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Layoffs at OSDL
daria42 writes "Open Source Development Labs - which employs Linus Torvalds - has apparently cut nine of its fifty-seven staff (although Linus has retained his job). The cuts come as the organisation re-structures. It will establish a European office and expand into Asia. "We're a small enough organisation that what would be a small change in focus for a bigger company has a large effect on us," said a spokesperson."
- No brainers: the people who most deserve to go, and who everyone agrees
- The group of tough choice cuts, generally 60% of the first round, and not often based on performance but more so on overshadowing
- The painful cuts who don't deserve to go but they have to cut 40% of the last round numbers, so these will have to do
But of course since this is to enable the company to move into Europe, and not due to financial problems -- then perhaps this will be the only round as they will be rehiring these positions in a new office. I like the idea that they will be hiring new locals.The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Fifty-seven staff on the list,
Fifty-seven of staff.
You take nine down,
Cut them around,
Forty-eight staff on the list.
(sigh) I'm lame...
What exactly is their income anyway? Do they have a revenue stream?
I would be surprised if nobody donated a ton of cash, to say that they are paying Linus' salary.
No reason to lie.
Kudos to all who contribute to projects such as Linux. From its inception, it has been a grassroots initiative to provide better for less. It's sad for the people who have been laid off, but it's part of the economy we live in. These people won't be out of the job for long though. Keep your heads up, guys!
Now accepting PayPal donations!
"The organisation, which calls itself the "centre of gravity" of the Linux movement" How can they possibly be serious? Judging from the average weight of people at a LUG...
Wow, they cut workers on both sides of the fulcrum. Sweet!
On a side note, doesn't ZDNet have a spell checker?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Um, you want open source in India? Make some.
Opensource is where people code it, mostly.
OSDL cuts, IBM cuts... is the start of another .com bubble burst??? *runs off and sells shares*
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams
It will establish a European office and expand into Asia.
Lets be honest here. They are outsourcing those jobs. Hey, I'm not complaining. Hooray for the Europeans and the Asians. But the US is slipping further and further behind in the world of techonology.
It is a pity that 9 people have lost their jobs. However, it is unlikely to have an impact in the long-term. The great thing about Linux is that it is so well supported by different organisations and certain aspects can be outsourced to other knowledgeable groups.
Problems may arise if they cut further jobs and the outsourced responsibilities begin to splinter and fight among themselves.
Anyone that has ever worked for a small programming shop knows this probably isn't a huge event. It sounds like of the 9 people let go, most were not programmers. They probably got rid of some sales and marketing people to prepare themselves for an investment. A lot of times to take larger amounts of venture capital, you have to clean house to prepare to take on execs from the VC firm. We had to name one of their board members our President. They also gave us a marketing guy, and sales guy. It is part of selling your soul to make money.
Hopefully they didn't ditch anyone too integral to the programming. Also, they mentioned consulting positions, so they might have simply decided to not renew some contracts. Without the breakdown of what positions were downsized, it's hard to tell what they are doing.
The one thing that happened to our company during this process is that some of the engineers got fed up (myself included) and left. We had about 15 people total and only 5 were programmers by the time the restructuring finished. Imagine this: 10 people telling you that we need Product X yesterday, and it gets added to your list of 10 other things that were promised to your top clients.
/. ++
OSS is whatever you contribute. There no real dollars chasing OSS based on where you live. It is based on how much you contribute. If you contribute a lot, you will find that HP, IBM, even OSDL would hire you.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I am guessing that half of them will be picked up before the end of the week.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That's precisely why there's very little significant OSS coming out of India. Read The Cathedral and the Bazaar and Homesteading the Noosphere and then read The Magic Cauldron. Take particular note of the bits about 'massive independant peer review', the ownership, tenure, customs and in particular the discussion of the quality of the programmers that make it in open source.
When you're done there, pick any forum on any web site anywhere in the world and look at the discussions of outsourcing to the third world and the devastating quality, communication and reputational problems that companies that make the mistake of outsourcing to India and similar third world countries suffer. Look at the standing joke that IBM, Dell, and Telstra technical support have become as a direct and specific result of their corporate decision to outsource to India.
Then come back here again and explain to us how exactly OSDN opening an office in darkest India would be a good thing.
this oughta be good.
