elementary OS is imploding

elementary founder: "I might take some time off from Linux or join another community maybe"

elementary OS, a Linux distribution that is currently ranked as one of the top 10 distros (according to DistroWatch.com), appears to be in the process of completely imploding on itself.

The Short Version: The company behind elementary OS has been losing money for quite some time. Two co-founders are not pleased with each other and are attempting to part ways… and it is getting messy.

Below is the full text, as posted to Twitter by elementary founder Daniel Foré. Some portions are bolded by me for emphasis.

Okay it’s been a full month and this situation still isn’t resolved, and it sucks for you to just be completely in the dark and it’s pretty obvious something is up and people are asking what’s going on, so here is my side of the story

Firstly, there’s kind of two forces at work here. One is that elementary received a large anonymous donation a couple years back as you may remember. Another is that sales have really struggled since COVID hit and haven’t really recovered

So for quite a while now elementary has been losing a significant amount of money. We’ve been trying to figure out how to solve this and you’ve probably seen more effort around the retail store, YouTube, etc but the reality is that our budget is too large and needs to be trimmed

When you look at the costs for a remote company with digital products like elementary, you see that the biggest costs are salaries and there isn’t a significant amount of savings to be had anywhere else but by cutting pay. So at the beginning of the year, we agreed to a 5% cut

We were supposed to have a meeting at the beginning of February to look at the budget again and probably make another cut. I had been vocal that the cut should be to owner salaries, and I have been willing to tighten my personal budget to balance the company budget

The weekend before our meeting Cassidy [ed: other elementary co-founder] called me to let me know that he had accepted a full-time position somewhere else. This took me totally off guard, and it sucked that it wasn’t discussed in any way but I can’t totally blame someone for not being willing to cut their pay

So I accepted it and said okay we’ll figure out what a transition looks like. We’ll make sure you’re payed out for your shares. We’ll make sure you don’t have a gap in pay. Basically, you’ll be taken care of and we’ll part ways as friends. No hard feelings.

But Cass followed up later with an email that he didn’t want to give up his shares in the company. He still wanted to be in control and make decisions. And to me, that’s not okay. elementary has always been operated and controlled by the people who are doing the work.

This lead to a lot of arguing and basically not only is there no way there could be an amicable business relationship, but there’s no way there could be a friendship here either. So I said hey we need to figure this out and go our separate ways

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So that’s where things are at right now. I have no idea what’s going to happen with this company. I don’t have any power to do anything without coming to some kind of agreement and it’s taking a long time to get there and we’re losing money every day

I’m saying all this just so you know what’s going on and why things aren’t happening because I believe our community is owed some kind of explanation.

But that said, please don’t harass Cass. Every story has two sides etc. Hopefully we get this figured out soon.

If I can get control of the company, I’ll do my best to reshape it to be sustainable again and be more careful about the people I trust with it. I’ll do my best and I hope you’ll be there to help

Otherwise, I might take some time off from Linux or join another community maybe

This has been a really uncertain time for me and it’s been really difficult not to talk about it. I’m afraid. I don’t want to lose this. But I also believe I have to stand up for myself and not just go along with something because I’m being pressured to.

Clearly the company behind elementary OS is not in great shape.

… but what about all those deleted tweets?

Luckily, Archive.org has them archived. It contains details of the negotiations between the company co-founders.

And I offered an even split of the company’s assets. One of us keeps the company and the other gets half of the money. Which at that time was about $26,000. At about week 3 we seemed to agree that I would keep the company and Cass would take the money

So I went to get a purchase agreement put together by a lawyer to make it kosher so we could move on with peace of mind etc. But a few days later I get an email from Cassidy’s lawyer that he wants $30k now, $70k over the next 10 years, and to keep 5% share

And I said hey this isn’t what we agreed to. We agreed to half. I’m trying to get this put together now. But she insists Cass didn’t agree to anything and also that he should profit from any future sale of the company etc.

So if you saw my tweet the other day about feeling betrayed, well that’s what that’s about. Because wow I can’t believe this situation that I’m in. And so I told his lawyer hey no I’m not gonna do that. That’s not fair

And I also said, if he thinks there’s $100k plus of value for his shares etc, then please honor the original agreement and pay me the $26k and I will go on my way because to me that’s what’s fair. I’m not going to be taken advantage of and saddled with this huge debt

What does the other co-founder of elementary have to say? This:

My thoughts on all of this:

1. Running small companies with friends can be… challenging. Even in the best of circumstances. Seen this sort of thing happen many times throughout the tech industry. It’s sad to see, but not all that uncommon.

2. The stance of Cassidy Blaede seems… reasonable. Certainly at least legal. He has shares, those are his. It is clear that Daniel Foré does not want Cassidy Blaede to have those shares. Lots of bad feelings (at least on the part of Daniel Foré).

3. Seeing this happen is unfortunate for the elementary OS users out there. Likewise, it is always sad to see Linux and open source companies fail. For whatever reasons. I hope they can right their ship and keep things sailing… but I don’t view a positive outcome as likely.

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