Author | Su Mi
Listing | CSDN (ID: CSDNnews)
I still remember a classic line in "Partners in China": Don't start a company with a good friend.
Reality has proven this time and time again. A month ago, CSDN shared an article "The two founders of the operating system are opposed to each other, where does the ninth-ranked Linux distribution OS go? "The article details the current development status of the mainstream open source operating system elementary, as well as the previous relationship between the two founders, Daniel Foré and Cassidy James Blaede.
At that time, elementary founder Daniel Foré bluntly stated that there was a problem with the company's financial situation, and then he directed his angry gunfire at another co-founder, Cassidy, the chief experience officer of elementary company, and sent more than a dozen Twitters in a row, complaining " Without prior communication, Cassidy would just leave to accept a full-time job in another company. He also opened his mouth wide, asking for $30,000 when he left, and $70,000 in the next 10 years, and to keep 5% of the company. shares."
In response to the rebuke, Cassidy responded simply at the time, "There were disagreements, and then I was told lawyers were involved. I was advised not to reveal the details, but I'm sure we'll fix it," sloppily ending Daniel Foré's one-sided slobber war.
After more than half a month of communication and negotiation, Cassidy published a long article "Farewell, elementary" on his blog on the last day of March, sharing the news of his decision to leave the elementary team and move on to the next journey.
The word Farewell, which means goodbye in English, is more formal than the colloquial Goodbye, and it also means that it will not be easy to meet again and say goodbye in the future. Cassidy used the word to hide his reluctance, and also officially ended the farce. He also hoped that elementary, which he had personally founded, could develop in a better direction and serve more developers.
The following is the incident shared by Cassidy:
1. The ten years since the establishment of elementary
In this article, Cassidy reflects on the focus of her work over the past decade. "For the past ten years, I've been dedicated to helping elementary grow into what it is today: from a niche player to a global desktop operating system in the open source space," he said.
In 2011, Cassidy, who was still attending DMACC (Des Moines Area Community College, a community college in Ankeny, Iowa), decided to set up an elementary LLC so that there could be a legal entity to conduct business, sign agreements, and so on. "I owned and operated the company for seven years, took full legal responsibility and handled most of the administration and logistics," he said.
At the beginning of the elementary company, Cassidy and Dani both had jobs elsewhere. It can be said that elementary was just a part-time job of the two of them. At that time, they were mainly devoted to the basic development of the operating system.
In 2014, Cassidy joined Linux PC hardware maker System76 full-time while continuing to work as elementary.
In 2015, he decided to hire Dani full-time.
In 2018, Cassidy and Dani decided to reorganize the company, and the duo, as co-founders of elementary, are co-owners of the company. In August of the same year, Cassidy left System76, returned to elementary full-time, and devoted himself to the development and construction of elementary OS.
According to Cassidy's own description, since he chose to develop elementary full-time, the sales performance of each version was better than the previous version, until the sales performance of OS 6 and 6.1 versions were far below expectations.
It is worth mentioning here that elementary OS 6 was released in August 2021, greatly improving the user experience and security, also known as the "biggest version update to date". Four months later, elementary 6.1 came out, but that didn't bode well for elementary's finances.
As an open source software, elementary OS uses a pay-as-you-go model. Simply put, you use elementary OS and you can provide sponsorships according to your ability, so that you can provide services for developers who need support, and will not make it impossible for companies and individuals who cannot afford the cost to use it.
2. elementary suffering from financial waterloo
However, it is quite realistic that open source projects need the support of manpower, energy and financial resources behind them.
Although there are not a few people using elementary, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cassidy admitted, "When people can get the operating system for free, they are less willing to pay a certain amount of money to download it."
Clearly, like many open source projects in the industry, Cassidy and Dani first had to find a way to keep the company alive. Therefore, while taking stock of the company's financial situation, Cassidy also discussed with elementary's chief financial officer, and one or both of him and Dani will go to work at another company first to maintain the future of the elementary OS project through compensation.
This situation is similar to when elementary was first founded, and both of them have full-time jobs while continuing to participate in the day-to-day management of elementary.
Based on this, they convened an in-company business development meeting in December 2021 to review projects, determine financial priorities, and discuss budgets. That week, the trio of Cassidy, Dani, and elementary CFO again discussed the possibility of working at other companies while juggling elementary projects.
In January, Cassidy said that after consultations, they made adjustments to the company, including slashing employees' wages and eliminating health care services for employees and family members entirely. Though he didn't want to do it, it was the only way to keep the company alive, and Cassidy eventually gave in.
Then, Cassidy said:
After discussing getting paid to work at other companies first, I've been inadvertently keeping an eye out for suitable positions at other open source companies in the industry. However, shortly after our meeting and the cutbacks, I was referred to an open source job offer, and it was with existing friends and colleagues, so I took a look. After confirming that this would be a very rare opportunity, while allowing me to continue my work at elementary, I made a difficult decision: reduce my hours at elementary and forgo my salary at this company (ten free time for other activities) and accept new positions for compensation.
As a result, Dani asked me to resign and quit elementary altogether.
"It wasn't what I was looking for when I was looking for another position, but Dani has held on," Cassidy said.
In the end, Cassidy decided, "The best way is for me to move on, so I gave up my decade-long passion for elementary and accepted Dani's offer to make her the sole, 100% owner of elementary. I have signed my resignation and from today she owns all shares and responsibilities of the company. I wish her continued succession.
According to Dani's wishes, I will no longer be involved in elementary in any way. "
3. Write at the end
For an open source software, the chaos of internal management will inevitably affect the development and application of the open source software itself. So far, Cassidy's exit has been handed over to Dani, and the elementary ecological development has been peaceful. Although it is good for the project itself, behind this incident, the co-founder chose another way because he wanted to maintain the project, and was eventually kicked out, which also made netizens sigh. At the same time, it also caused a heated discussion about open source:
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This appears to be just a little bit closer to a hostile takeover. I'm not sure now if I'd still be willing to run this operating system that's now owned by a single guy who also kicked out a guy who was apparently willing to work on the project for free.
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I wonder if the folks at elementary have a version of "Elementary OS Professional" out there for the enterprise. It's quite difficult to get the average person to pay for an operating system when they don't have to, and many people choose this operating system, either because of the competition (Zorin, Ubuntu, Mint, Deepin, ...) or because They can choose to donate $0. I've never seen an app in their custom app store that would entice me to pay for it. The operating system itself is pretty neat. I think they should try to get government or schools or hospitals to use their OS so they can have a decent income stream.
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From an external point of view, there appear to be some cracks in the development status of FOSS. It's nice to spend some spare time developing something useful to others. But spending almost all of my spare time on it doesn't seem to last long. If you think of this as an imposed need, a task that must be done, then on top of that you have to find a second job to support your project.
In addition, at the end of Cassidy's published article, it also added several newest notes:
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While I'm no longer involved in elementary, I still agree with where it's currently going and wish everyone the best.
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I'm very sad about this whole fiasco and honestly I still don't understand the motivation behind some of the actions. I hope over time our relationship heals and I can better understand the motivation behind this.
References:
https://cassidyjames.com/blog/farewell-elementary/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30882622