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
The cuts come as the organisation re-structures.
This has to be the most used line ever when talking about layoffs. One day I want to see a press release about layoffs from some company "Eh...we laidoff people just for the hell of it...we're perfectly structured we just wanted to shake things up a bit. To keep our employees on their toes."
This is not a correct number. He said: /. l/p! Eeek! /. l/p! Yippie! Time to troll....
My split personality found my
{{{ZZZZZZT]]]
Er... I found my split personality's
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Lets see
No competition or development, and its not for a lack of brains or competent programmers. Clearly whatever terms or restrictions are both unacceptable and ineffectual in countering a monopoly.
Pump lots of that fine money with weasel clauses removed, into a lab in Europe, and wait.
If you were fired by a company that paid you to write Open Source, would you still develop it? If so, I can see how management would say, "what's the point of paying you, exactly?"
Or maybe it just shows how little you know about what is being developed where.
The myth that US software developers are so much better than their Indian counterparts is just crap. And the idea that Dell support was any good when it was on shore is just plain baloney. It was rubbish then, now its rubbish and cheaper with a more dodgy accent.
You do know of course that many of the finest mathematicians on the planet are Indian. That senior posts in many technology companies in the US are taken by Indian people, not because they are cheaper but because they are better.
Rather than moaning, and slinging mud, about elements moving to India, wouldn't it be better to ask how come all these "superior" US developers couldn't break a 50% success rate on projects. Not so hot
As a friend of mine said
"We like to pretend that its India thats rubbish, in fact its pretty much everyone".
And the worst lot are the ones who moan that the other guy is crap, while never checking out the fact that they are worse.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Woooah...
Hold the phone thunder.
Before they outsourced, I could call up Dell parts and give a base description and get a part.
Now, if I call up Dell parts I have to search the internet for the part number and give that to them.
Pretty much the same thing for anything else involved in support now.
The quality has gone down hill and no matter how you want to spin it... you can't change that fact.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Congratulations on creating the ultimate Slashdot Moderator's Dilemma. Your deft combination of hippy manifestos and racism is guaranteed to confuse!
I'm a little surprised that the industry sponsers aren't keeping up with this. Surely RedHat, IBM, Monte Vista, Wind River, et. al. are making far, far more on Open Source than a measly $10 Million a year?
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
Hey, Dell and IBM tech support might be a joke, but you know what, Michael Dell can now afford to buy 13 giant mansions with beer fountains instead of 12! OK! OK! Now do you see why outsourcing is great? Who cares about people or American tech jobs, because Michael Dell really needed that extra mansion!
*end sarcasm*
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
You're absolutely right that expanding into Asia and Europe is hardly synonymous with outsourcing. It's more like being realistic about where the growth is in IT. I'm suprised they aren't also setting up in Brazil.
The key markets for information technology in the next few decades are not the US, Western Europe or Japan. The key markets key, as in where the majority of goods will be purchsed and consumed-- are Mainlaind China, India, Eastern Europe and South America.
Where do I get that idea? Easy, hardware manufacturers. People in the wealthy nations often have a hard time imagining how hardware can get any cheaper and still remain profitable and yet it does relentlessly continue to decline in price. The answer to how it remains profitable is simple, volume. And that volume cannot and will not exist in the highly profitable and yet relatively sparsely populated wealthy countries. There simply are not enough consumers.
So, as a manufacturer, you simply enter new markets by lowering your costs until the real masses, the billions, can afford your products. And you can bet that WiMax is going to be one of the enabling technolgies that is going to make this push into the "third world" happen all that much faster.
Which means it makes perfect sense for OSDL to have a real presence in these markets. In fact, you could argue they're moving too slowly.
But none of that has the slightest thing to do with "outsourcing". It's just the reality of where IT is going.
This is not a signature.
You do know of course that many of the finest mathematicians on the planet are Indian.
;) )
With respect, the population of India is absolutely massive, so of course there are going to be more great Indian mathematicians than those from Malta. (You don't need to be a great mathematician to figure that out
That having been said; yes, the Indians do have a good reputation for mathematics and the like.
I can think of one other country that seems to have a disproportionate amount of technically gifted people... Iran.
Anyone want to take *that* ball and run with it?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
So let me get this straight dell support got worse?!
