking about the UI, at least. Oh well, can't win em all.
Oh, then theres that little thing with VA called Themes.org where I busted my ass as a volunteer for nearly two years. Was on staff at t.o for a while, and was even asked by Trae McCombs at one point to be site manager of the whole damn thing. (I declined it. I was too busy with school, running Propaganda, and working simultaneously.)
Then theres Propaganda. a year and a half worth of work, all of it in your lap, and everyone elses lap, for free. Now you and about 2-3 million other people have a pretty desktop. You're welcome.
Then there's System 12.
Nowadays, theres MetaLab/UNC, Spindletop and other little things i'm quietly up to. Sure, plenty of people have done more than me. Written drivers, applications and whatnot..But an awful lot more have done less than me, too.
So..What have you done lately?
Bowie J. Poag
Project Founder, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://metalab.unc.edu/propaganda)
Bowie J. Poag
Since you wrote your response as an Anonymous Coward, I cant address you directly, so..
Sorry you feel that way.. You might want to read VA's own press release announcing ColdStorage from Aug '99. I posted the link to it a few messages ago. It sounds absolutely nothing like SourceForge. While you're at it, you can go have a look at the interview I did for Linux.Com back in November, which _does_ sound alot like what later became SourceForge. I have a feeling VA canned ColdStorage when it became clear that they were going to buy Andover. It would have been stupid for them to continue with building ColdStorage in that case. Why ColdStorage never saw the light of day has never been established. Ask yourself why.
As for Trae, sorry, I dont talk to liars, nor do I keep them as friends. That rule applies both to my personal life and professional life. The scene is rife with people who by virtue of working with him, hold the same opinion of him as I have. You'de be surprised at the volume of email I've recieved from people who've had similar run-ins with him. I can't say I was too surprised at his effort at damage control, tho. Its typical of his style.
Him and Tony (the ColdStorage/SourceForge guy)are best friends in real life, I later found out. It wouldn't surprise me in the least that what I told Trae idea-wise for weeks on end last year may have ended up on Tony's desk as work orders.
So, you can go ahead and hate me for having an opinion. It doesn't really change the facts, unfortunately. Sometimes I wish it did.
Ciao,
Bowie J. Poag
Project Founder, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://metalab.unc.edu/propaganda)
Bowie J. Poag
Sorry to rain on your flame, but I never accepted any money, or any hardware from VA, or anyone at VA. Trae tried to give me a computer once "to be nice", but I had a long talk with my folks about that "gift" at that time..Ultimately, I decided that such a gift would have only obligated me to do similar work for him for free, so I rejected it.
The server that was provided for System 12 was only given to me so that I would have somewhere other than themes.org to house my project. It wasn't a "gift". Want some email for proof?
I should note, however, I did once change my mind; When System 12 rolled around in June of 99, I felt that the year or so's worth of work I would be putting into the project justified such a gift. I finally agreed to let him send me a computer.
No computer ever arrived.
Bowie J. Poag
Project Founder, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://metalab.unc.edu/propaganda)
Bowie J. Poag
I came back from vacation and discovered that I didnt recieve one of these letters, nor did about two dozen other people I felt should have deserved one but didn't recieve it. I emailed you and asked not for an invitation, but >why I wasn't sent one. You sent me one. I rejected it.
Bowie J. Poag
Project Founder, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://metalab.unc.edu/propaganda)
Bowie J. Poag
The important part is not that they comply with the GPL, but that they use the GPL voluntarily. All of the software they write and distribute (that's not subject to other people's licenses, like the RSA stuff), even when it contains no patches from people outside of Redhat, is under the GPL. They don't have to do that, and it is a positive contribution to the community.
:)
True, Red Hat has given alot to the Linux community. But the vast majority of that _stuff_ was done while they were still a privately-held company. I dont think anyone at all had a problem with the old Red Hat. Its the new one people think smells funny.
