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The Almighty Buck Software Linux

Layoffs at OSDL 179

Posted by CmdrTaco from the everyone-used-to-want-to-work-there dept.
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."
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Layoffs at OSDL More

Layoffs at OSDL

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  • Restructuring Methods (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @09:02AM (#12622400) Homepage Journal
    Let's hope this isn't a three-round layoff. Generally speaking, whenever a company plays the layoff card, they do it three times:
    1. No brainers: the people who most deserve to go, and who everyone agrees
    2. The group of tough choice cuts, generally 60% of the first round, and not often based on performance but more so on overshadowing
    3. 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.
    • How are they going to have the resources to expand if they are laying off staff?

      They'll need those 9 people to babysit the existing operations while others are supporting the new operations.

      Sounds like a troubled expansion plan to me.
      • How are they going to have the resources to expand if they are laying off staff?
        Lay off more workers. It's more important for the new expansion areas to show solid numbers than for the home office to be ahead of the game. It's okay if the home office goes into a little decline to get the expansion areas off the ground.

        But they will want to really watch everyone left in the company, and layoffs are a great way to send the message that employees had better peform. Sadly, layoffs have the side effect of tur
    • I think you overestimate the logical basis for layoff choices. Office politics are usually a major factor as well.
    • When I was part of the layoffs at my odl company I was in round two.

  • I don't know what (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bigman2003 ( 671309 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @09:04AM (#12622412) Homepage
    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.
    • I think it's the modern equivalent of medievel patronage.
      The HPs and IBMs and Novells chip in a few bones, and they all avoid cost and risk for developing a kernel.
      Perfect business sense.
      • I think it's the modern equivalent of medievel patronage.

        Well, would you rather be the Henry Ford of software development or the Peter Carl Fabergé?

        There's room in the world for both.

    • Re:I don't know what (Score:5, Informative)

      by diegocgteleline.es ( 653730 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @09:14AM (#12622487)
      About Osdl [osdl.org]

      OSDL - home to Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux - is dedicated to accelerating the growth and adoption of Linux in the enterprise. Founded in 2000 and supported by a global consortium of IT industry leaders, OSDL is a non-profit organization that provides state-of the-art computing and test facilities in the United States and Japan available to developers around the world. OSDL's founding members are IBM, HP, CA, Intel, and NEC. A complete list of OSDL member organizations is provided on the member page at OSDL Members.

    • Re:I don't know what (Score:5, Informative)

      by BreadMan ( 178060 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @09:17AM (#12622511)
      They apparently collect monies from different membership [osdl.org] levels. For a smallish sized organization that wants to participate in the decision-making, you're out 12K [osdl.org]. Once you get beyond a bronze membership, it looks like OSDL wants some cut of your revenue stream. Membership gets you a voting slot on some working groups.

      That's a lot for what's really a club membership, without the golfing and semi-nice place to eat. For most like vendors, OSDL membership doesn't drive sales and on the technical side, you can be a free-rider. IMHO, this doesn't look like a winning business model.
    • I don't know about their revenue stream, but their expense stream should be between $5-10 Million a year. That's assuming each employee costs them between $100,000 to $200,000 with salary and benefits.

      I'm a little surprised that the industry sponsers aren't keeping up with this. Surely RedHat, IBM, Monte Vista, Wind River, et. al. are making far, far more on Open Source than a measly $10 Million a year?

    • I thought they were going to give their software away and make money on support.
  • Kudos to all who contribute to projects such as Linux. From its inception, it has been a grassroots initiative to provide better for less. It's sad for the people who have been laid off, but it's part of the economy we live in. These people won't be out of the job for long though. Keep your heads up, guys!

  • 'Center of Gravity' (Score:5, Funny)

    by thouth ( 815259 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @09:05AM (#12622422)
    "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...

  • Balance? (Score:4, Funny)

    by toupsie ( 88295 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @09:06AM (#12622427) Homepage
    The organisation (sic), which calls itself the "centre of gravity" of the Linux movement, made the cuts as part of a plan to rebalance its work force


    Wow, they cut workers on both sides of the fulcrum. Sweet!


    On a side note, doesn't ZDNet have a spell checker?

    • Re:Balance? (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by timster121 ( 820967 )
      Spell checker?

