Being Forced to Say Goodbye
My company's buyout has been completed, and their IT team is in the final stages of gutting our old systems and moving us on to all their infra.
Sadly, this means all my Linux and FOSS implementations I've worked on for the last year are getting shut down and ripped out this week. (They're all 100% Microsoft and proprietary junk at the new company)
I know it's dumb to feel sad about computers and software getting shut down, but it feels sucky to see all my hours of hard work getting trashed without a second thought.
That's the nature of a corpo takeover though. Just wanted to let off some steam to some folks here who I know would understand.
FOSS forever! ✊
Edit: Thanks, everybody so much for the kind words and advice!
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You put lots of time and effort in. Now it will be discarded due to decisions of others.
Sad and/or disappointed feelings are normal.
Take care of yourself.
I think we (as an industry) need to be honest to ourselves and admit that pretty much everything we're building is temporary. And not in a philosophical sense. 90% of the code I wrote in my about 10 years of professional work is probably gone by now - sometimes replaced by myself. In another ten years, chances are not a single line of code will have survived.
Everything is temporary, except for that 25 year old system that's keeping everything running and can't be replaced because nobody knows how or why it works just that if you touch it everything falls over.
25 years ago the system was setup as a quick temporary solution.
original generation of COBOL programmers where expecting their programs to be replaced (or at least rewritten) within a decade or so – and then Y2K and we realized how much COBOL was still in the wild – and now a couple decades down the line, they’re still having problems trying to convince fintech to switch from COBOL to the new language of Java …
Even that is pretty temporary.
If you build a house, there's a good chance, it will survive for decades or even centuries. The house I currently live in survived two world wars and heavy bombardment in one of them. I don't think any software will manage that.
The more magic switch perhaps?
But there are different types of temporary. Temporary because the code got updated/upgraded or new and better software got implemented feels fine. It feels like your work was part of the never ending march of technical progress. Temporary because it gets ripped out if favor of a different, inferior suite hits hard.
If my code gets superseded by someone else's complete rewrite that is better, then I'm all for it. If my code gets thrown out because we're switching to a different, inferior system that is completely incompatible with my work, then that just hits like a ton of bricks.
Thanks 🤜🤛
I'm an electronic security installer. You know how many times I've done stuff like install a complete 40+ camera CCTV system at a new store under construction only to be back at the same store a year later ripping it all out when it goes out of business? I know what that feels like.
Worst is when you come around for a regular store equipment refresh and recognize something you installed at that store ten years ago and start feeling real old...
Good luck wherever life takes you now.
Sorry to hear that, sounds rough too! Thanks for the well wishes, I'm talking with a few different recruiters right now and applying to some positions.
Still have my job currently, but hopefully I can make the jump soon to a Linux environment.
I was assigned the installation of a whole industrial line for food packaging, multiple millions worth, on and off I spent like 8 months abroad forcing badly designed machines into working (I was the top tech and I resigned after this job), even ended up in the hospital, likely due to stress. Few months after I left, I go out drinking with a former colleague who had been on site with me, he says: "Well, I'm happy to inform you that, the customer hasn't called us for months! Means everything's working, great job!" and shook my hand.
The following morning, another former colleague sends me the screenshot of a mail from the customer saying that the business opportunities didn't work out and they're decommissioning the line. Literal blood, sweat and tears, completely wasted.
Many years ago I did post mix installs. Because we were subcontract, it was not unusual to install a system for one company, then replace it under the banner of another company, and then rip that out and install another system on behalf of the first company again.
I can think of at least 3 different venues in our CBD that I swapped like that.
What it did was make me real good at ensuring anything I installed was easy to follow and work with afterwards... Cause it was probably going to be me again lol
Hoard a copy of your work. Even if your new overlords are gutting and replacing it, ot might be useful elsewhere one day.
Source: Similar situation once upon a time. I am currently using on a daily basis what was once replaced in a different company.
Please be careful when copying anything that could be considered your employer's intellectual property (almost certainly anything you built as an employee falls into this category) off of that employer's systems.
And definitely be even more careful about using one employer's IP for a new employer (neither company would be pleased to discover this).
