OSDL restructures; CEO leaves, nine employees dismissed

The Open Source Development Labs has announced a restructuring, including the departure of CEO Stuart Cohen and layoffs of nine employees working for the organization. Mike Temple, the current CFO of OSDL, will be taking over as the chief operating officer.

Linus Torvalds, whose work on the Linux kernel is sponsored by OSDL, was not affected by the job cuts. OSDL has 19 full-time employees remaining after the layoffs. The company has not said how many contractors are still working with OSDL.

No one from OSDL was available to speak for this story, but OSDL did send out a statement with information about the job cuts and restructuring. According to the statement, OSDL is going to continue to provide a “safe haven” for key open source developers, including Torvalds.

According to OSDL’s announcement, which is not yet online, Cohen says that he is leaving to pursue other open source opportunities. “I’m looking forward to forming a venture to explore open source joint development using best practices in collaboration and building communities.”

OSDL is also planning to expand its focus on providing legal support for Linux and open source, including its Patent Commons initiatives, Open Source as Prior Art (OSAPA), and the Linux Legal Defense Fund.

According to the statement released by OSDL, the organization is still healthy, with 70 members worldwide and “customer advisory councils in key regions.” However, OSDL is “refocusing our scope of work to better align resources with our revenues so we have the most market impact possible.”

OSDL sponsors several working groups that focus on various areas of Linux deployment, including the Carrier Grade Linux, Mobile Linux Initiative, and Desktop work group.

This is not the first time the nonprofit organization has laid off staff. OSDL also underwent a restructuring last year and laid off nine employees.