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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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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."
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!
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.
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).
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.
(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)
Not that I'm paranoid or anything.
You can have your god back when you are old enough to handle the responsibility.
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
Proof that this place needs a (-1, WTF?!) moderation.
... of software patents?
It would be very interesting to OSDL to be on countries that doesn't acept software patents.
Rethinking email
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! --