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.

Comments

Non-profits need business models too...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

The fact that they aren't making lots of money is therefore not a failure of a business model, but the fact that they are a non-profit, with perhaps a poorly defined mission, that as a result has difficulty attracting lots of sponsorship money...

Non-profits need business models too, preferably built on the strength of a brand and/or the willingness of profitable businesses to build their own brands through them. For examples, see the United Way (tie-ins w/ the NFL, etc.), the Red Cross (sells blood with markup) and the Komen Foundation (tie-ins with every homemaker product ever invented).

Re:Little revenue obtained making free software?

[dedazo]

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.

Re:Little revenue obtained making free software?

[Zapman]

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).

I'd like to take this opportunity...

[NineNine]

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.

Re:I'd like to take this opportunity...

[NineNine]

OSDL is shrinking (again) by 33%. VA Software (The owner of Slashdot) is still bleeding. Linspire has largely flopped. Novell is only making money because MS just gave them a big cash infusion. Red Hat is the only OSS company out there making any money, from what I can tell, and even Red Hat is in trouble from the big boys (lots of other people agree... lots of short selling of their stock.

There simply are not many OSS companies out there that are really financially healthy.

Re:Little revenue obtained making free software?

[Sponge Bath]

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