Bleh, what do I care, i'm moving out of my apartment tomorrow. Wheeeeeee
Bowie J. Poag
Project Founder, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://metalab.unc.edu/propaganda)
Bowie J. Poag
You hit the nail right on the head. Our gung-ho economy has fostered a genre of companies that have no clue what customer service is. I can't say that one e-commerce company I've used had not fsked up at least once; none have ever responded with anything nearing an apology. BUY.COM apparently hasn't even figured out that I stopped buying from them yet because of their shoddy treatment. (And yes, I recognize that BUY is, ironically, one of the few e-commerce companies that has cut a profit.)
I wish you luck in your business. Unfortunately, you probably won't see dividends for your committment to customer service until the economy turns south, at which point consumers become much more picky about customer service.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
Bowie,
Your absolutely right, Coldstorage sounds nothing like SoureForge. Thats because I was allowed to take the basic principles of Coldstorage and expand and improve on them. VA allowed me the flexibility to take the original project and turn it into something else entirely. The basic priciples of Coldstorage are found within SourceForge so if You feel the need to ask yourself "Whatever happened to Coldstorage?" Just point your web browser of choice at http://sourceforge.net
As for your interview at Linux.com back on November 3rd, 1999. Think about it. We released SourceForge to the public on November 17th, 1999. Do you really feel that we wrote 2MB of PHP code and setup 16 servers in 2 weeks ? It isn't possible.
As for my relationship with Trae, I don't know if we could be considered "best friends". Yes we are friends, I cannot deny that. But I'm friends with Chris DiBona, Mandrake, Raster, and San Mehat as well. The fallacy of your statement: "It wouldn't surprise me in the least that what I told Trae idea-wise for weeks on end last year may have ended up on Tony's desk as work orders." is that I don't work for Trae anymore than I work for Chris, Raster or Mandrake. He's not in my reporting structure at all. Period. And I didn't take orders from anyone concerning the building of SourceForge. Tim Perdue, Drew Streib and myself sat around after LWCE in August and came up with the principles of SourceForge. We defined the information and system architectures behind it on our own. As a matter of fact, there was only about 10 people at VA other than us that knew what we were doing and Trae wasn't one of them. So give it a rest.
Period.
> it's worth pointing out that those linux stocks are still trading well above their IPO price. It's obvious that the initial fervor in demand was a huge misjudgement, though.
Actually, it was only a huge misjudgement for whoever bought them last, before they fell.
If you bought them at an "overvalued" price and sold them at an "even more overvalued" price, it was not a misjudgement for you, no matter how "overvalued" the price was by any rational analysis of the firm's assets.
In the stock market, even more so than in the real world, goods are "worth" whatever someone is willing to pay for them.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
That article seemed confusing and poorly written, but what I gleaned from it is that all the rumours the CIO and CEO have, as the article says, 'bitten the dust' have been officially denyed. I don't read all the linux news journals around - can anyone tell me how reliable a source Linuxgram (g2news?) is, or can link to some more sources that discuss this topic?
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
http://crackmonkey.org/pipermail/crackmonkey/2000q 1/008192.html just hope this doesn't put my boyfriend out of a job...
I have a
I am a Tech trainer (mostly M$ stuff) in NJ. One of the companies I teach at was going to offer Linux classes put together by LinuxCare, but when they asked LinuxCare for the curriculum two months before the classes were supposed to start, they said "We're still putting it together." I think the idea for the company is good, but the implementation is not.
Ummm, Jon, aren't you supposed to be dead...? - Otter(3800)
I have my faith that the market will soon recover and that people will start rewarding business potential (aka the top line--revenue stream independent of initial operating expenses) like they did when this New Economy started. But I also imagine that the investors are going to be a little more selective in the future. Strapping a dot-com to your company name won't be enough to have a sky high stock price. And between now and then, there is going to be a time when it is bad for high tech companies to enter the market because investors will be weary of all companies that might make up the failing New Economy.
