Bonum Certa Men Certa

Sirius Open Source: The Brain Drain Begins



A koala model bullied: Bullying staff of Sirius instead of doing actual work?



Summary: Around 4 years ago some of the most essential staff of Sirius Open Source suddenly left the company, even at short notice (the management was trying to hide this, but abstaining from any remarks on this matter became unsustainable); it's probable that abusive management played a considerable role in this ongoing demolition of Sirius Open Source

THIS part (one of 4 in the corresponding long section) deals with the beginning of the end of Sirius ‘Open Source’, which began to do irrational and occasionally dubious (maybe illegal) things, leading to the collapse of the company and coinciding with the collapse of the founder's marriage. A certain "management cabal" was covertly forming, based on perceived loyalty if not kinship, publicly insulting the former manager and former wife (who even contacted clients after the divorce) while treating longtime staff like rubbish. It was about 4 years ago. This part does not deal with anyone's personal life, but it's impossible to understand Sirius and its unfortunate demise without grasping that issues in the personal life of the founder triggered a whole bunch of commercial issues, and management vacuum was hurriedly filled up by incompetent bullies who lie to everybody and never admit mistakes. These people don't know how to manage, were never trained in management, and they compensated for inner insecurities by acting aggressively against sceptics.



There's this quasi-twofold issue: as the company employs based on nepotism, in spite of a lack of any relevant qualifications and/or experience (even managers; they don't know "Open Source"), the company ends up with nontechnical Windows users in technical roles. This means clients cannot be wooed -- or existing contracts secured/renewed -- for technical tasks, so the nature of contracts becomes increasingly clerical -- not technical -- and as Windows has back doors among many other security problems the whole security model becomes farcical. On issues pertaining to a lack of skills and nepotism, please stay tuned until next month.

In a nutshell, as this section shall hopefully demonstrate, the management of Sirius basically destroyed and dismantled the company with years-old failures and an endless string of bad decisions, lacking any consultation with those impacted, who are also proficient. And why? Well, because to the "cabal" it is a vanity project; they know everything! And at the same time they know nothing. Sadly for them, eventually they end up without a company, without an employer, without a job of their own. So well done! Own goal.

As somebody explained to me earlier today, sometimes people are blinded, and more so if they're upset and angry. They're too confident and the ego is becoming way too big, and hence they wear blinders and see nothing else that may make actual sense. Due to emotions and impulses they destroyed the company. It's too late now. They recently discovered that they had destroyed the company and now they focus on how to try to not only suppress this series but also remove anything that was published so far. This isn't a company run by grown-ups but by cartoon-obsessed and over-confident "superheroes" (in their own minds).

Here is the first part of the section in the report. It is entitled The Bullying Era because bullying is what best sums up what was happening back then. Not bullying among staff like peers and colleagues but bullying from the management (i.e. top-down), along with false allegations, accusations, and sometimes fabrications.

In this first part we present some background about the status quo around 2018. Later we'll show some bullying examples.




The Bullying Era



This section is essential. Without it, the sentiments of Roy and Rianne or their relationship with the company cannot be fully grasped.

Several years ago there was management change. It seems to have resulted in the company becoming a lot smaller and poorly managed. Staff did communicate some of the concerns, as those concerns were shared across teams and colleagues (unionisation is difficult in very small companies). To quote one message seen: "I'm gratified to know you're with us in all this. We're a lot stronger as a group. I regret to see we're all being bullied, typically with bogus allegations and our health is affected. I did face the management over this, albeit privately."

The management likes to think it lives in a tall tower on a hill, enjoying total control over minds and hearts. But when many people get treated very unfairly and truly badly they're likely to talk to one another.

Preliminary research helped elucidate pertinent facts about the company. There was a list of things we know and things we would only speculate about at that point. Facts:

- When Roy joined the company his per-hour rate was higher than now (almost 12 years later). Some colleagues receive different pay for the exact same role. For instance, some years ago it could be confirmed that some overnight NOC staff received a salary of 21,000 pounds per annum, whereas colleagues got paid about 25% more. They did the exact same role.

- a key colleague no longer appeared to be in the company, as confirmed (we believe) by the VPN renewal table. Roy warned or politely cautioned management not to lose technical staff and named him specifically.

- One colleague once spoke about being "shareholder" or similar with the CEO, but this was not communicated to any of the colleagues.

- The CEO was angry at a long-serving colleague when he left, one might only suppose due to the very short notice. Managing core functions at the company became almost impossible and some clients could not be served, resulting in complaints later mis-attributed (wrong people blamed rather than those who lost the principal colleague).

- The Sirius office was, at that point, virtually empty and must have cost at least a grand a month just to rent (workers were almost sure it's rented, as the shutdown in 2020 helped confirm). This seemed like a mis-allocation of funds or priorities.

- Company meetings were canceled without any reason given -- not a positive sign at all.

- No transparency about departure of workers. One had to guess or rely on gossip.

- Some colleagues, who had more inside information (because of physical office access), decided to leave the company

- Moving to AWS was about lowering costs, but those costs have (expectedly) risen to something comparable to a salary, set aside issues associated with autonomy, privacy etc. This was short-sighted.

- Moving or changing the NOC's night cover from 4 people to 3 people was also about lowering costs, but that meant really awful and unhealthy sleeping patterns for all those involved. Despite assurances this would improve, nothing ever happened and no redemption came. People who work in daytime cannot fully understand what it involves to work overnight and change the night hours half a dozen times a month (like jet lag, maybe even worse due to short intervals).

- The new manager knew the Sirius CEO for a long time (circumstances or context not fully known but it may be professional, like the Open Source Consortium, which the CEO claimed to be the leader/founder of but apparently wasn't; there was a mis-representation in the press; Roy met the person behind the Open Source Consortium, who wished to point out he had wanted to sue the Sirius CEO for defamation over it but said it would be too expensive and thus unworthy of pursuing).