      "Organisation" is a correct spelling. As is "centre".

      Remember, this is ZDNet Australia.

    • Re:Balance? (Score:5, Informative)

      by ChaoticCoyote ( 195677 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @09:12AM (#12622478) Homepage

      Actually, "organisation" and "centre" are valid spellings of those words.

    • Re:Balance? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Spelling has already been pointed out but since you want to be the English police I will call you out on two things:

      First, when using "sic" it should be enclosed in square brackets - [sic].

      Second, it is bad form to use [sic] to show off that you found a trivial error.
    • On a side note, doesn't ZDNet have a spell checker?
      According to numerous sources (google and tfd.com) organization and organisation are both valid?
      On a side note, "centre" is a valid word, but they probably meant "center", unless they are a "centre" that deals with gravity.
    • Does anyone find it ironic that there's a story about an organisation moving jobs from America to Europe, then an American claims that the writer misspells words when the writer uses the English spellings?
    • Everyone has already pointed out the organisation/organization, centre/center dealy (American vs. England (as well as Australia, Canada, well, hell, anyone, not American).

      But it reminds me of one of my bosses... Who also said there was a typo with 'organisation':

      We had hired this nitwit from Seattle, to come work in Vancouver (Canada), and I had asked for time off to go to my girlfriend's family back in Regina (Saskatchewan, Canada).

      He goes, "COOL! I've always wanted to go to Iceland!"

      ...

      (I'm

  • OSDL cuts, IBM cuts... is the start of another .com bubble burst??? *runs off and sells shares*

  • Outsourced (Score:3, Funny)

    by dan14807 ( 162088 ) * on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @09:08AM (#12622445) Journal

    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.

    • Re:Outsourced (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DavidNWelton ( 142216 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @09:23AM (#12622558) Homepage
      Europeans are, at this point, probably as or more expensive, especially considering the weak dollar.

      It's not outsourcing, it's expanding. Linux doesn't just exist in the US, you know. There are big opportunities in other parts of the world, and apparently they want to be there.
      • It's not outsourcing, it's expanding.

        If that were a true statement, wouldn't they be adding jobs instead of just shifting them geographically?

      • Indeed, the US is not where the growth is. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ahfoo ( 223186 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @09:45AM (#12622767) Journal
        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.

      • Re:Outsourced (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dan14807 ( 162088 ) * on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @09:50AM (#12622835) Journal

        It's not outsourcing, it's expanding. Linux doesn't just exist in the US, you know. There are big opportunities in other parts of the world, and apparently they want to be there.

        They are firing people in the US and replacing them with people not in the US. You could make the "expanding" argument if they weren't doing the firings. They are not "expanding". They are relocating.

        • Re:Outsourced (Score:3, Insightful)

          by BillyBlaze ( 746775 )
          Maybe if the US fixed it's broken and steadily worsening IP policies, it wouldn't be about to be overtaken by so many countries in the IT sector, and this kind of thing wouldn't happen.
      • Linux doesn't just exist in the US, you know. There are big opportunities in other parts of the world, and apparently they want to be there.

        What is this "other parts of the world" you speak of? Is that were all those exotic callsigns I talk to on my ham radio are? :)

      • It didn't start in the US. Anyway they need to broaden their horizon and since everybody is moving to places were economic growth is the highest and where they can start earning money again it would be the most plausible move.

    • Re:Outsourced (Score:3, Informative)

      by Temkin ( 112574 )


      So when Linus moved to the US from Europe back in the 90's, did Europe complain that Linux development was being "outsourced"?

    • Re:Outsourced (Score:2, Interesting)

      by cranos ( 592602 )
      Yes because everyone knows that Open Source Software is only developed in the US and Europe and Asia offer cheaper developers.

      What the fuck? I mean seriously this got and insightful mod? People get a clue here!

  • It is a pity that 9 people have lost their jobs. However, it is unlikely to have an impact in the long-term. The great thing about Linux is that it is so well supported by different organisations and certain aspects can be outsourced to other knowledgeable groups.
    Problems may arise if they cut further jobs and the outsourced responsibilities begin to splinter and fight among themselves.

  • Probably not a big deal. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Nytewynd ( 829901 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @09:10AM (#12622461)
    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.

