VA Linux Now VA Software

g2g was among the people who noticed that Slashdot & OSDNs parent, VA Linux Systems has changed its name to VA Software. vasoftware.com is the new domain as I guess they are focusing on SourceForge and OSDN. On the upside, I guess newspapers will stop calling the company 'Linux' all the time.

Comments

Maybe good

[morbid]

This will maybe help in the corporate world where some people still regard anything to do with "Linux" as being ammateurish and worthy of contempt. Hopefully they'll start making a bit of cash, and we'll still be able to use sourceforge for free.

But will they ...

[dunham]

change the ticker symbol from LNUX to VSFT?

Watch out!

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh-oh, starting to sound like "Atipa." The moment they dropped the Linux name for something like "solutions," they were bought out by some Windows-box-making company, and do that now.

Err, something like that. I'm sure Dave will rip me on this, but so be it ...

SF & OSDN ?= Katz?

[FortKnox]

I guess they are focusing on SourceForge and OSDN.

Yeah, I got that idea from Roblimo's note to kuro5hin about why it was being dropped by OSDN.

One question: How does Katz fit into the whole OSDN/Sourceforge idea? Keep in mind that Kuro5hin wasn't a part of the OSDN/Sourceforge idea...


(No need to reply with "Just take him off your reading list", I am curious of the answer Taco/Roblimo will give. Aren't you?).

Re:SF & OSDN ?= Katz?

[gmhowell]

Shoot, forgot to respond to your last sentence: Taco/Roblimo will never/have never given timely, straight up answers to any question asked about slashdot.

With your userID, I don't know if you were reading before the slashcode was released. Took forever. When everyone bitched about it, CT's answer was "every time someone asked for the source, I pushed it back a day". That is a striking example of his maturity.

This board isn't run by good people. It's run by petty tyrants. The success is a result of the readers/posters (even the FP'ers, trolls, etc.). It was/is largely in the right place at the right time, and attracted the right people. It has grown beyond the PTB, and they are having trouble coming to grips with that.

(Go ahead, mod me down. I've got karma to burn.)

So what for /., OSDN, etc

[derek_m]

Sourceforge.net obviously fits into their new renamed company as a large scale advert for what can be done with their SourceForge "product" - but how does their collection of websites fit into their new non-Linux strategy?

/., NewsForge, Linux.com, freshmeat (and the rest) all look as if theyll be of no interest to the "new" VA - so what happens next?

Given the current state of web advertising I cant imagine that anyone would want to buy them, so VA will probably be stuck with them for a while to come whether they like it or not.

Anyone want to buy /.? Going real cheap :)

SFOE?

[zerOnIne]

I've said it before, but i still don't think this bodes well for sourceforge... with the 'open edition' still very much vaporware, the company's new philosophy doesn't reflect opensource ideals at all... and i know that when (if) SFOE gets released, it's going to have major holes poked in it where the non-free code was taken out... unless of course you want to pay VA lots and lots of money for a service/software contract...

if you want to help the free sourceforge effort, lend a hand with Debian-SF... let's really get this codebase cranking! 2.5 installs great on woody, 2.6 (the last ever public snapshot) on its way...

The Three Biggest Threats to VA

[lwagner]

Really, the largest three threats to VA are:
a.) getting delisted,
b.) having a profitable business model, and
c.) being able to overcome their leveraging.

a.) Getting delisted would mean that any new issues of stock wouldn't find a market on NASDAQ though it would prob be an OTC Penny Stock (e.g., found on the "Pink Sheets"). They would have a harder time finding underwriters for new issues of stock or, if they elect a best efforts underwriting, willing investors to buy the stock.

b.) A successful businessplan. All of us have seen a lot of stupid companies die from not having a solid way to make money. We have all seen raving open-source lunatics turn into begrudged closed-source adherents (not supporters) when the paychecks stopped. You need to make money and have reasonable margins. I haven't seen many open-source plans that scale beyond a small, thrifty business... and VA is neither. I'm not convinced that Red Hat is much better because (as we have seen in /. before) they are quite good at cooking the books.

c.) VA is highly leveraged, meaning they have a lot of creditors. A real challenge is going to be paying off the creditors and still maintaining enough of a profit margin to keep their heads above water. If you don't start a business with profit, it becomes an order of magnitude higher to gain one later. As an example, ask any small business owner who has had to take out a loan and try to make a profit in the short term while incurring serious debt. You can't reinvest as much into the business which is absolutely crucial when you are trying to start up.

adequacy full of trolls?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever do you mean? I have a feeling that you don't "get adequacy", but you raise an interesting question, one I've been thinking about for a while now. Since adequacy is a troll site, are you a troll if you play along and taunt the poor bastards that don't get it, or are you a troll if you take them seriously and post indignant responses?

Why not? Because...

[devphil]

Why not just save everyone the time and effort, and call themselves VA*?

How many people outside of programming understand wildcard characters?

When was the last time Joe Q. Windows User needed to know what a wildcard was, what it looked like, or what it meant?

Nobody will save time and effort this way, because nobody outside of programming is intelligent enough to use this "abbreviation". :-)