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VA Linux Dropping "Linux" From Name
Several folks noted that VA is changing its name to "VA Software" to reflect the fact that they aren't a Linux company anymore. VA of course owns OSDN which runs various Linux and Open Source web sites including amusingly enough Linux.com. Can't say it matters much to me what they call the thing as long as they let us keep running Slashdot, but it really is sad knowing that most of the cool open source hackers no longer work there. My bad. Anyone have a link to the press release that doesn't require a login?
...didn't want to call it VA GNU/Linux.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
I guess it doesn't matter, they're within spitting distance of being delisted anyway, but are they going to keep LNUX as their stock ticker? That seems sort of silly to me.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
The subject asks it all. They (apparently) don't do much development (above and beyond sourceforge) and they don't sell hardware. As far as I can tell they sell services for Sourceforge and ads for OSDN sites.
Exactly what business is VA in now?
I believe VA Research was one of the former names of VA. Maybe VA shall adapt it again?
It sounds cool and VA can still sell services.
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!
VA.NET, of course.
Liberty in your lifetime
I always thought the VA linux hardware was a good route for them, and they discontinued that line and sold off all their machines (I picked one up for cheap on ebay, btw).
So what do they have now? Just sourceforge, thinkgeek, some misc. ads & services? Honestly, does anyone know what kind of move they are planning here, because this seems like another step in the wrong direction to me.
I am really scared that Slashdot will be dumped real soon by "VA Whatever" and my personal data will be thrown into the wind for the company with the most pennies to snatch up. As we have seen in the past, its real tuff to control your own personal data held by a third party under extreme financial trouble.
I am sure that Pud at Fucked Company will be reporting the demise of "VA Whatever" in the near future. Dump the stock if you got it.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I am switching to a Visual Basic kernel and drivers immediately.
Thank you for saving me a lot of time wasted with Linux.
Well lets see, as far as I know at least:
Thodore Tso - ext2 and kernel
Stephen Tweedie - file systems
and I belive
Rasterman - enlightenment
worked for VA
-- &&
Source Developer's Network?
Dot instead of SlashDot?
Meat instead of Freshmeat?
Live to Code, Code to Live!
Supposing VA Software decides to cut off Slashdot... What's the Slashdot operating budget and can it stand on its own (ad revenues being what they are and whatever other revenue there might be)?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Many of us saw this coming, but that's beside the point. But personally, I'd rather see VA fold than become a commercial software house. What does VA's new focus mean to us? Well:
The future is looking bleak. Our biggest cheerleader has switched sides on us and we are going to be in serious trouble. I certainly hope the Linux community can survive this ordeal.
-CT
Dot instead of SlashDot?
no, it will be backslashDot (c)
The bill gates borg icon will get a stylish makeover and a heroic background to boot.
free passport account with your backslashdot registration!
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Saw this one coming.
The open source business model is not:
What other possible software market is there besides that, you ask? Look up job offers for programmers. 95% of them have nothing to do with working on a commercial software product. Most programmers develop custom systems. These are seldom sold on store shelves and never exist outside of the environment they're created in.
It just so happens open source software and custom developed systems go hand-in-hand. This is the market the open source business model targets. This market alone is far larger than the commercial software market.
This is exactly what IBM's core business is involved with, and exactly why they're so behind open source.
The thing that really gets to me is what this says about free software businesses, and about our understanding of it. Most people agreed, making a business from free software was supposed to go like this:
Yet VA Whatever has gone down in flames in a major way while RedHat is mostly going strong. Zope Corporation is doing very well too. So was Cygnus before it was bought out. And etc. ad nauseam. I guess we were flat-out wrong.
Or maybe it was VA Whatever's fault. They had it all: big visibility, a whole shitload of cash, and many of the smartest people in the business. The only snag, I think, was that Direction didn't realize that they actually needed a plan, too.
I think they still don't realize that. Someone should tell them and tell them now. Will you do it, or should I? How about you, Taco? You know the guys. GO TO THEIR OFFICE AND CLUB THEM OVER THE HEAD REPEATEDLY WHILE SCREAMING "YOU FRIGGING MORONS".
