Linux lab lays off programmers (News.com) [LWN.net]

News.com reports on the layoffs at OSDL. "The organization, which calls itself the 'center of gravity' of the Linux movement, made the cuts as part of a plan to rebalance its work force. New priorities include the establishment of a European office and an expansion of Asian operations into China and Korea from today's base in Japan, said Nelson Pratt, director of marketing."

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Linux lab lays off programmers (News.com)

Posted May 24, 2005 2:38 UTC (Tue) by subhasroy (guest, #325) [Link] (3 responses)

They are victim of shifting corporate priorities. This incident points out the risks of making Linux development effort dependent on a few corporate interests.

Linux lab lays off programmers (News.com)

Posted May 24, 2005 12:01 UTC (Tue) by dvrabel (guest, #9500) [Link] (2 responses)

'And "substantially more than half our employees are engineers," Cohen said.'

What on earth are the other 49% of people in Open Source Development Labs doing if they're not developing open source?

Linux lab lays off programmers (News.com)

Posted May 24, 2005 13:35 UTC (Tue) by jreiser (subscriber, #11027) [Link]

There are evangelists, publicists, lawyers, managers, ... just in like any corporate organization. Even 40% engineers is an astoundingly large fraction once the total size exceeds a large handful.

Linux lab lays off programmers (News.com)

Posted May 24, 2005 16:48 UTC (Tue) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link]

> What on earth are the other 49% of people in Open Source Development
> Labs doing if they're not developing open source?

It's called support staff. They take care of all the other stuff so that the coders can keep coding:

* Answering phones, filing papers, greeting guests
* Mopping floors, cleaning restrooms
* Paying bills and employees, Billing customers, Making sure there's enough cash flow so that people keep getting paid and don't lose their jobs.
* Maintaining the building (air/heat, phones, repair work, security)
* Creating and dealing with legal documents
* HR people to make sure that employees are compensated fairly and have good health insurance and other benefits
* Talking to vendors to gain their support and/or hardware to test
* Management to set direction and goals for future growth (making sure that you're talking to the right vendors to gain their support)

You've never worked in a company before?