- At some time around that point the Director of the company (in the UK) was US-based and even insinuated to staff that many NOC operations would be shifted to the US (that never actually happened).

Recent Techrights' Posts

More on "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
"pepe the frogs"
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Many Lawyers (for Microsoft) and 1,316 Pages to Pick on a Litigant in Person Who Exposed Serious Microsoft Abuses
Answers must be given
Layoffs and Shutdowns at IBM, Not Just Microsoft
Same as Microsoft
With Workers Back From a Holiday Weekend, Microsoft Layoffs Carry on, More Waves to Come
Now it's Monday and people are bad to work, even some journalists
You Need Not Wave a Rainbow Flag This Month to Basically Oppose Arseholes Looking to Disrupt and Divide the Community
Don't fall for it
What Miguel de Icaza and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar aims, different methods
 
Links 08/07/2025: "Cyberattack Deals Blow to Russian Firmware" and "Cash Remains King"
Links for the day
FSF40 T-shirt message
by Alex Oliva
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Creativity, Gotify with NUT Server, and Sudo Bugs
Links for the day
Links 08/07/2025: Sabotage of Networking Infrastructure, Microsoft XBox Game Pass Deemed “Unsustainable”
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Ancillary Justice and Small Web July
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 07, 2025
The FSF's (Free Software Foundation, Inc.) 2025 Summer Fundraiser Already Past Halfway Line
This is where GNU/Linux actually started
Mozilla Had No Good Reason to Outsource Firefox Development to Microsoft
What does Mozilla plan to do when GitHub shuts down?
Mozilla Firefox Did Not Die, It Got Killed
To me it'll always look like Mozilla got killed by its sponsors, especially Google, which had a conflict of interest as a sponsor
Dan Neidle, Whom Brett Wilson LLP SLAPPed (on Behalf of Corrupt Rich Tax Evaders), Still Fighting the Good Fight
Neidle fights for the poor people
Wayland Should Start by Dumping Its Very Ugly Logo
Wayland wins the "ugliest logo" award every year
Stop Focusing on Hair Colours, Focus on Corporate Agenda
If someone commits a crime, it does not matter if his or her hair was mostly white or there was no hair or a wig or whatever
Links 07/07/2025: Science, Conflicts, and a Fictional K-pop Group
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: Being a Luddite and Announcement of Gotify
Links for the day
Links 07/07/2025: XBox Effectively 'Dead', DMCA Subpoena Versus Registrar
Links for the day
The 'Corporate Neckbeard' is Not the "Good Guy"
Works for IBM
The Nasty Smear (and Stereotype) of "Neckbeard" or "Greybeard" is Ageism
This is the sort of stuff they might try to volley at critics of Wayland
Why Many of Us Use X Server and Will Continue to Use It For Many Years to Come
Don't make this about politics
Microsoft's Nat Friedman Became Unemployed the Same Time the SLAPPs Against Techrights Started Coming From His Friends (Weeks After We Had Exposed Scandals About Him and the Serial Strangler, His Best Friend, Who Got Arrested a Few Days Later)
Nat Friedman is not "Investor, entrepreneur"
Brett Wilson LLP Uses Threats to Demand Changes to Pages or Removal of Pages Without Even Revealing Which Staff Member Does That (Sometimes People From Another Firm!)
This has been in the public for years
Dan Neidle Said "It Really Then Became a Job of Tormenting" Lawyers Like Brett Wilson LLP (Who Threatened Him for Exposing Crimes, Just Like They Threatened My Wife a Few Months Later)
he and his wife decided to take on the evil people and their evil lawyers
Large Language Models (LLMs) Externalise Their Cost to the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
"The forty-sixth Free Software Bulletin is now available online!"
Weeding Out Extremism in Our Community
To me it seems like Microsoft Lunduke is rapidly becoming like a "hate preacher" who operates online, breeding an extremist ideology or trying to soften its image
Censorship Versus Fact-Checking and Quality Control
It's not censorship but a matter of quality control
Reinforcing the Allegations Some More, Bryan Lunduke Digs His Own Grave
In his latest episodes he merely repeats his own lies, which I debunked using evidence right from his own mouth
Global Warming and Free Software as a Force of Mitigation
we'll need to think about Software Freedom, not just brands like "Linux"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 06, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 06, 2025
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and TUI Rant
Links for the day
[Video] "Copyleft Isn't a Bug."
"Copyleft isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. GNU GPL forced the world to treat code like a public good."
Being in Social Control Media Means Exposing Oneself to Heckling
Richard Stallman does not (either himself or directly) post to any social control media
Links 06/07/2025: Airlines Perils, Scams, and Breaches
Links for the day
Two Risks to Companies: The Microsoft Culture and the Microsoft Tools
Novell was killed by a form of "social engineering" by Microsoft
It's Hard to Trust People Who Worked - Not Only Those Who Still Work - at Microsoft
Bryan Lunduke is just what people would call an "arsehole of a person"
For the Second Time, Bryan Lunduke From Microsoft is Siccing Racist Trolls and Vandals at Me
You're only reinforcing the point we made yesterday
Links 06/07/2025: End to End Encryption at Risk, Reuters Twitter ("X") Account Withheld in India
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/07/2025: Tinylog and Certification Rotation
Links for the day
Links 06/07/2025: Climate Change and "The Right to Criticise"
Links for the day
PCLinuxOS Sites Coming Back, Gradually
let's just be patient
Social Control Media, Even If Based on Free Software, Still Has Many Problems
a distraction from what actually mattered and still matters
IBM is Not Your Master
IBM makes friends with people who exclude the majority of the population: women
Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
Leadership in Free Software
Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.