Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

I dont give a **** who leaves Jolla, there are more important things going on in the world !

ps Jolla or Sailffish is not getting worse or better with or without x.

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Easy question and risky bet.. honestly, it does matter to me. I cannot quantify this in statistics or measures of personal gain but,
I want Sailfish to be successful as there is already way too much of Android around us in phones, cars, TV's.

Looking forward to the secure version of Sailfish / embedded version later where Symbian dropped the ball with help of Elop within Nokia. Hope that explains why I think Marc should play or be allowed to play the role he took upon him untill he concludes “mission complete” (not saying he didn't but I see no celebration or reason for that).

And I don't mean the only the speeches but the real 95% of time work. I can do without speeches and I even feel slightly embarrassed when watching a marketing speech by Marc followed by an attempt to make a “people powered” wave.

However it seems the world needs a company to be impersonated by such speech giving, hype creating people. Just like you can hardly do without a web site or stack of business cards.
By that critic I am not saying Marc did not play other very useful roles in this small company or that after seeing his behind the scene job reduced / finsished satisfactory that he shouldn't be allowed / asked to give those speeches to the press now and then or use them to introduce his successor.
At some point certain responsbility is coming with being the face of the company for some time, especially when being people powered.


On the “changing job for no reason”, I can't believe it. And I would never hire persons that can change job for no reason at all. I would even question their thinking capabilities.
On the other hand I know from experience and from being personally affected that the manager types attracted by a pot of investors money can sneak in and easily change job when the money is running out.

I strongly believe that working for a company which mission aligns with one's ideology or ethics is more important than a higher salary.
If that is secondary to you that does not mean it is to others.
Although money seems to be a primary drive for job hopping, making it secondary should especially apply to higher levels like politicians who's actions leave lives of many people impacted on the long term.
Strangely they also find many personal and structural reasons to abandon their spot in a heartbeat not seldomly leaving a mess for others to clean up or coop with for years to come.

Back to Jolla, I can make an assessment of the value of Sailfish and the 120+ employees that make it happen without fancy speeches from Marc. Just like I have my reasonable idea about why or why not the Neo900.

Having written too much on the subject I promise that in this thread I will try not to care any further and pretend like people just change job for no reason at all.

Finally I hope the world, just like you do, won't care to try to read doom signals in it.

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

I don’t understand why the departure of a key player wouldn’t be news or why we wouldn’t be curious as to what's really going on. Dillon put himself in the public eye, and the people want to know what's up and what impact it’ll have on the future.

The best way to move people past this is to satisfy their curiosity...

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

He moved from Jolla to Investoreye for an unknown reason.

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Let's just remember something : this is not so much about Marc himself;
this is more about the idea that was transmitted by him and his actions during his time at jolla. No interest in personal reasons whatsoever.

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

I'd go out there, grow a cool beard and tell people to join the tribe/movement. currently am constantly convince my android/iphone friends to sailfish, its not working well :P

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

You've just talked yourself out of the job ;)

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

I'm caught between a few mixed thoughts on the issue.
And agree with many here who at 1st glance seem at loggerheads.

From a consumer and personal view
-The fact I personally never got swept up in the devices or platform.
[In greatest part due to my geographic location and zero sales / support naturally would leave anyone without an attachment emotional or otherwise] really makes me give a royal fart for all the hoopla.

From an objective view
-I am however concerned over the fact there are few alternatives to the monster corporate norms and Jolla has tried to be one of those alternatives and consequently regarding in part my 1st point...
I do not see any joy in watching an alternative [to WP, Iphone, or Android] have a hard time of it in any way, I don't get my jollies watching their struggle in all the varieties of ways they are.
I would like them to succeed.

From the ancient law of ..."If it looks like a _ _ _ _ ,feels like a _ _ _ _, and smells like a _ _ _ _..... odds are it is..."
thanks to the info that Jelly just provided.
I think it easier now to surmise the state of things with zero actual real info officially coming from public relations....

Making it much easier coming to some real hard, crystal clear reasons:
as to the "why"... Marc left
and
the potential for unseen [ for us viewers anyway.. not inside the company itself] turmoil underneath the calm surface of Jolla itself.

