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2015-11-26
, 13:06
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Posts: 728 |
Thanked: 1,217 times |
Joined on Oct 2011
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#32
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Well, if I play Devil's advocate, the founders (read: not the investors) can choose to sell >50% of the company to a friend for 10-20€, then that friend has majority with regards to any decision; then they can open source stuff easily. If this is legally possible, it isn't a bad option to give things to the community, but investors may be thinking about selling assets, which includes closed bits of SFOS.
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2015-11-26
, 13:08
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Posts: 728 |
Thanked: 1,217 times |
Joined on Oct 2011
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#33
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Originally Posted by nodevel
Yup, sorry, I don't know why I assumed investors. I want to believe Jolla is already aware of the possibilities and I'm with you with regards to the poor contributions to the open bits already, especially the browser as many people complain but very few care to contribute.
That's why I'm suggesting sending it to Jolla.
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2015-11-26
, 13:27
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Posts: 337 |
Thanked: 891 times |
Joined on Jul 2012
@ Royaume Uni.
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#34
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Originally Posted by ggabriel
Jolla isn't majority owned by the founders anymore. Steve Lau and Grigory Berezkin hold a majority share.
Well, if I play Devil's advocate, the founders (read: not the investors) can choose to sell >50% of the company to a friend for 10-20€, then that friend has majority with regards to any decision; then they can open source stuff easily. If this is legally possible, it isn't a bad option to give things to the community, but investors may be thinking about selling assets, which includes closed bits of SFOS.
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2015-11-26
, 13:37
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Posts: 752 |
Thanked: 2,808 times |
Joined on Jan 2011
@ Czech Republic
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#35
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Originally Posted by NokiaFanatic
While I originally wanted to reply with something similar, I found not enough data to support this claim.
Jolla isn't majority owned by the founders anymore. Steve Lau and Grigory Berezkin hold a majority share.
While things might have changed, according to the last info, Steve Lau's China Fortune owns 6.25% of Jolla and Voltron Ltd. (out of which Berezkin owns 80%) owns 9.72% of Jolla.
This together is ~16%, so I wouldn't be too sure about the "majority". However, the decision power is not strictly measured by shares - it is about who is in the board of directors which doesn't need to directly reflect the ownership (even though it usually does).
Maybe you have more up to date information on this matter?
PS: When the information about Berezkin's involvement went public, I saw many people shout that he now owns 80% of Jolla, which I found quite funny, since multiplying 0.8 * 0.0972 isn't that advanced math
Last edited by nodevel; 2015-11-26 at 13:46.
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2015-11-26
, 13:48
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Posts: 728 |
Thanked: 1,217 times |
Joined on Oct 2011
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#36
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OFC I was only teasing/playing/trolling with my devil's advocate proposal. The best thing that can happen now is that Jolla gets enough funding for another 18 months, hopefully beyond. It is easier to work that way as partners/providers/etc. expect that kind of model.
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2015-11-26
, 13:49
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Posts: 337 |
Thanked: 891 times |
Joined on Jul 2012
@ Royaume Uni.
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#37
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Originally Posted by nodevel
Steve Lau's company paid €1M for 6.25% of Jolla in 2013. Since then there would have been a few rounds of funding and each time money was raised, the original shareholding would have been diluted. Since it costs €10M a year to keep the lights on, unless Lau or Berezkin were brain dead - then they would have a comfortable majority of shares at this stage.
While I originally wanted to reply with something similar, I found not enough data to support this claim.
While things might have changed, according to the last info, Steve Lau's China Fortune owns 6.25% of Jolla and Voltron Ltd. (out of which Berezkin owns 80%) owns 9.72% of Jolla.
This together is ~16%, so I wouldn't be too sure about the "majority". However, the decision power is not strictly measured by shares - it is about who is in the board of directors which doesn't need to directly reflect the ownership (even though it usually does).
Maybe you have more up to date information on this matter?
PS: When the information about Berezkin's involvement went public, I saw many people shout that he now owns 80% of Jolla, which I found quite funny, since multiplying 0.8 * 0.0972 isn't that advanced math
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2015-11-26
, 14:03
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Posts: 752 |
Thanked: 2,808 times |
Joined on Jan 2011
@ Czech Republic
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#38
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Originally Posted by NokiaFanatic
First, in case of Berezkin, the information is from the 8th of April 2015, so I doubt there has been some major investment since then (Series B financing was closed one year ago and Series C was about to be closed this November), so I would say 9.72% is the real figure - it could have even been less if some other investor came in and raised the capital, but I think this is it.