    • "to take larger amounts of venture capital"

      They're non-profit and membership based. I don't think VC is the issue here.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @09:21AM (#12622542)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Or how about:

      "We had some dead weight around here, and we wanted to avoid lawsuits for firing them. So, we decided to call it a layout due to restructuring."
      • "We had some dead weight around here, and we wanted to avoid lawsuits for firing them. So, we decided to call it a layout due to restructuring."

        That's a common one too. I worked for a startup that laid off about 20% of their workforce because the CEO was an idiot and didn't get enough business. To save face, he told some of his buddies that ran the other programming firms in the area that he cut out some dead weight. The 20% of the people let go were mostly really good developers that were let go bec
    • I see a lot of arm chair quarter backs posting here. Why don't one of you start your own company and take on some real life responsibility for once?

      Let's start with you mattmentecky: what's stopping you from starting your own company and running it exactly as you suggest here? Perhaps you can grow a company from start up to a beloved worldwide corporation and never lay anybody off!
    • 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."

      Actually, sometimes it actually IS restructuring. Maybe it is too expensive to do your own customer service, so you hire a customer service company to do it for you. What to do with your current employees in that ar

    • What I'd like to see is a company that restructures by laying off the most highly paid workers first.

  • If you're fired by an Open Source company... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @09:23AM (#12622555)
    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?"

    • I want a product that does X and Y:
      The employee will write it.
      the free coder will write it if he wants to. sure, he'll write open source, but he'll probably develop something else instead of just another boring business administration program.

    • Re:If you're fired by an Open Source company... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The laid off programmer would find another job. If that job pays him to do the same thing, great. If not, here's why you'd want to keep paying him:

      I have a job writing proprietary software, which I don't like, but at least it puts food on the table. In my spare time I write open source software. All the five minutes of spare time (average) per month that I am not burnt out from work. Expect a 0.0.1 release around this time the next millenium, if I'm not dead by then.

    • Re:If you're fired by an Open Source company... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Skye16 ( 685048 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @09:32AM (#12622627)
      Well, there's the difference between 8-14 hours of development per day and 2-3 hours every few days. These people you're referring to probably aren't going to live on the street and eat out of a dumpster just to keep developing.
    • If so, I can see how management would say, "what's the point of paying you, exactly?"

      I see you are a worthy PHB in the making. I fear for all the innocents who will toil under your ignorant and despotic regieme.

    • If you were fired by a company that paid you to write Open Source, would you still develop it?

      Like practically everything else in the universe, the answer to this is, "It all depends."

      As a (painfully!) personal example, I was downsized three years ago by the small software company I had worked for for nine years. The parting was as amicable as such things can ever be: I completely understood their reasons, and even agreed with them -- the cold equations made it clear that someone had to go, and the pa

  • Yipee (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by beforewisdom ( 729725 )
    Yipee, offshoring comes to the open source movement
  • McDonalds is hiring; Fry technicians and Big Mac Engineers.

    Seriously, I doubt this will have any real impact and given the current job market they may be better off. It seems a lot of employees latched onto their jobs fearing they'd never find another not realizing that the employeers often took the same attitude and didn't feel the need to pay the employee as much. I think this is changing in the market.

  • /. Editors (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Any Web Loco ( 555458 )
    With any luck, the first to go will be /.'s "editors".

    Seriously, if they can't pick up the dupes, the typos, RTFA themselves and filter out the blog-whoring shite from prostoalex & rpiquepa then wtf *do* they get paid for?

  • Just another large corporation laying people off so they can offshore to India. Ref: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/23/192424 4&tid=99 [slashdot.org]
    • if you rtfa or the dupe from earlier this week, i believe you would find they are offshoring to europe, not india.

      disclaimer, i didn't bother reading this article, because i read the previous one.

  • Was Andrew Tridgell one of the unfortunate? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kk49 ( 829669 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @11:18AM (#12623686)
    Not that I'm paranoid or anything.
  • What is this Open Sores thing I keep hearing about? And why would I want to develop it? Wouldn't it be better to let it heal?
  • ... of software patents?
    It would be very interesting to OSDL to be on countries that doesn't acept software patents.

  • It's sad when outsourcing mixes with open source (Score:3, Insightful)

    by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @12:51PM (#12624705) Homepage Journal
    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.

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