Take a good look at what Investoreye "is"
Someone who is ideology driven doesn't just "leave"..
and go to a place which is an ideological "dream factory"
without reason.
He is still driven by his belief.
So just pertaining to Marc..
it is an "either" "or"...
either...
he left to pursue his ideological purpose through the new job medium of Investoreye because it wasn't being fulfilled at Jolla.
[which in the bigger scheme of Jolla doesn't bode well for what may come down the pipe to be announced in the short or long term future]
or
considering what Investoreye "is" ...His move is part of a bigger, slicker plan... with the intent of it working "with" Jolla...[it is doubtful...but is possible ..so it cannot be ruled out...it being the only other reason]

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

I need a bigger PR machine to compete with apple and samsung ;) I needs more resources :P

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Thanks endso for the excellent sum-up. You are spot on, as always.

One thing I would add on top of that, and that pertains to the official silence.
It does not bode well.

Any company tries to promote itself. When whatever happens, especially when sh1t happens, the company's PR department works overtime to spin it to maximise profit or at least minimise damage. That's just how business works.

If the PR machine goes silent, it usually suggest one or both of the two possible explanations:
1) The sh1t is so bad that they could not come up with any spin to make it look good; or
2) The PR department is staffed with a bunch of dilettantes who do not know their noses from their ar$es.

If you do not believe me, just look at any instance of Jolla going quiet about anything in the past. The tablet fiasco? A typical case 1 scenario. The perenial lack of visible roadmap or estimates on any bug fixes? Case 2. Soon™? Case 2 again.

I do not give a flying duck about Marc or the actual reasons for his departure. But I do find it suspicious that an event of such magnitude did not result in a press conference or at least a press release. Silence is always bad.

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

or 3) the PR department has just left? :) (sorry :o )

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Well, to take up the silence, you need a good conspiracy theory (if there is such a thing...) How about, since Jolla is strengthening ties with Russia and Dillon is a US citizen, he was, shall we say, nudged out. Or, he figured this is about as good a time as any to leave, considering what is likely to come down the road :)

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Hmm. Honestly, I'd more likely attribute it to what I call "corporate constipation". :) Jolla is one of those unfortunate businesses that have chosen to adopt the religion of "Agile Software Development"; unfortunate, because agile development seems to encourage the placing of artificial deadlines on all sorts of processes (both by folks inside and outside of the company). If you can break a project into a collection of small deliverables, Agile works fine; if you've got something large and complex to construct, Agile usually just seems to get in your way.

Luckily, Jolla doesn't seem to have lost itself in the jargon -- they do manage to get large, complex software and hardware projects done. How do they do this? Well, it looks like when they need to, they drop all the external monitoring required by Agile, pick up their shovels, and just get to work. And so, "corporate constipation". We've just seen that this week with the release of 1.1.9.28; practically no communication before the release, then Bam -- a blog entry, TJC posts, tweets everywhere, etc.

Honestly, in the current world, this seems a more _professional_ way to work. Certainly, this is how Apple does it -- no news at all for months, then everything gets updated in a matter of hours. You don't see all the two-steps-forward, one-step-back that Apple goes through to create its products; you just see the end result.

Jolla, too, must face two-steps-forward, one-step-back issues, because that's how the world works. Yes, we've got another period of black-out w.r.t. the tablet; so, something new has gone snafu. But I expect that soon enough, there'll be another deluge of info from Jolla, once the current problem is passed. :)

(BTW, I like the fact that Jolla doesn't have a 24/7 PR department. Constant spin with no hard facts is a really disgusting feature of many modern corporations...)

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

You mentioned Apple before as a shining example. And I agree that silence is good in some cases. More specifically, in these cases:
1) ...silence... BAM! A new product!
2) "We are working on something new but are not telling you what it is"... then case 1 above.

In cases like that, silence is really golden.

However, silence is not good in cases like...
1) Something happened. Reaction is required. (Case in hand: Marc's departure)
2) We have promised to deliver something but have not delivered when promised. (Cases in hand: Jolla tablet, update 8, many reported bugs and missing features...)

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Maybe Marc Dillon left Jolla because he replied to the Nokia job announcment and they said yes :p

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Ok, devil's advocate here: Is silence really not good in these cases?