Having said that, I think that LinuxCare shelving their IPO is actually a good thing. The linux community doesn't need to see a company fail because it couldn't get enough of its needed startup funds from its IPO. On the other hand, I think that it does need to see some companies fail. But, I'd rather see a company fail because of a failed business plan, or something else that other companies can learn from. Kind of like an open source economics... Everyone else sees how everyone else operates. The good stuff rises to the top.
I'll stop now, I am reverting to straight rambling.
Network Security: It always comes down to a big guy with a gun.
LinuxOne is another company; perhaps you have confused LinuxCare with them?
LinuxCare has done some genuine useful work.
... a failed revenue model for the open source software industry. From the sound of the article, the problems stemmed from personnel choices, but I can see the mainstream and M$-friendly press fueling the FUD machine with this.
-- Don't call me "Sir," I increase entropy for a living!
And I assure you that someone is being called on what happened at InternetWorld. It was poor showing for us. I could give you reasons and such, but I'm not going to talk about internal things here.
That said, obviously I can't ocmmment on the stock stuff, just to say I don't think that a valid effort has been done on the part of wall street to understand linux really, and for that matter linux companies should be doing a -much- better job of educating our finance folks in New York and elsewheree on why it's a better choice and is a good buy on the market.
I've said this before, although not here, if Linux companies want to succeed they have to be realy really really good at what they do. VA , for the most part, is really good at what we do, but we make mistakes and right now, we've not made a huge amount of them, but we are addressing it, I assure you.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
chris@valinux.com
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Not neccessarily for Linux-based companies, for for a butt-load of tech companies shooting for IPOs. Take a look at what's happening, people. Everyone's lost sight of what *business* is all about. What the hell are companies like pets.com, E-Machines, LinuxCare, ad nauseum going public for? What so different about a business simply because it's got a ".com" name to it? Apparently, we're finding out it's "not a whole lot." The IPO now seems to be what everyone gives a shit about and it's payback time, baby. You thought a lot of companies were getting hit now in the stock market, keep your eyes open.
LinuxCare is yet another joke of an example. Shady accounting practices (duh). No real business plan (duh). And really shows no potential of being a formidable business.....EVER. Same goes for the companies mentioned above. You can drop in almost any name, btw. Look what happened to Eprise (EPRS) and E-Machines. They went public 2 weeks ago, and their charts look like divebombs. WHERE'S THE MONEY?? WHERE ARE THE REAL REVENUES? WHERE IS THE REAL GROWTH GOING TO COME FROM?
Every one of you should get your hands on a copy of FORTUNE Magazine from 3 weeks ago. It goes very deep into the schemes dot.com companies are pulling just to get funding, boost their IPO...only to base it all on ficticious/not-very-solid business. It's really sad, but greed is going to let out a lot of the hot air out of the dot.com bubble. And this garbage with LinuxCare is your typical reason. Good riddance.
Sorry for the rant....
The people in the market are mostly sheep, even the market makers. The market makers go where the action is. If there's a lot happening at one station on the floor, that's where they'll be. They make their money on the spread, so they care a lot about volume. And they have to be really aggressive.
So, while the education campaign would probably help, it's still a business where a large chunk of the movers and shakers have VERY short attention spans and try and cover or close their positions within the day where possible, within the week if not. Institutional investors tend to have longer attention spans. Individual investors are the group most subject to panic. Unfortunately, a lot of the Linux investors have likely been individuals. A lot of people were buying Linux because Microsoft's future looked bleak. But not bleak enough apparently.
_Deirdre
When I was fired, after some panic from upper management, I was given three options: Come back and work under the CIO; Resign; or Remain fired.
I pointed out that I couldn't, in good conscience, work under the CIO (I had offered to work under another group, such as the one Art Tyde had headed at the time). The CIO had a plan and none of us who were there were a part of that plan. Resigning had negative financial consequences (I wasn't going to pay money to leave, especially since I would have preferred to stay working there) and I considered it an after-the-fact misrepresentation of what happened. So I accepted being fired.