Steve Lau's company paid €1M for 6.25% of Jolla in 2013. Since then there would have been a few rounds of funding and each time money was raised, the original shareholding would have been diluted. Since it costs €10M a year to keep the lights on, unless Lau or Berezkin were brain dead - then they would have a comfortable majority of shares at this stage.
In Lau's case, is there any proof he has made any investment since? Your claim suggests that having the majority should be some ultimate goal that everyone wants to achieve, but in case of an investor, it doesn't necessarily have to be the case.
Yes, 6.25% for 1M EUR sounds like a cheap deal, considering further financing, but mind that the deal was made in December 2012 - when a startup is that young, 1M has a completely different value than 1M two years later. It's not a linear curve, so we cannot just sum up different amount of money in different points of time and just transfer it to shares.
I also think that the founders do not have majority, but as there is no fact to support this thought, I am not sure of it at all. But if they in fact do not have the majority, I highly doubt it's just Lau&Berezkin who do.
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2015-11-26
, 14:20
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Posts: 1,548 |
Thanked: 7,510 times |
Joined on Apr 2010
@ Czech Republic
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#39
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Originally Posted by nodevel
My theory is that the half/open half/closed is causing a smaller number of contributions due to:
When you look at the amount of contributions to the currently open code like the Browser or Documents, it is not a very convincing look (and I am not bashing anyone for it, since I haven't contributed myself for various reasons).
- improvements in open component is blocked by the need to change a closed component (such as Silica, homescreen, some of the closed default apps, etc.) - AFAIK there have already been a couple cases of this
- less incentive to contribute to something that can't be used without closed stuff
- network effect - improvements in one part might motivate folowup improvement or even improvements in other parts of the system - the less components you hew the less likely this will happen
- some people don't like running closed source software at all, so they don't use Sailfish and don't contribute as a result
Originally Posted by nodevel
Being able to bootstrap the system yourself (even if you need to do some tweaks like removing all trademarks and providing your own theme) is in my opinion also important for attracting contributions for multiple reasons.
I believe that if the OS got opened, there would be soon some CSSU version (and I would be glad to contribute at least on the UI side), but it is in no way certain.
One is that it enables third party community distros that can innovate on top of Sailfish OS, improving the shared base as a result.
Another is "future proofing" - I can see many people being wary to contribute their resources and time to an OS that can be easily doomed if the managing entity fails due to critical components being closed source without the community not being able to do something about it - at least without spending a considerable effort rewriting all closed stuff from scratch. And as the current crisis shows just how valid point this is.
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modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
Mieru: a flexible manga and comic book reader
Universal Components - a solution for native looking yet component set independent QML appliactions (QtQuick Controls 2 & Silica supported as backends)
modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
Mieru: a flexible manga and comic book reader
Universal Components - a solution for native looking yet component set independent QML appliactions (QtQuick Controls 2 & Silica supported as backends)
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2015-11-26
, 14:25
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Posts: 337 |
Thanked: 891 times |
Joined on Jul 2012
@ Royaume Uni.
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#40
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Originally Posted by nodevel
Half the Series B funding aparently came from Asia - so you'd imagine that was Lau so you'd be expecting him to have increased his shareholding further from the initial figure. The Finland government as Peter pointed provided capital, so you'd imagine they hold some kind of share of Jolla. There probably would have been some sort of Series A funding some time in late 2013 as well that would have required investors. With all that, I would be shocked if the founders still held a majority.
In Lau's case, is there any proof he has made any investment since? Your claim suggests that having the majority should be some ultimate goal that everyone wants to achieve, but in case of an investor, it doesn't necessarily have to be the case.
As was discussed on the last #mer-meeting, opening the whole system is a concrete possibility that's being discussed with the board/investors. They have the last word, so now it is solely up to Jolla's current leadership to persuade them to do so (I completely agree with you that they likely have no clue, so that's why I'm quite skeptical that they would agree to "hey, you invested many millions of euros, so I propose giving this system to everyone").
I don't think there are many things that would currently help to decide for opening it, therefore I am proposing to send this to Jolla and let them do whatever they can with it. It might be the only argument for opening the system they'd have.