Category: Progeny

The End

I was a little surprised to see a message of thanks for me and my old Progeny colleagues. Unfortunately, the news at Progeny’s home page was not good:

We are sorry to inform you that Progeny Linux Systems, Inc. ceased operations April 30, 2007.

It’s always a little sad to see a former employer go away, even when you feel the company brought its troubles onto itself. Imagine how much worse it is to see something die that you thought had a lot of potential, with fabulous co-workers, above-average management, and really good ideas. It’s often been said that competence and vision are not sufficient for success; without getting into the details, Progeny is now Exhibit A in making that case for me.

I am grateful for having worked there, and am proud of what we accomplished. It wasn’t easy surviving the dot-com bust and building a new business model for ourselves. And it’s certain that I wouldn’t be where I am today without the opportunities Progeny gave me.

I wish my former colleagues well as they find new jobs. Nearly everyone who passed through Progeny was top-notch, and would make excellent hires.

New Job

Now that the right people have been told, I can make it public: as of January, I’ll be a full-time developer for the Free Standards Group, producers of the LSB.

This is, perhaps, one of the most difficult job decisions I’ve had to make. In every other case where I’ve changed jobs so far, I’ve done so only when it becomes clear that the old job isn’t going anywhere: either by going under, getting radically reorganized, treating me poorly, or otherwise being a dead end. None of that is true here. I still believe in what Progeny is doing. The co-workers are superb (yes, even that one), and management has always treated me well, even in difficult circumstances.

But sometimes, opportunities are too good to pass up. I think that the next year or two will be pivotal to the future of free standards, and I’ll be in a unique position to influence the direction those standards go. Plus, I’ll be able to work with another group of brilliant and talented people, with the hope that some of that brilliance and talent will rub off. I’m also positive about working primarily from home.

So, you can expect more blogging (he says, a month after his last post!), especially about standards in the free software world. I’ve created a new category for that topic, in case you’re interested in following just that conversation.

Reorganization and Performance

Just talked with Ian. It never really has made a lot of sense for me to have separate categories for Debian and Progeny Platform stuff, so the Progeny Platform category is going away, with all its posts moving to Debian. I think only the Progeny aggregator uses it (and it’s changing very soon), so this probably doesn’t matter much, but I do intend to eliminate the category soon.

Also, it’s become clear to me that I need to optimize Apache, as it’s had a tendency to overwhelm my little server. If you’ve noticed the spotty uptime, that’s why. Hopefully, that will get fixed soon as well.