But working at Linuxcare before that was so different: there were problems, but not venomous politics OR inhuman working conditions.
There were people using Windows (and MacOS), but most people used Linux. People used what they had to to get the job done. A lot of people, for reasons that should be obvious, needed compatibility with documents like Office 2000 in order to get contracts hashed out, etc. Office 2000 document compatibility isn't really available on Linux yet (last I checked).
I needed a good drawing program and the best one for my purposes ran on MacOS X Server (Glyphix rocks!). So one day, Linus Torvalds walks by my desk and peers at the screen. I felt about 6 inches tall at the time.
But as far as your characterization of what it was like under the CIO, I couldn't put it in better words myself. I know people working there who were just ducking their heads down, marking time until the IPO. That's not the kind of attitude that makes a company a good place to work.
Linux, after all, is the ultimate skunkworks project. Management that respects and fosters the skunkworks model would clearly be an advantage at a Linux firm.
_Deirdre
Very much agreed. When he first showed up, I thought, "this guy's been at IBM for 20 years. He's never gonna fit in." At one of the first company meetings, he fired someone with a nerf gun for running on too long. At that point, I realized that it might work after all. And I think he really did take a bunch of geeks and form a real organization.
Since the announcement's been made about the Office of the CEO replacing the position of CEO, I will say that I think Pat Lambs is awesome. I remember her from the brown-bag luncheons.
I left about a month before Nasuer started. But Linuxcares IT infrastructure when I was there, had all the physical pieces in my opinion. It just needed a good orchestrator.
Linuxcare's IT infrastructure at that time consisted of a handful of people and not a whole lot of equipment. I think with a good overall manager who was somewhat budget-conscious, they would have done very very well with about double the staff. As I'm sure you know, they needed more desktop support and some direction.
On the other hand starting with a certain VP of engineering, linuxcare had a habit of screwing good people. (don't read into this to much, I was not one of them.)
I knew you weren't Roger. :) But yes, the prior IT manager was a nightmare. Two for two.
Btw, glad to see you're doing well. We hadn't heard a peep from you after you left. And yes, I did figure out who you are. :)
_Deirdre
You bring up FUD in the same breath that you drag out those favorite Slashdot bogeymen, Microsoft (wow, that "M$" spelling sure is original) and the mainstream press. The Linux companies need to get their own acts together, and the Linux community needs to recognize its own flaws before whining about other entities.
Just as an example, I was at the Spring Internet World this week. VA Linux was there, but somehow they didn't manage to make it into the convention's regular program, but rather some flimsy black and white "Addendum" that few people probably read. I stopped by their exhibit, and it was a medium-sized one, meaning that they actually did spring more cash for it than a lot of the smaller booths. However, it seemed totally devoid of any purpose. They had a cool-looking rackmount system, but it didn't look like it was doing anything but performing as eye candy, and the 4 or 5 VA Linux guys there were just standing around smiling with their hands in their pockets. It was definitely the least interactive of any similarly-sized booths at the show.
Was this due to poor and late planning on VA Linux's part? (I only went on the first day, so if they ever improved their booth, I didn't see it.) Anyone have the answer? Anyone here bother to call VA Linux out for this shoddy display? Apparently not -- I guess it's just easier to trot out the old bogeymen.
As I'm posting this, Andover.net is down a full point, Caldera is down more than half a point, Corel is unchanged, VA Linux is down 3.75, and RedHat is down more than 3 points. (The lone bright spot I see is Cobalt, up 6.) This is all while NASDAQ as a whole is up over 124 points. Is it any wonder why a Linux-related company would be hesitant to try a Linux-related IPO? Is the mainstream press not supposed to report on the obscene levels at which the Linux stocks are tanking? It sure doesn't sound like you're looking for objective reporting.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
1) Red Hat isn't a good company because they comply with the GPL. If they didn't comply with the GPL, their company would be sacked, and their employees burnt at the stake. Not to mention, their company would be sitting beneath 6 miles of lawsuits from the x-number of thousands of people who give them a product to sell. Myself included. I may not have any mission critical code in Red Hat's distrib, but my contribution to the distribution itself is fairly large -- 11 MB.