1) Yes, Marc has left Jolla. Does that mean that Jolla is now dead? If so, and Jolla comes out with a statement saying everything is fine, would that improve the situation? If not, and Jolla comes out with a statement saying that everything is fine, would folks really believe it? And honestly, what does it even matter to those inside the company what the general public thinks of their internal organization? Jolla will work things out or not themselves, it's literally their own business. :)

2) Yes the tablet has been delayed. It is quite obvious that Jolla underestimated the amount of time it would take to produce it. So, again: let's say that Jolla put out a blog report every week or two this entire year, stating things like: "Yes, the tablet display we chose has a problem with yellow blotches." "No, we still haven't been able to fix the yellow blotches." "No, we _still_ haven't been able to fix the yellow blotches." "Yes, we've given up and started looking for another display." "No, we still haven't found another display." "Yes, we finally found another display, but it is incompatible with our hardware." "No, we aren't going to throw away our hardware and start over, we'll find a way to patch it." "Yes, we've finally found a patch to work around the hardware incompatibility, we're re-working our circuit board to adopt the new hardware."

Honestly, would this really improve Jolla's public relations? I can't imagine that it would. And yet, this sort of effort is exactly what it takes to produce a complex device.

In short, I'm willing to wait out the silences, in order to let Jolla get their act together before they go public. Because, I guess, I don't trust the public. :)

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Yes!

They would appear as a trustworthy partner. As it is now, everything they say has to be taken with a huge dose of skepticism. I for one no loger trust a single word they say (yes, I was that naiive in the past).

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Touché. :) Indeed, their target dates seem to have been misses much more than hits. However, I don't think they've ever knowingly put out false information; they seem to have actually believed themselves that they would hit the dates that they specified. (Again, I tend to blame this on Agile development, which just never seems to work well with long-term projects...)

So yeah, a lot of target dates have turned into a lot of "soon" statements which has turned into long periods of silence. :) Frustrating, but not in my opinion malicious...

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Maybe the Apple way is the best way in this regard. Don't tell anything, until it's ready to be released. Hide the whole development process until that, because if you open it up even a small amount, you'll be in endless circle of demands for more information, details, explanations that will satisfy nobody and finally ended up being labeled as untrustworthy...

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

I never accused them of malice. I would not even go as far as using the word Mr Hanlon (Heinlein?) used. Inexperience, naïvety or, if we want to be really harsh, incompetence.

That is a good idea in general but, unfortunately, every company has some moral obligations to their investors. Everying would have been hunky-dorey had they been developing the tablet behind closed doors but they opened the Pandora's box themselves by soliciting investors ("contributors") through IGG.

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Oh yeah. It's all their fault and they deserve all the c**** thrown at them, so keep it going boys. Let them have it, let's teach them a lesson so they never ever do such thing again. Then we can be proud of ourselves... community at work, yeah! :)

Even if they had poured out their weekly meeting memo's to public and then spend another week trying to explain it's content to people who at times do their best to misunderstand things, I don't believe it would have made any difference. After all, for many people lambasting someone is the priority no 1, so any kind of openness during development phase is likely doomed to be a PR catastrophe no matter how it's done. So, maybe next time we'll get regular launch for new device. As much as I like to watch the development, constant badmouthing for sometimes more or less trivial things (when there are no real issues to berate at) makes it quite tiresome at times.

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Now you are just being deliberately obtuse :) But yes, I do hope they listen and learn lessons. Yes, pretending to be "open" and "community driven" is an invitation to a PR disater if you are not ready to abide by that promise. Yes, inviting the public to finance the development is an invitation to a PR disaster.

And BTW, I do not see it as throwing c**** at them, whatever c**** is. I see it as a gentle tap on the shoulder: "hey mate, you know that there is a better way of doing that, right?"

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

I guess we have had this conversation already. I have repeatedly criticized the idea of openness being defined only in a sense that they really would need to publish all internal memos, discussions and even office gossip, spending at least half of their time discussing them with the community even if there is nothing relevant to disclose. I don't see how it could contribute to having releases and products out of the door faster, which is what they need to do. I also have hard time believing that investors would see it as money well spent. But of course, if someone prefers purposeless discussion as a token of "openness" instead of delivery... Those are the very same reasons I have begun to question the whole idea of openness itself.