Thank you.
Actually, before 9/11, Nasdaq would, in theory, delist a company if it traded for under $1 for more than 30 days. In reality, they did allow many companies trading for under a buck to be listed for a lot longer (like Caldera for example).
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
this makes sense in a disturbing way considering what they've done with sourceforge... i'm currently working to get an internal SF system running at my company and VA hasn't been too much help (btw, if anyone here has had luck with it please email me or reply here)... what they basically did when they closed SF was to go and completely rewrite a lot of the backend scripts and relicense them as commercial... now they charge insane amounts of money (at least insane in my opinion) for companies to have them come set up a system for them... since their pricing scheme really didn't click well with what we wanted to set up (they charge per log-in account, and we were going to need a few hundred of those, though not nearly as many concurrent users) we're installing it on our own (using the sf-genericinst package, available on sourceforge.net)... the so-called "SourceForge OpenEdition" is still vapor, and when it does get released it will be missing huge chunks of code... namely things like the database tie-ins, and such...
so basically this all makes sense with the name change... VA (s/Linux/Software/) is no longer the open-source-focused company it once was... it's sad to see things go this way...
09
According to their press release:
If the proposed name change is approved, the company intends to change its Nasdaq trading symbol. Shareholders will vote on the proposal at the company's annual meeting on Dec. 5.
Sig goes here
They expect to make money, hand over fist Immediatly. Most business need 3 -5 years to becoime profitable, a rule of thumb that got tossed by the wayside during the .com hysteria.
/. gang retains the rights to /.
VA will not suddenly start makinging Billions of dollars because of its name, clearly some exec is trying to blame there association with Linux as the reason for not making tons of cash. each move they have made is a panic move, sure to loose in the long run.
I see many opportunities for VA to increase revenue, but they seem to unable to see the forest from the trees.
On a personal note, I hope that if they do go under, the
Of course they could fire Jon. Clearly he makes more then he's worth.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What really constitutes a name anyway? Take the communications giant Motorola for example, a name derived from the beginning automotive era. Victrola record players were popular for the home, so Motorola was made a record player for the car. It didn't work that well (naturally) but they kept the name.
IMO, what establishes your image as a business should stay the same. The name "Linux" itself can mean so much than just an operating system. Linux has allowed them to build a decent-sized business with little overhead. Why not just give Linux credit?
Notable quote: "Four years and they haven't fired me?" said Rob "Cmdr Taco" Malda, director of operations, Slashdot. "Now that's a record."
Careful you don't jinx yourself, Rob.
Internet Wire is a PR service and the article is from VA Linux Systems. Notably lacking is any mention of VA dropping the 'Linux Systems' part.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Even if both VA and Linux disappears, Linux as such will always have a prominent place in the corporate world.
Linux experts will still be in demand. Linux will still be the preferred platform for doing software development for many organisations. Some companies think it's OK to fork out $10K+ in licences for developer seats, and insist on using only MS tools, or other even more expensive solutions. A frugal software shop would develop on Linux, and deploy on whichever platform the customer wants.
The only thing that's changing is the rock star mentality . Tomorrow's Linux professionals will not expect to retire when they're 30, they'll expect to retire at a normal age. The days of "Money for nothing, chicks for free" are no more,
except if you're singing in one of those boy bands, that is.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
Microsoft is dropping 'Micro' from their name...
Perhaps VA has followed in many of the former "dot bomb" naming conventions where one thinks up a good list of names, then determines which are available. As most are probably taken, a domain name, and thus company name, are easily chosen.
So, they found vasoftware.com" was available and went for it. Looks like the record was updated today, too.
So what else might they switch to in the future? Domain squatters are already on the hunt for their next possible name...
The hostname www.vasoftware.com resolves yet there isn't a press release or anything to that effect on the VA website.
I always find it interesting when News sites get press releases like this before the Company itself updates their own website. It's quite telling about who is important, Wall Street (Journal?!) or clients/customers/fans of the Company itself.
Makes me wonder: Are they in business to hype the stock price or are they in business to make good products?
...that all anti-VA posts, such as "Will they change their stock symbol" or "Who cares" have all been modded down as redundant?
