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Layoffs and CEO Resignation At OSDL
lisah writes "Big changes are afoot at Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) with today's surprise announcement of the departure of CEO Stuart Cohen and the layoff of nine other employees. Details are still emerging about what exactly this means for OSDL but according to a preliminary announcement, Cohen is 'leaving to pursue other open source opportunities' and OSDL is 'refocusing the scope of [their] work to better align resources with [their] revenues...'" The article also mentions the last year's layoff at OSDL.
What about the other multibillion dollar oil company that runs Apache and has contributed money and code to the Apache project, but hasn't contributed a cent to Linux kernel development (which the first multibillion dollar oil company happens to host a high bandwidth mirror of, and has contributed bug reports to?
They have to cover their costs, so if they can't make $500,000 to cover the CEO and employees salaries + benefits they have to cut back.
I've never understood how this is non-profit. The company doesn't profit and doesn't have investors. I guess that's the difference.
Just like Mastercard is non-profit.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Where does this monitary obligation come from? The license under which Apache is distributed under spells out the responsibilities of the user who downloads the software. If the Apache creators and maintainers wanted money, the should have spelled it out in the license.
The fact that the these oil companies that you speak of have "multibillion dollars" does not raise the licenes requirments, it is the same for everyone!
Relying on the inherent goodness of humans (or corporations) is naive at best. You can't come up with this super-wonderful new "business model" wherein you give everything away and then sit there and pout when people don't behave the way you idealistically expected them to.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Look on the bright side. If the multibillion dollar oil company uses apache, it means its business partners don't *have* to use IE7 to talk to it, and *you* don't have to either, in order to talk to them. More people use free software, so that's a good thing overall.
"Relying on the inherent goodness of humans (or corporations) is naive at best."
Yet, history has shown that if the project is good enough, the inherent goodness of humans is enough. Apache, XFree/Xorg and the BSDs may not be raking in mega-millions of dollars, but they keep on keeping on year after year.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Leach?
The promise of FOSS is that you get the source code to do what you want with it. No matter who you are. If you make changes, and distribute them (assuming the GPL), you have to distribute your code changes as well.
They (your Oil Company) are taking the code, compiling it, and using it as it was intended. That's not leaching.
The license cuts both ways. There's no requirement to pay for it. Whether your some kids in your garage, saturating your parents DSL line to upload data to youtube, or a multinational oil company saturating a bunch of OC-3 lines.
Would it be 'nice' of them to contribute back? Sure. But we can't speak ill of them for not (Though I'd be willing to bet that there are a few code patches coming from said Multinational Oil).
Zapman
Some businessmen were born to "employ people", others to "utilize human resources". There are far too many of the latter; but we can't blame them totally. The other side of the equation is the worker who doesn't like the fact that he "works for them" and actually feels better being a "team member". Then there is the investor who probably doesn't buy companies that are "laying people off", but might be more interested in purchasing the stock of a company that is "engaging in refocusing the business and remaining agile". Everybody knows what they really mean. My favorite one is when a Washington, DC powerplayer who has fallen out of favor decides to "spend more time with the family". That one has become such a cliche that I think it's actually seems to have fallen out of favor in recent years. I don't know what is replacing it; but you can be certain something will. The need for sugar coating is probably as old as the human race.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I'd like to take this opportunity, after countless Slashdot posts about "Everybody should know how computers work", that perhaps what would be more useful if everybody instead learned a bit about how business works. I think that the OSS community has pooh-poohed the importance of basic business knowledge long enough, as is obvious from the overwhelming non-success of OSS companies.
True, but an open source project doesn't take much to run - just a server and some bandwidth, and the bandwidth needs can be minimized via judicious mirroring.
Uuuh, ok. That's like saying that all you need to run a successful business is a cash register. If these projects are run like hobbies, and you don't expect any kind of widespread useage or support, then yeah, slap it up on a web server, and be done with it. If you want it to be successful, than it needs to be run the same as any other successful business.
I'm not saying it's good or bad.
I would say using an open source product without contributing code or cash is still a subtle good. Wider use means:
* Wider testing (If it doesn't work, even leeches will bitch)
* Indirect advocacy via increased market share
* Increased interoperability between entities using FOSS
Personally, I'm wondering if Cohen's departure has anything to do with his position on the Novell/Microsoft deal? (look at the section labeled "Good for the Open Source Community")
While I enjoy imaginations of Linus giving Stuart Cohen the metaphorical/physical boot, I think the realistic interpretation of "leaving to pursue other open source opportunities" means "huge bed of cash to land on from Novell/Microsoft deal". After all, work with Novell is still considered "open source" in letter if not spirit. Perhaps he has a new job coinciding with Novell's plan to add support for Microsoft's OpenXML document type to Open Office?
Something about it smells fishy to me...