I am careful, but not concerned. The new company's IT doesn't give a damn about anything that I set up or implemented. Their reactions when I was describing my work and job role before the buyout was essentially, "Aww, the cute little sysadmin was making scripts and using Linux, isn't that sweet."
As far as they're concerned, all the old hardware and software are e-waste and are being scrapped. They are ripping out everything, literally. From our phone system, to our physical devices, to our firewalls, network switches, Active Directory, and file server.
They are replacing every single part of our infrastructure. Everything I built is useless in their eyes.
It's incredible how that proprietary software is actually inefficient e-waste. Most FOSS isn't bloated or slow, but proprietary software got the high ground because of contracts and "security", I'm sure.
I always advocate for FOSS solutions at my work, but most of the time I get shut down with some variation of “We prefer $MSP’s solution because it gives us someone else to blame if shit hits the fan”. I hate that sentiment, but I appreciate the honesty.
"But it wouldn't hit the fan so much if we stopped using Microsoft's half-baked products!"
It always falls on deaf ears. I can't believe how many millions my employer throws at Microsoft every year just to complain about how broken it is.
But it's also difficult to prove you didn't make it similarly 2 times. Just do some name changing, reordering and some slight changes and you should be golden.
I don’t know if there’s any precedence for this, but I could see a court asking to see the git commit log if things went that far.
Depends on where you work and what their policies are. My work does have many strict policies on following licenses, protecting sensitive data, etc
My solution was to MIT license and open source everything I write. It follows all policies while still giving me the flexibility to fork/share the code with any other institutions that want to run something similar.
It also had the added benefit of forcing me to properly manage secrets, gitignores, etc
I don't know where you are, but this isn't always enough. If it's your employer's IP it's not yours to license to begin with.
In my situation, it even extends to any hobby projects I work on and I don't think my situation is unusual.
That said, most employers don't care about hobby projects with no earning potential.
That seems like a good idea.
True. In my particular case it's not an issue (because of a long and boring story I can'tbe arsed getting into), but shielding oneself as well as the employer from legal liability is important.
Very unlikely $NEW_EMPLOYER will run all your ideas past $OLD_EMPLOYER to see if it's their code...
Will they even know if they are throwing it all away?
Already backed up securely and anonymously :)
Yeah. I retired a year ago, every now & then I say to myself "I'm sure I had a script for that..." bit then I can't find it of course, which makes me sad.
Oh & I used to sign in to GitHub with a username & password, then GitHub said I needed to change my password, and emailed me a link to my old work address, which I can no longer access.
So I'm going to have to fork my own stuff!
It's not dumb to feel sad about it. Enshittification is sad, especially when you see it from the inside.
Sadly, something we all have to get used to. Everything we do is ephemeral and the next guy will likely have better/different ideas on how to do things.
Basically everything I've ever built has been torn down or somehow bastardized eventually.
The next guy will likely have better/different ideas on how to do things. The extra fucked up part comes when the "new guys" purge all the people and systems that were already working and proven end up just circling around to more or less the old things. While of course acting like it was all their "ideas" after spending more money than was ever needed. The workers get fucked and the undervalued knowledge is lost (and the new workers also get fucked by being underpaid and overworked themselves). So fucking done with how much the wasteful executives giving themselves bonuses and keep cutting more and more corners.
Check your formatting
lol thanks. It must have somehow kept the quote format from another reply I made.
My job title is "Linux System Administrator". I'd quit if they tried to make me drop Linux.
I tried to push back, but they are a much larger company and they made it clear that I would be playing by their rules, not mine.
I was thinking of quitting immediately, but at least in my region of the country, the IT market is really rough right now, so I can't afford to be out of work for months.
I won't last long here though. They are half owned by a private equity firm, so they run everything based on the bottom line. Their IT team is understaffed, underpaid, and they are always looking for excuses to lay folks off or fire them. Their turnover rate is pretty high, burnout is rife.
Start job hunting now. By the sound of it they are one of those PE firms that zombie walk every acquisition into mediocrity.
For sure, I'm on it already.