2) Slashdot was doing fine (some would argue, better) without support from Andover, or VA. They arent necessary to Slashdot's existance, and never were.
3) Before VA got smart and decided to purchase Andover, they were planning on building a Freshmeat clone, to compete with it for community mindshare, and ultimately push Patrick and his project out of existance by sheer force. Rather than allow or encourage Freshmeat to prosper, they wanted it to destroy it and replace it with something they had direct control over. Don't believe me? Read this press release from August '99. Don't be surprised if its gone by the time you read this. By August '99, Freshmeat was already the established watering hole for new software in the Linux community. What reason, other than greed, would VA want to reproduce what already existed?
ColdStorage never saw the light of day. Think about it---why pay your employees to build a site from scratch and spend alot of time and effort trying to compete when you can just buy your competition outright? Sound familliar?
4) Making money in the Linux community does make you evil, if you have to answer to anyone but the community. VA answers to a board of directors, now. Not the community. Same story with Red Hat. Their job is to turn a profit however they can--and thats their only job. Thats the only thing they need to care about, and consequently, that is the only thing they care about.
It is a fundemental betrayl of the very principles which made Linux even possible in the first place. Cooperation, mutual respect, and community effort. Not competition, hidden motivations, and monopolization of utilities. When one company owns what you read, what you download, and what you use, its time to ask questions. If you dont, you are doing a grave disservice to yourself. If VA truly is a good-natured company, they will stand the test of time.
I don't see that as being the case, here.
Bowie J. Poag
Project Founder, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://metalab.unc.edu/propaganda)
Bowie J. Poag
There's one good thing about all this..Theres a growing awareness among the real Linux community that we are in the middle of a pool of sharks--People who care less about the people involved than they do about turning a goddamn profit. Now you're seeing what happens to these people. They begin to fail, because their intentions are anything but pure and innocent.
We didn't need them before to be happy and successful, and we sure as hell don't need them now. Companies like Red Hat, VA, and LinuxCare have only made the game more interesting..The total sum of what they've done for us is negative, not positive. Whatever they have "provided" for us, was not made by them. It was was made by us. For free, without hidden motivations.
We don't need them.
Bowie J. Poag
Project Founder, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://metalab.unc.edu/propaganda)
Bowie J. Poag
I spent a 5 week period at Linuxcare this year.
What I saw there was pretty ill. It was a rats
nest of clueless managers slinging NT laptops
spending money as fast they could. The CIO was
a greyman drone who created a police state
atmosphere where people were afraid to point
out the insane path the company was on. I am
very happy to have cut my losses and got out
quick. There were many smart people in SF but
nothing could make up for the inhuman working
conditions and venomous politics. I am happy
to be out.
-ezmo
As it stands, I don't think this has been the case with most Linux startups. (Quick, name me the last time you saw a Linux commercial?) - Now it sounds like this CIO and CEO may have blown the finances in other ways, so that may have an impact on THIS company. I'm not prepared to give up yet on the Linux business model just because every CDNow, Amazon and 2000 other .com's are losing money. They were spending their dollars in the wrong place, that's all.
For a great article, read the latest column on Abcnews.com's Silicon Insider - http://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/siliconins ider/siliconinsider.html - (if this doesn't reference Silicon valley and IPO's, run a search on SOMA - that'll bring it up.) Very informative and shatters many of the illusions around the Valley at this time.
Unless the Linux start-up companies are following business models like these, they should be able to maintain some level of profitability
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Linuxcare have a great brand name but don't use free software themselves. I applied for a sales role with them and got this set of headers on their correspondence:
[snip]
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2014.211
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2014.211
[snip]
Patrick,
I regret I will be out for most of the week at CeBit and will have to
postpone...call me at end of week.
