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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."
Actually, "organisation" and "centre" are valid spellings of those words.
All about me
About Osdl
OSDL - home to Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux - is dedicated to accelerating the growth and adoption of Linux in the enterprise. Founded in 2000 and supported by a global consortium of IT industry leaders, OSDL is a non-profit organization that provides state-of the-art computing and test facilities in the United States and Japan available to developers around the world. OSDL's founding members are IBM, HP, CA, Intel, and NEC. A complete list of OSDL member organizations is provided on the member page at OSDL Members.
They apparently collect monies from different membership levels. For a smallish sized organization that wants to participate in the decision-making, you're out 12K. Once you get beyond a bronze membership, it looks like OSDL wants some cut of your revenue stream. Membership gets you a voting slot on some working groups.
That's a lot for what's really a club membership, without the golfing and semi-nice place to eat. For most like vendors, OSDL membership doesn't drive sales and on the technical side, you can be a free-rider. IMHO, this doesn't look like a winning business model.
So when Linus moved to the US from Europe back in the 90's, did Europe complain that Linux development was being "outsourced"?
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
(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)
Actually, sometimes it actually IS restructuring. Maybe it is too expensive to do your own customer service, so you hire a customer service company to do it for you. What to do with your current employees in that area? Maybe you are getting out of direct sales and going fully to a partnership model. Bye-bye direct sales people. Or maybe you are moving part of your business to another country, and nobody wants to relocate.
I am all for eliminating double-speak, but companies do re-structure.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Non-profit != not profitable && Non-profit != charity :-)
No matter what non-profit your running, you still need to make money above your expenses to fund expansion, capital investments and keep a few bucks around for a rainy day or unexpected expenses.
In the US, there's rules for how much you can retain depending on how you solicit funds. I can't recall the particulars at this point, sorry... Non-profits operating as charities that keep large margins between income and expenses can still get around these rules be setting-up special funds or endowments.