I know it's rough. Trying to find a job that pays well and isn't deep into proprietary stuff like SQL Server, C# and alike. Sadly this scenario is overwhelmingly the case, and until the crowdfunded and open source scenario get strong (they still aren't) there isn't too much of an option.
I’d argue that most mainstream FOSS is extremely strong. Something like 80% of servers and 60% of smartphones run Linux. Up until recently, Cloudflare was using Nginx for their entire CDN. The thing they replaced it with is technically also FOSS. Probably most computers in the world are using OpenSSL or GNUTLS.
I think the real “weakness” of FOSS is that they don’t have the money or the desire to schmooze corporate decision makers. They also don’t have sexy GUIs, but anyone could contribute that if they wanted.
Everything based on the bottom line
Using azure.
Pick one! I know why they’re a full Microsoft organisation, you’re already using office and exchange, so 365 makes sense, then teams makes sense, then may as well have some sharepoint storage, power platform is snazzy, and then oops we’re full azure hosted. I get why, it’s very convenient, has some good ecosystem integration benefits for the user and all the rest, but it certainly isn’t cheap.
Anyway, I’m sorry they’re kicking Linux and trashing years of hard work. That really sucks. Sadly new job time I think. But that’s easier said than done these days. Best of luck!
I think I'm a cloud engineer, so I can't use the same reasoning as you; but when I started at my company, I was given the option of either a Linux laptop with root or a Mac laptop. Obviously I selected Linux, but about a year later they started retiring all Linux laptops. The reason for this, I was told, is because the IT department didn't know how to manage Linux laptops but they were familiar with Jamf. They did let us keep root on them, though.
I still miss using that laptop for work. The good news is, since they never implemented mandatory RTO policies, the company moved to a much smaller office. In doing so, they needed to reduce inventory, so they gave away the old laptops (sans drives) to their employees. I now own the same laptop (or a very similar one)!
My work laptop is a Thinkpad running Debian with the Plasma DE, I love it so much. Everything is snappy and clean, set up and tuned perfectly to my preferences.
It's getting wiped in a few days. I requested to keep it as a personal device if I wiped it, they denied that request. I even offered to buy it back from the company, but still no.
At least I get to keep it instead of using their bulky, crappy HPs, but replacing my sleek Debian system with Windows 11 feels so wrong.
Yeah, IT fleet upgrades are a great way to snag some decent hardware for dirt cheap. My Plex server is running on an old HP EliteDesk that came from a cubicle. The hardware itself is often practically new, because corporate drones rarely do anything intensive enough to actually push the hardware. Just give it a quick spray with some canned air, and pop a new drive in.
Better start looking for a new job. That company might not be in business for too long, judging from the choices that they're making. Especially, if they work in the IT space.
For sure, already reaching out to recruiters and applying to some job postings.
That's unfortunate. Both for throwing out all of your work and replacing it with an objectively inferior solution with poor track record of long-term sustainability.
That sucks. I know what it’s like to feel like the only voice of reason when your company is shooting itself in the foot.
I see from other comments you’re already looking for a new job, which is a very good idea. From your description of this buyout, it seems very likely that you’re about 6 months to a year out from the layoff stage of the private equity playbook.
At the end of the day you’ll always have the experience you gained from building all that stuff. Perhaps you’ll get a chance to build it back even better somewhere else!
This won’t be the last time, I’m afraid. At the end of the day, software developers build sandcastles.
If you want to build something that will outlast your company, make sure you also have a hobby or craft outside of computing.
Yo, that's not being dumb. That's a legitimate complaint. The OS you use is a tool you use to effectively do your job. A welder would equally be upset if their boss swapped out their welder for an inferior one they are less familiar with.
I’m sorry, friend.
If any of those deployments included code you or your team wrote, I highly encourage archiving it in VCS somewhere, even if only internally.
Also do a formal write up of all the deployments and why each tech choice was made.
Your hard won knowledge and skills should be preserved somewhere.
Got everything saved already. They are wiping my Linux laptop Wednesday and putting Windows 11 on it. Looking forward to my sleek and fast Thinkpad to get much slower and clunkier. 😮💨
Oh buddy they’re wiping your laptop that sucks. Figured you were talking like servers and stuff (which is still bad.) if it’s company issued you don’t have a choice, but do they allow personal hardware to be connected? If so I’d just go buy my own thinkpad.