Best Regards
--
Barry Cochrane, General Manager
Linuxcare Ltd.
+44 (0) 1189 880289 ext 773 tel, +44 (0) 1189 880389 fax
1000s Warcraft Gold while you sleep
And they'll keep dropping (Redhat, VA Res^H^H^HLinux, etc.).
.com company which has turned a profit? I'm sure there are a couple, but I can't think of any.
I wouldn't say these companies are doing badly, yeah they're still bleading money, but remember it takes most startups 5,10, even 15 years to start turning a profit. Can you name a
It's not that the Linux IPO's were of bad companies. They were just the subject of rampant hype and speculation, fueled by a public which knows Linux is the next thing but without any companies to invest in. I would expect these companies share prices to bottom out below $20 a share (which is still probably overvalued), and then slowly rise as they expand.
How can there be irregularities in revenue reporting? Everyone knows that Linux companies don't have any revenue.
Maybe that was the irregularity - he was actually reporting some revenue?
Score -1: Not funny.
--
E_NOSIG
With the whole Microsoft thing upsetting the stock market, especially tech stocks, I really don't think that now is the best time for an IPO anyway. If the rumor is true, and they are shelving the IPO, I don't think that it is necessarily a very bad thing.
_______________________________________________
All circuits busy.
Rumor no more .
Bikeworld.com/weathertools.com/gpstools.com did over $4M in sales last year ($1M in December alone) and we've never had an unprofitable year.
How do we do it? The formula is quite simple:
1) Don't piss away money. We don't have fancy-shmancy offices with pinball machines and conference rooms full of $900 Herman Miller chairs. Nope, we build most of our own office furniture.
We don't waste tons of cash on super-duper high availability server solutions. We don't have fibre-channel disk arrays and loads of CPU power? Why not? Because we don't need them. You don't need a highly dynamic, CPU intensive e-commerce application to sell a lot of product. We use static HTML for the most part, which helps us save on equipment costs.
We don't hire five people to do one person's job. You see this all-too-often at internet startups. When you hire tons of people, they tend to get *less* work done. They spend most of their day in meetings argueing about trivial things.
2) Pick a business model that actually has a chance of selling something.
If your business model relies on advertising for revenue, give up now.
That blowthedotoutyourass.com thing had it right on the dot (no pun intended). "ButIdontwantmytoothpastedelivered.com". The only things that people will buy on the Web are things that are not readily available in their local market. Amazon does so well because comprehensive book and music stores are still somewhat of a rarity. We do well because most local bicycle shops have very small inventories and ridiculously high prices.
3) Never forget that you make money one sale at a time. Every sale and every customer counts. Unless you deliver customer service that is ABOVE AND BEYOND the ordinary, your customers will shop elsewhere.
4) Be weary of outside investment. It's a lot easier to piss away someone else's money than your own.
I was an early employee of Linuxcare, fired by Nassaur last November. I think others can now see why I consider this a peculiar sort of honor.
:)
I hadn't suspected that the CEO was on the way out, but I knew that the CIO was likely to be. His very expensive infrastructure was completely inappropriate (and unnecessary) for a Linux services firm, and all the geeks knew it at that time. Instead of focusing on Linux, he focused on expensive, proprietary software and ridiculous hardware implementations. It was the geek equivalent of buying a Lamborghini when you really needed a Honda.
This is the main part where the article erred -- Sorcerer wasn't the "heart" of the business at all. Nassaur *wanted* it to be. Of course, he would go into a company, spend a bajillion dollars and be out in a year (read the S1/A for his history if you don't think so...). What did he care? He had his equity and his high salary and was out of there.
What Linuxcare desperately needs, if it is to survive, is a CEO & CIO who care about the Linux space AND about actually building a Linux services firm that serves its customers, not a few people at the top. My resume is in the mail.
I'm sure, given appropriate people, that Linuxcare can be a much better company after this. My heart goes out to all my friends there after this shocking blow.
Breathe deep folks,
_Deirdre