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.

Spooky!

[OriginalArlen]

From this week's BOFH [theregister.co.uk]:

I'm betting it says something about 'right-tasking', 'examining organisational structure' and identifying roles and the people best suited to them." "Yeah, sort of." "Then yes, they want to get rid of someone."

What actually happened?

[TopSpin]

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.

Re:Ouch.

[tomstdenis]

Companies like GM and Ford saw the writing on the wall for the last 20+ years about cars being more practical than luxurious. If they didn't market and advertise contrary to those notions the general public wouldn't be so adverse to the notion of a practical car. Now you have more and more people wanting practical cars and they can't sell the monstrocities fast enough.

Judging by the number of kia, toyota, honda, and the like I see on the road, practical is in. It's also interesting to note that these "import" cars are often made with more north american parts than the GM/Ford counterparts. In short, they were greedy and milked the "big bulky muscle SUV" style car too long. Now they have to redesign, retool, remarket, and win over their loyal customers with designs that are completely unlike what they had before.

Maybe if the execs had the customer in mind instead of the shareholders they"d be profitable....

Tom

Re:Ouch.

[mrchaotica]

So you are against companies that give consumers exactly what they want?

First, GM: it did not discontinue the EV1 because "consumers" didn't want it; on the contrary, most people who leased one begged GM to let them buy it when the lease was up. So what did GM do instead? It destroyed the cars! Maybe you ought to actually watch that movie, as the parent suggested. Then you'll realize that maybe, just maybe, GM had an ulterior motive.

Is that "giving consumers exactly what they want?"

As for Microsoft, it got to where it is now in large part to shady deals (QDOS, OS/2, etc.) and illegal business practices. 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.

Is "giving consumers what they want" the same as forcing them to take it?

And what is SCO giving "consumers" nowadays? Lawsuits? I'm not even going to bother with this one -- the notion that SCO is doing anything that "consumers" want is just too absurd.

Do "consumers" want to pay $699 worth of protection money?

Finally, as for Wal-Mart... well, Wal-Mart doesn't belong on the list. (Sony does, though, but that's another rant...)

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

[TopSpin]

While you may have a point, it doesn't really apply in the case of OSDL. OSDL isn't a business in the sense of cost vs. revenue. It is a non-profit organization, funded by sponsors. So, unless the sponsors cut funding and/or OSDL mismanaged itself into a hole, this shouldn't be happening. The sponsors supply a budget and, assuming you have the ability to forecast costs with at least some competence, there should be no dramatic shortfalls.

I'm confident the sponsors haven't cut funding or it would have been news here at /. and elsewhere. How would you keep people that work on open source software from leaking that Intel or HP have walked away? Not likely. That means OSDL is being run poorly by the powers that be.

I disagree

[shaneh0]

"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

Unfortunately, it's about time this happened.

[Bruce Perens]

The CEO who left had his head handed to him by the membership, and if they didn't actually tell him to go, staying would not have been very pleasant. Endorsing the Novell thing wasn't too smart, and they were very upset. And he's said to have promoted the GPL3 story to Forbes, which also pissed off the membership tremendously. Other than that, Oracle won't join (Wim said he feels that OSDL doesn't operate in Linux' best interest, which I think is correct), Andrew Morton walked out and went to work for Google, and OSDL can't get enough members to stay afloat financially.

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