Yeah, it really bites. And no, they don't allow anything personal other than phones.
At least I get to use the Thinkpad, even if it is gimped with Windows. They initially weren't even going to allow that, because their company deploys only HP laptops.
But I made a strong and slightly pathetic case to the manager and he relented. Angry that I had to kiss the ring, but right now I need the money, and I really hated their clunky HP laptops.
Can you run WSL or whatever it’s called? I se to remember some coworkers getting a Linux shell on windows. Of course that still leaves you with the shitty windows UI.
My last job was Windows desktop, so I installed vmware and ran Linux in fullscreen mode.
Yeah, not worth it to just have the command line unfortunately. 🫤
Well... shit. My company just sold my department to another company. The phrase they use in the office is "a Microsoft shop". We're talking Windows, Teams, Azure and O365.
The transition is going to be shit. After the transition is over, it will be shit.
I might just operate my workflow entirely out of WSL2 out of spite.
Teams is its own plane of hell. Sorry to hear.
https://youtu.be/dbb-XSvX4pg
I work at a "Microsoft Shop" in a division that was a previously acquired software developer that used an entirely linux based dev stack.
That stack is still all linux and we basically have to do all our work in WSL. It's a pain.
I feel simultaneously good and bad that the least modern team at my company is the Windows admin team. I hope they were embarrassed as shit when they were asked how that automated process I help them create 9 months ago was going and they said, "Uh, we'll be rolling it out this quarter." They're constantly at least 2 steps behind our Linux admins.
I don't think feeling sad in this situation is dumb at all
I'm with you in your pain Linux brother/sister... I'll drink a pint in your name tonight
Thank you, I might join in spirit heh 👊
Start your own company :-)
Your feelings are valid, that blows.
Thank you 👊
At least you learned a lot along your journey, while getting paid for it. So it's not entirely a waste of time.
Yeah, I had some cool Ansible integrations, Docker containers running internal infrastructure monitoring, OSTicket FOSS ticketing system, Open Project for project management, Tailscale for secure remote access, etc.
Oh well, I got a bunch of great experience building it, and I can still use that stuff on my own infrastructure at home.
And at your next job, at an employer who sees the value of FOSS and a nerd with strong Linux-fu!
![email protected] and find yourself so many projects at home you'll never find time for anything but computers again :)
Weres crowd strike windows shitting the bed when u need it
foss forever, brother
Absolutely 👊
It's not dumb to see something you've worked and put your heart on being gutted to make room for some bullshit.
🤜🤛
Absolutely feel you, kinda similar situation at work atm. What frustrates me the most is that none of the IT personnel understands my frustration because most are not in that kind of IT community and don't share the ideas behind all that. Just here to earn a dollar, whatever system we're working on. No intrinsic desire to make the world better or at least more secure, none of that. Just robots and bureaucrats.
Yeah, the corporate style has already taken over. None of the new IT guys are mean or nasty, but they just don't care about FOSS. It doesn't even register with them.
Talking about all my integrations is just met with blank stares and, "Linux huh? I remember learning a bit about that 10 years ago in tech school."
It's just not even on their radar.
that's actually really sad, IT of all people don't care about FOSS?
Sadly, that's been my experience for years in IT, at least where I live in the US.
I rarely encounter an IT person who knows what Linux is beyond "a hacker OS" or some arcane system from the 80's that's still running deep in a basement somewhere.
FOSS = janky freeware in their minds. They've usually never even heard of XCP-ng, OpenShift, TrueNAS, Bitwarden, PFSense, or any of the other professionally supported and enterprise-grade open source technologies.
:(
My current work is going through this
They dropped an open system we used but the team managing the new one is so bureaucratic and disconnected from the people actually doing work it’s ridiculous.
They reject every proposal/change unless it’s 100% perfect. I had a project delayed by four weeks because I didn’t end single line docstrings with periods. They didn’t review the substance of the pr, they just commented on the docstrings and stopped as if the rest had no merit. It was two weeks between review cycles, so it took three cycles to actually fix what could have been one.
