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Great Bridge Out; Caldera in Trouble

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the black-armband dept.

tim_maroney writes: "CNET's news.com gives us a pair of open source disaster movies today. Great Bridge, an open source database maker which refused a bid from Red Hat earlier this year, will lay off 38 of 41 employees and close its doors. Caldera, a seller of Linux and UNIX versions, announced layoffs, plummeting revenues, and a reverse stock split intended to allow it to be relisted. Not a happy day for fans of open source business models."

7 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Not just Open Source model in trouble by smcavoy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Has anyone else noticed that *ALL* business models are affected, not just the open source??? The O/S model is really just starting out, consider that when you compare them to hp or compaq or whoever. You'll see that they are holding their own. Which is amazing considering how radical the O/S model is compared to the closed source model (not so much caldera, their kinda like a leech). The WHOLE ECONOMY is in a "downturn" not just this "crazy" market..... geezz... /. has become the MTV of the geek world....

  2. Re:Great Ghost Bridge by swright · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Nevertheless its going to be hard explaining to my boss that the company that 'owns' the database we just migrated to has gone bust...

    (he wont get the community support thing that will keep Postgres going, or that Great Bridge didnt follow the Company forms, brings out product, sells product business model...)

  3. Re:Not quite by soloport · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Who cares? I think where most (people, press, Microsoft) make the mistake in presumption is that BusinessModelFailure == OpenSourceFailure.

    Seems like, so far, open-source software efforts are rather impervious to any single companies failure.

    So what's the big deal?

    . -- Micro-sig

  4. Let Caldera Die by SubtleNuance · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not a happy day for fans of open source business models

    What? Caldera buying SCO was the biggest bone head move of all time - they bought the least-likely-to-survive Unix on the planet when faced against Linux. I understand some of the motivation was for their distributors, sales channels and support/tech but really, SCO was a pile of bricks. Bad Move.

    On top of it all, Caldera, under the lead of Ransom Love, has got to be the least amiable of the Linux Companies - he has said some *very* stupid things and really dosnt *get* what GNU/Linux will do to the software world... frankly, im glad to see the "Caldera Company" go. On the other hand, i do feel some pain for their employees - best of luck to the *people* involved.

  5. It's Not A Bad Business Model.... by superid · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It's a bad *implementation* of a business model. It reminds me of the old joke "theres a whorehouse over a bakery, which one goes out of business? Answer: The bakery, cuz theres too much fsck'ing overhead"

    Have you ever browsed through news stories over the past year and heard about dot-bomb.com laying off 50, 100, 200, 500 people and wondered to yourself "how in the world did they employ that many to begin with???" There are many examples of potential successes that were hampered by overspending and poor planning. I have no idea if /. is making any money, but I'll bet that if they hadn't been bought, that the minimal staff could have done quite well. Giving away software and selling service can work fine if you don't staff up before having customers.

    I run http://www.freesql.org:27960 to give database newbies a place to play for free, I do it on a shoestring. Obviously if I hired staff I couln't survive.

    I hate to say it but perhaps what the tech world needs is a few more MBA's

    SuperID

  6. Re:Great Ghost Bridge by update() · · Score: 3, Interesting
    In a way it was a company without a soul....Companies like RedHat, KDE and VA will continue because of these people.

    I don't know -- VA's soul is a vendor of Linux systems, and maybe some kernel hacking to optimize those systems. What's left is Sourceforge, a bunch of unprofitable web sites, a company that sells soda and mints and their new proprietary software business.

    Slashdot, Freshmeat, K5 and the like do have a soul and a core of believers, which is why they'll continue to exist in one form or another. Themes.org has a soul, but apparently lacks a brain.

    KDE, by the way, isn't a company and isn't supposed to make any money. Of course, that also makes it particularly recession-proof...

  7. The Open Source Business Model by Arandir · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Remember the old adage "give away the razor and sell the blades?" It works great for hardware, and it seems to make sense for software.

    But common practice in the Open Source world is different. Here, they give away the razor, flame anyone who sells blades, and wonder why no one's paying them for the privilege of being a barber.

    Okay, rant off...

    --
    A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned