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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.
I guess they never found the right "?" that would lead to "profit!"
Merry Christmas! This year we're giving you a pink slip!
Check out my foes list to see who is so retarded that they can't use the signature line!!!
Or to put it in English: “we are not making enough money and we have to cut back.”
Reminds me of this one study I heard a while ago that found the more obfuscated and elaborate the wording is used by companies the worse their financial situations are. Very appropriate in this case.
Why bother.
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
Eh? There have been numerous times where I've grabbed some nice-free Apache software and used it for my purposes. Tomcat, xerces, xalan, jakarta, and a bunch of other things.
Apache is giving back by providing us with a huge amount of useable software that we're allowed to use to solve our own problems. Much of it has solved some of the tedious bits one would rather not have to write onesself.
How exactly is Apache leaching off developers other than being a central point where OSS developed code can be found by all? (Like that's a bad thing or something.)
(I'm specifically curious about this, I've always thought Apache was a good netizen and a place to get some useful stuff.)
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Nothing is *something*. As a result, it requires proper budgeting, processes, allocations and mission statements.
think of them as being released to the public, free of charge
Actually, he was Open-Sourced.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
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
Did Linus ask for another raise?
No data, no cry
OSDL is 'funded' by a collection of corporations. As far as I know they don't actually sell anything. So, either their funding was cut, or they have mismanaged themselves into a deficit. Which is it? Anyone actually know? I suppose their recent IP projects have led to high legal costs, but I'll bet someone reading /. knows the truth.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Look out, Slashdot "editors". Talk about a job that can be easily replaced with a script.
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
Sadly yes. Word is they're tapping Theo DeRaadt to take over kernel development, but this will be a part time, unpaid, position. Overall management of the direction of Linux will be given to Avie Tevanian, late of Mac OS X fame.
Also Alan Cox has announced he's leaving voluntarily to persue other interests. No replacement has been announced, though apparently Eric Raymond, Hans Reiser, and Kevin Warwick are being named as possible successors.
Developing...
(Note to mods: I'm going for +5 Funny, not -2 I don't understand the joke)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"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
After a quick vote between stakeholders: ...
CowboyNeal!
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
so you are saying that if too many people download the apache code then there will be less copies left for others?
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...
"Ask the average person on the street and they'll initially tell you they want Windows, but if you prod them a little you'll eventually find out that what they really want is the applications that run on Windows, and that the OS isn't that great"
I think they'd probably say that what they REALLY want is the applications that run on Windows and that the OS is irrelevant. I really doubt that most people have negative or positive feelings about Windows. An analogy that I think is somewhat apt is that of airline travel. Nobody cares whether they fly in an Airbus or a Boeing. The vast majority don't even know the difference, or that there is a difference. The only difference they see is what their specific Airline (PC Maker) does to differentiate their plane (Windows) from their competitors. Furthermore, I think if you told people that there was another airline manufacturer, and that it would be cheaper to fly on airlines that buy from that company, and that companies airplanes crash less, the biggest thing you'd get from customers is skepticism. They have brand loyalty. They like Delta (Dell) and they don't have a problem with Delta crashing, and they hear about crashes, but it's not often, and it's not very serious.
In other words, Linux solves a problem that most people don't have. They don't know or care about their OS. They don't want to. I use my XP PC 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, and I seldom have a crash. This idea that Windows just doesn't serve an average user, I think, is misguided. It does just fine.
And before you deride Microsoft for it's business practices, remember this: One mans "shady deals" is the next mans "capitalism." Despite corporate personhood, a corporation itself needs no ethics or morals. The people that run it should have them, but not the company itself. The most unethical thing that a company can do is sacrifice profits because you're worried about making people like you and giving them warm fuzzies. Did Microsoft screw IBM over OS/2? Yes. Has IBM screwed over people in its past? I'm sure they have. But did Microsoft do something wrong? No way. Microsoft didn't have a monopoly back then. I think NT beat OS/2 to the market by a small margin, if at all. I'm not positive about that, but I know they were released near each other. If OS/2 was the better product, it would've succeeded in the market place.
And about QDOS, here is the excerpt from Wikipedia:
"SCP later claimed in court that Microsoft had concealed its relationship with IBM in order to purchase the operating system cheaply (even though Microsoft was still under a nondisclosure agreement and the PC's degree of success was not widely foreseen)."
This seems to me like a "boo hoo hoo" deal. SCP sold them a nonexclusive license. They obviously wanted to make the sale so badly that they sold it for what they thought a small company could afford. This was a BAD BUSINESS DECISION on their part and was not Microsofts fault. Especially considering that, according to the same article, Microsoft was under a non-disclosure agreement with IBM. It would have been not only unethical, but opened them up to tort if they disclosed their relationship with IBM.
Microsoft isn't candyland. I'm not saying that I would want to invite the company to my house for christmas dinner. But this is business, in America. It's ruthless and cut throat and unforgiving, and that's one of the reasons that America is the most powerful economy in world history.
A far more important measure of a Business than how they treat their competitors is how they treat their employees and their customers. Look at software prices. Windows is expensive but it's not unduly expensive. Look at how many software packages sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Windows, maybe the largest "application" ever built sells for a couple hundred. Yes, they do try to extract every dollar from their customer that they possibly can, but since when is that unethical? Apple does it. They could, if they wanted to, provide a way to upgrade the device or
Let's cross our fingers and hope that OSDL goes in a better direction now.
I don't know anything about the other laid-off folks and suspect they were innocent bystanders.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.