:)
...that there are very few "Good idea, VA!" posts?
...that the very few "good idea"s that there are are modded up?
...that they're all biased?
...that CmdrTaco is the only one who seems to care and post articles about the OSDN?
...that adding "Now mod me down for being a troll" at the end gets about "+5, Funny" or "+3, Interesting"?
With saying that....
Mod me down for being a troll, just wanted to put these out...
--joshua
Actually, Motorola didn't take the name from a record player, they took it from the Victrola radio. Motorola (Motor Victrola) marketed the first successful car radio. Incidentally, the unit was designed by the same man (Bill Lear) who invented the eight-track player, the Learjet, and a long list of other devices.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
Definitely:
FCKD
Say goodbye to UNIX support. It's expensive to develop for UNIX compared to Windows. VB programmers are a dime a dozen and can be hired for $30k a year, so why would a software company want to hire anyone else? The former "LNUX" will soon be in bed with Microsoft before we know it.
This is stupid stuff. Do you really know what the cost of using Windoze junk is? I work at a company that M$ is deep into. The productivity lost is astounding. We have spent fortunes on closed source junk that can never cross comunicate, never works that well and sits on a crippled OS. VB apps that get broken with every change in M$ Office, IE and service pack are the least of our problems. At least we can throw co-ops at maintaining that junk. A larger problem comes from custom applications that never talk to each other, much less the M$ Office the company delcared "standard". Consultants and new hires are astounded at the Byzantine complexity of the tools we are expected to use to get our jobs done. In the end, you find your workers hanging around the printers for jobs that may or may not come through. VA can die, but that won't make closed source junk any better. The alternatives to free software are less and less atractive.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
If you thought all along that the Open Source movement needed:
- big name corporate sponsors
- its very own news relay site
- a big centralized FTP/WEB hosting site
- software companies to pay its developers
..then you were missing the point all along.
Granted, all of these things have been very nice, but the fact is the VA leadership proved themselves incapable of reliably providing us with such services because they lacked entrepreneurial direction. (or they were just dot-com'ers looking to make a quick buck and high-tail.. who knows) Had they focused solely on top quality hardware at reasonable prices, they could have stayed in business for years, even if only marginally profitable until a truly brilliant idea came along. But apparently they weren't satisfied with this. Instead they just threw in the towel and blew out all their VC on worthless crap. Thanks but no thanks.
In light of the inevitable future and to prevent any major disturbances to Open Source developers worldwide, I suggest that we quickly, calmly, and intelligently find replacements for the services that SourceForge provided us before it disappears. Until the US internet infrastructure becomes more robust wrt bandwidth and switches over to IPv6, I suggest something of a large-and-permanent-node-only P2P network to share the load of a SF-style (but more lightweight) web interface for project hosting and management. Such a network would, as most of our major FTP sites, be hosted primarily in academia or by generous ISP's or corporate entities. From a security and reliability standpoint, I think this might not be such a bad idea anyhow. Any comments or takers?
Folks, there have been many posts about the end of this or that in Linux.
..." They are at the end of their cash, maybe a quarter+ left for them. Dont go that route. Park the egos. The company goes under if you cannot.
First off, VA changing focus again for the umpteenth time is not an indictment of Linux. It is an indictment of an ill-concieved/executed business model. Would anyone say that web-commerce is a flop even though the dot-bomb went off?
Second off, VA (in the hardware area) was well out of its league. Playing with the big boys means you get the crap beat out of you on occasion. I had the chance to compete against VA a number of times, and most of the time we won, in part due to VA not knowing how the hardware was really going to be used.
Third off, in software, who the F*** is VA? What do they have? Why should I risk placing my data on Sourceforge, as VA is in trouble, and the ownership of that data would be in question during bankruptcy proceedings? The ASP model as promolguated by several types over the last several years is so full of horse puckey as a business model, it deserves a rapid anonymous burial. Several friends went to CA to seek their fortune building up ASPs, only to have dot-bomb wipe out any value/confidence in their product, and leave them with no ability to make money.
So where the hell does that leave VA?