I gave up on them YEARS ago. I did not think that was possible to do. It was already bad.
sorry, first para above is quote from parent. Also s/tech center/cost center/ , I will proofread next time.
This is not a signature.
this sucks, osdl is more evil than ibm!
More evil?! As I recall, OSDL haven't done anything like selling tabulating equipment to Nazi Germany to enable them to kill six million Jews and "undesirables".
Yeah, and while you're at it fanboy why don't you also explain to the PHB's that not all Indian engineers are super geniuses. My wife's company regularly poaches from the top five percent of their graduates and then brings them up to the US on H1B's, and then magically all of the MBAs seem to think that "OMG... Indian engineers are all geniuses!". From what I've seen a number of them are pretty goddamned lazy, too.
As theorists, sure. As far as actually DOING SOMETHING WITH IT give me the Russians and other former eastern bloc math guys. Additionally, I'll put the creativity and practicality of US engineers against the overly academic Indian engineers any day of the week. My biggest laugh is working with engineers from the EU: all theory and very little if any application. And if you'd been paying attention you'd know that Waterloo up in Soviet Canuckistan whips damned near everybody's ass because they're good theorists AND good engineers..
In addition I've been seeing an increasing number of software engineering projects coming BACK to both the US and the EU because India just flat the hell out couldn't deliver.
Outsourcing is not going away, but it is not a universal panacea, and I find it gratifying that a number of major companies got burnt by it.
Yipee, offshoring comes to the open source movement
McDonalds is hiring; Fry technicians and Big Mac Engineers.
Seriously, I doubt this will have any real impact and given the current job market they may be better off. It seems a lot of employees latched onto their jobs fearing they'd never find another not realizing that the employeers often took the same attitude and didn't feel the need to pay the employee as much. I think this is changing in the market.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Seriously, if they can't pick up the dupes, the typos, RTFA themselves and filter out the blog-whoring shite from prostoalex & rpiquepa then wtf *do* they get paid for?
"pick any forum on any web site anywhere in the world and look at the discussions of outsourcing to the third world and the devastating quality, communication and reputational problems that companies that make the mistake of outsourcing to India and similar third world countries suffer. Look at the standing joke that IBM, Dell, and Telstra technical support have become as a direct and specific result of their corporate decision to outsource to India."
Well, this doesn't really speak poorly of India, so much as it does of outsourcing to the lowest bidder. How many times have you heard of a *US* company that was the low bidder on a project turning out to be a horrible choice? Does that mean that US companies are incompetent? Hardly.
In the same way, Indian companies that are selling the "we can offer cheap labor pools" line, are probably a craps shoot, and may or may not be good companies. Add to that the difficulty of coordinating across physical, language and time-zone barriers, and you begin to get a sense of how likely it is that any given relationship will go well.
It has NOTHING to do with the quality of the education or raw talent of the people in India (which I've found to be excellent in my dealings with a number of folks from that part of the world).
That said, there is a very large difference between outsourcing and opening a branch office in another country, which is what I understand OSDL is interesting in doing. You might call it "offshoring", but if you're hiring locals and making them part of your business, that's not outsourcing.
Just another large corporation laying people off so they can offshore to India. Ref: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/23/192424 4&tid=99
Tabulating machines don't kill people. People do.
Yep, they don't even compare to Britain. IF you want scientific achievement per capita, Britain is No.1.
"because India just flat the hell out couldn't deliver."
You know, if you idiot Americans debase the language much further you will COMPLETELY lose the ability to communicate. I just hope you can work out some form of telepathy before then.
LEARN TO FUCKING MAKE FUCKING SENSE YOU IGNORANT FUCKING CUNT.
(Disclaimer: I'm neither Finnish nor Swedish.)
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
Mod parent up. +3 funny.
Because you're one of those awesomely smart Aryan ubermensch, you typoed "OSDL", who employ Linus Torvalds, to "OSDN", who employ CowboyNeal.
Smrt!
You're mixing two completely different arguments here. Development and support are entirely different beasts.
But if we're going to talk support, let's talk support:
Fact of the matter is that support, once moved away, has gone downhill, not just for Dell, but for other companies as well. Probably my worst support experiences have come from SBC, who outsources their support to India. Level one support from them is running down a script and checklist. There is absolutely NO independent thinking from their support.