And if the hostility towards Jolla seen at times here is a "gentle tap on the shoulder", I guess they don't really need an enemy... you know, "the better way" can many times be the worse way. :)

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

It's interesting really...
I mean...
You look at the big boys [WP, iphone, android]...
and They do as they wish as long as [bottom line] they produce [relatively] affordable product and service appeasing their investors, the markets and lastly what they spoonfeed the consumer [I say lastly because in the scheme of things at their level..the consumer is last to appease]
Whereas...
Due to the cost for alternative devices..
the consumer takes on a more hefty weight...
the consumer bears a greater deal of the brunt of cost...
it then is more an investment not only of more money ...but of time as well..
An alternative failing means time lost...and personal monies...
Thus the end-users for Jolla "are" more in line with an investor's stake.
A veritable reversal of the normal company-consumer dynamic.
Ergo...it makes complete sense to me that the end users wish, ask, worry, and demand clarity, communication and real conversation with the alternative parent company as to "how things are going, is everything rolling along smoothly, and how is my monetary/time investment paying off"...
So I don't personally see people speculating here or elsewhere as a negative in any way...
Rather the opposite..I understand what those asking, postulating, inquiring, worrying and expressing themselves as culminating in an expressive need of the invested end user trying to find consolation and affirmation that their investment is doing well.

Perhaps the obstacle lies in the fact that alternative endeavours try to run according to what all the other company herd animals are doing...and using the same blueprints of approach that the corp. giants use ...
which cannot work until the alt. endeavour reaches the same plateau of control of it's structure....
To put it succinctly ...
the alt. endeavour's got prob's..
:D

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI2nCljcWok

Just because I don't think that Pichlo made this story sad enough.

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Maybe it's not the best thread for that.
Looks like Carsten Munk left Jolla.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carstenmunk
https://twitter.com/stskeeps/status/666464364376031232

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Oh, now that's a shame. And probably not good news ...

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Yes, things seems to be going down in a snowball...

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

I want to be positive about this. Changing jobs is something normal that allows people to face new challenges.

I hope Jolla will carry on because I don't see any good alternative :(

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

I have no problem with ppl changing jobs, we appreciate what they offered so far. We do not ask for explanations, just express the feeling that the boat is getting abandoned once more.

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Not dim as it seems.

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

I wonder how many great devs finally left Jolla we do not know about them. As Jolla is not advertising it and we do not stalk all of them to know :)

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

I don't want to sound dim but I kinda think this is a very bad news.

CEOs/CTOs changing/leaving ? Whatever.

But stskeeps leaving ? This could certainly spell the end of Jolla...

Well, there are certainly other very bright engineers aboard and it might indeed be that Carsten just wants a change of environment for a while but I still get a bad feeling about this...

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

If it was a single person, but w00t left, Marc left, few top guys changed(do not remember the names) and not stskeeps. And it's all of those we know of, how many left unnoticed.

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

On the positive side, there also seems to be some new faces and some old that have gone back to Jolla after a break eg. @veskuh

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

I think the most important think is that the make true this promise to open sailfish this year. So the community can work on this

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

I don't want to be the one who brings more bad news, but I just noticed that Jonni Rainisto also left Jolla last month, after 2 years and 10 months of working there.

He has already started as Senior Software Specialist in Digia (Qt), so let's wish him luck in his new job!

He hasn't showed up on TMO since September, so I don't expect him to stop by and tell us more, but it seems that at the very least, we won't see his Prey on Jolla (official implementation) project come in a SailfishOS update.


EDIT: I've also been looking through LinkedIn and figured out there's a pattern of departures over the last 2 months. Now here's the cause.

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

More bad news, in finnish:

http://www.aamulehti.fi/Kotimaa/1195...mautetaan.html

"Jolla in financial trouble, over half of the staff will be put on leave"

Not sure if the translation is 100% correct, basically it means that over half of the staff will be forced to stay off from work and will not get their paychecks for an indefinite time.

Another source:

http://yle.fi/uutiset/aamulehti_joll...udalla/8466546

It is mentioned there that it is not sure if this will affect the Jolla Tablet deliveries or not.

Oh man...

EDIT: Here's something in english:

https://together.jolla.com/question/...ing-off-staff/

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Said this long ago and people here just called t"me things. finacial trouble effect everything. That is dor sure.

Re: Marc Dillon left Jolla
 

Add to the list of departures Soumya Bijjal, who until SFOS 1.9 has 'signed' all the releases (e.g. she's was posting the release notes on TJC)