1) need a real business plan fast. For this you have to hire grown ups. Sorry folks, but the vast majority of 18-35 year old kids have not brought a sustainable business to market, and grown it year after year. Those that have, have grey hair (voice of experience).
2) find a buyer fast. There is cachet in the brand name. Sell yourself to IBM. Or Compaq/HP. Let them figure out the business portion for you.
3) Ch 7/11. Well, it would be horrible to see this route, but it could come to this if debt is in the picture.
The market is tough. It is brutal. It is unforgiving. Some may protest the capitalistic nature of this analysis saying it ain't fair.
Welcome to the real world. Is the Antelope brought down by the lion going to argue fairness? Will the lion care?
Reality check: Life is cruel. It is not easy. You must struggle to survive. Fairness is an illusory concept developed by humans. Great in discourse so we dont kill each other, but not relevant for most capitalist societies.
VA will not survive if it does not learn how to compete. Pure and simple. Doesnt mean a thing for Linux. If you hire experience, you often get good results. If you apply patronage, you get a VA. Or an SGI.
If anyone asked me what to do with VA, I would think real hard about a niche that they could make money in. Slashdot is a name, a brand. It has value. Think about deploying Slashdot internally at companies as a searchable weblog community builder. It is an enabler of free flow of information which is needed at many companies.
Sure, some geek can download Slashcode and set it up. As much as you may believe in open source providing freedom, ask yourself if you are giving away all of the value that you can provide, for free. If this is true then you need to think carefully as to how to make money off of it.
No folks, GPL is not the be-all-end-all. You have to build value and brand around it to make it work, as people will buy value, and will buy brands. GPL is not an IP destroyer. It just doesn't fit well as the central theme of the business plan. Sure you can do GPL, but you damned well better have a way to pay your programmers in the end. Some of them have families, and need to eat.
So in the end, you have to build value. A value proposition. Something customers actually want. The last thing (actually one of the dumbest things) that a company wants to do is build a product, toss it over the wall, and hope that someone will buy it. This is the better mousetrap concept, and folks, it doesnt work.
If it did, then explain why all those Sun servers are out there, when they suck in comparison to other stuff. Has nothing to do with system quality. Has a great deal to do with branding, value proposition, etc.
VA needs to ask very carefully: "What is it that our customers want? What market niche do we wish to play in? What expertise do we have that will enable us to bring a product to market that customers will buy, and will enable us to survive and possibly even grow?"
I havent heard anyone there try to answer this question. VA needs a grey hair in there now, steering the company. Larry, sorry, but you need to step aside. Find someone with a clue, who knows how to turn companies around, and who wants a challenge.
Dont go the SGI route of "strategy X du jour will save us... no it didnt? Ok, layoffs and move to strategy Y to save us.... no? oh
Wrong URL. The link to the register article is: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/22559.html. Or you could just read the article at Kuro5hin:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/31/15654/175
According to Kuro5hin's story, it was Roblimo who informed them they were getting the boot too. Inneresting.
One thing that these companies did not realize just a few years ago is that the supply of venture capital is limited. They can not keep on losing money for as long as they want. One thing they should know is that a large change in direction in this stage of a company's life doesn't reassure investors, it scares them.
VA looked like a company that was devoted to a buzz-word, "open-source", rather than to a goal or a business plan. They went out and made expensive acquisitions that had nothing at all to do with their core business. They didn't need to support a pile of open-source developers, and they had no use at all for Sourceforge, or Slashdot or the rest of Andover. Those seemed to be vanity moves with little effort to focus their business or make money.
Their more recent moves look like the last, desperate actions of a dying company. Eliminating their core business basically meant giving up any hope of becoming profitable, in favour of slowly wasting away. Now they want to put big advertisements all over Slashdot because it is losing too much money. Watch most of those ads be for ThinkGeek or OSDN and wonder why.
Way back when, VA appeared to be a sound company, with a well-executed business plan. We all had big hopes that they would be the ones to break through and show that you could make a profit with Linux. Then they went on a completely pointless shopping spree and forget about what they did best. Now, it seems very fitting that their name is VA, which is French for "go", because they are quickly going away.
Being Liberal should be a Crime!