Thank God for places like dslreports.com for their Tracy, CA-based help through the forum.
Sure. GWB already did. He has ignored North Korea and Iran, who now have the bomb (or soon will have). I suspect that some terrorist group will soon show us how gifted the iranians (or the NK) are and aquire the bomb about 3 months after one of the 2 countries blow their first bomb.
I think you overestimate the logical basis for layoff choices. Office politics are usually a major factor as well.
Not that I'm paranoid or anything.
You can have your god back when you are old enough to handle the responsibility.
What is this Open Sores thing I keep hearing about? And why would I want to develop it? Wouldn't it be better to let it heal?
Random is the New Order.
Outsourceing doesn't yield poor quality because people are stupid, but because outsourced projects are hard (harder than the CEOs might think) to manage.
I can see you've never run a small company. If you had, you'd realize that a good (or bad) receptionist can make (or break) your business. Think about it--here is one person who typically talks to every employee several times a day, and most of your customers every week or two. The person who watchs who and what enter and leave, gets to see the unguarded moments, the body language, hear the idle gossip--in short, the best clue catcher you'll ever have.
I'm always amazed at the money people will pay consultants for clues they could have gotten in far less time just by asking the recptionist. Often, the receptionist is the only person in the whole outfit that sees the big picture.
--MarkusQ
Some forlorn country?
God I fucking despise American stupidity.
If Linus had been laid off, slashdot would have instantly turned into a single black page saying something to the effect of "REHIRE LINUS, WE NEED HIM", and all sorts of anti-OSDL propaganda.
I'm sure employers and ISPs around the world alike would rejoice if slashdot is only a single page :)
I'M NOT ANGRY!
But surely killing Jews is a GOOD thing?
bash$ %osdl
... of software patents?
It would be very interesting to OSDL to be on countries that doesn't acept software patents.
Rethinking email
I could have sworn the city of Beaverton just gave the OSDL a substantial chunk of funding in order to try and "promote growth and yadda yadda" of the tech market here...I'm sure this isn't what they had in mind...
Granted, it sounds like a fairly small ripple in the organization, I just hope it isn't a sign of further things to come.
"But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong" - Dennis Miller
Instead of firing people they should consider charging for their software !
The cuts come as the organisation re-structures. It will establish a European office and expand into Asia.
This is bizspeak for what the rest of humanity calls outsourcing.
Pretty words to hide real actions.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"Yep, they don't even compare to Britain. IF you want scientific achievement per capita, Britain is No.1."
Much as I'd like to believe this do you have a source.
nationmaster.com does "nobel prizes per capita" and "nobel prizes by GDP" which is interesting, although proximity to Sweden seems to be the dominant factor in who gets nobel prizes.
This is bizspeak for what the rest of humanity calls outsourcing.
Pretty words to hide real actions
when software is made int oa commodity, expect outsourcing to the lowest bidder.
When I was part of the layoffs at my odl company I was in round two.
I don't know how you define "scientific achievement" -- the country with the highest per capita rate of scientists is Israel. Ditto for engineers and for patents.
Wow, have another heart attack over a forum post...
You must be a lonely, miserable person.
Going spare about some Yank mucking up the langy is a pile of pants, sort of thing, eh what? Innit?
Punter.
Yet more evidence that Communism is dead, dead, dead.
What is wrong with hiring open source developers from other countries?
Nothing, so long as they're added, not replacing.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
http://atimes.com/media/CI22Ce01.html Open source hardware and software. Yep, those Indians are useless. :P
There's nothing magic about the US's (or the EU's or anyone else's) software developers.
Me (Blog)
After the number of times I've seen OSDL slap their "We own Slashdot" tag on the end of OSDL-related Slashdot news articles, I'm surprised to see they didn't tag this one.
The myth that US software developers are so much better than their Indian counterparts is just crap.
That may be true, as a whole. My only experience with India-based software dev houses is that they rip off source that they didn't write and sell it to the US for cut-rate prices.
I'm sure there are reputable Indian software development companies, but the people complaining about bad apples have grounds for doing so. They aren't *all* disgruntled employees.
I know some Indian immigrants to the US who are quite good software developers, though.
Is this how Bill picks them up?