That whole team is just clearly a make work program. They nitpick and bike shed on every issue. But they aggressively document all the make work they do so they look super busy and important to the execs.
I just want to get work done, but instead it’s a Sisyphean effort.
That's not dumb. It's devastating. I'm not a linux user due to multiple of reasons and I'm sad about it. I'd be very sad if I was able to make it to the other side and then get taken back
Thank you 👊
Now be prepared for windows nagging you to update everyday
Shutdown: noun
Shut down: verb
You can't straddle the lane.
Harsh but fair, edited lol.
shutdown: commandAt the end of the day, they are just digital things. You had some great learning experiences with them. Now it's time to put those skills to use, and learn what's next that makes you happy.
Quit?
If I can find a solid job somewhere else, for sure.
I always feel like the features I’ve worked on become my coworkers or like pets. When a specific feature breaks often, I’ll think “damnit Frank! One of these days I’m going to patch that edge case once and for all!”
Then I patch Frank and he quiets down so I can focus on the next thing leadership wants.
You get to know these things and you put care into designing them (if you didn’t put care into them, you’d likely be a hack of an IT person). It’s always hard to see them go.
Sorry for your loss.
Thank you 🫶
Back in the 1990s I developed an app over the course of 6 years, first 3 in C/DOS then we ported that to C++/Borland/Win95 and continued developing it for another 3 years. I was the only coder, we had a dedicated tester / documentation specialist and the algorithms lead who was more of an idea guy than any hands-on code work.
We got bought out. Buyers "needed it in native Win32 because of the depth of the talent pool." Whatever, I'm here to help if they want it during porting. Buyers estimated 2 developers could port it in about 2-3 months. Yeah, o.k. Never asked for help, but at 6 months in they had expanded the dev team to 6 guys and were still struggling and looking to hire more. Ultimately they reduced scope a little and called it "ready to use" in Win32 after about 15 months. Glad they got it "maintainable" by switching to that Win32 dev environment with such a deep talent pool to hire from, they easily spent more man hours on the port than we spent developing it in the first place.
it sucks that they teach us our code will live forever, so watch out for introducing bugs....
then the companies go under, designs change and you waste your life leaving behind nothing.
Yeah, it's rough. I am trying to look on the bright side, that I learned a lot that will help my career going forward, and what I did implement worked very well and helped make a few people's lives easier.
That's a damn shame, I'm sorry! I hope you got to back up a few of your personal things, and if you didn't at least you have a bunch of knowledge to take onto your next project
I get it. I've just been through a merger and the new head software delivery has plans on rewriting everything in their tech stack. He is in for an absolute fucking ride when he realises that such a rewrite will not take a year but 5 to 10 and will incapacitate our department for the entire time. In a rapidly evolving market. It is 3 decades of continuous and rapid feature expansions he's trying to unroll.
It's not FOSS though, so I'm not as invested in it, I'm just here to see him either fail utterly or get kicked due to his cognitive dissonance that'll cost our department in the tens or hundreds of millions.
Oof, that's rough. My spouse is a software engineer and has been through a similar thing recently.
Based om all the replies in this post it seems like it happens quite a lot. Or it all just happens now for some reason...
You're welcome to join me.
I feel for you. Here's hoping the new system is clean.
Man it does stink. Get some of them up on GitHub or Gitlab if you can.
That's very unfortunate but hopefully you developed skills that will help you in your future career.
For sure, I've learned a ton in the last year. Hopefully I can land a Linux focused job this year and get away from Windows support once and for all.
Thank you for your service 🫡
It's natural to feel sad seeing your work undone. Start searching for a new gig and do the best you can to not have an emotional response to the stuff you dislike; that'll only make you exhausted and burned out.
I'm sorry your job got worse. Try to find where you can be happy again.
Thank you 🤜🤛
Edit: oops. This is old. Hope you're OK and things improved.
You're grieving for what you built. It's good to take pride and push for better. However, you don't own it. They pay for your time and your expertise. Love your skills and the learning. If the environment stops being right for you, plot your escape at a time that suits. Companies make shit decisions, they have and always will. They sometimes lead you to believe you have influence while it benefits then with your commitment/engagement. When that no longer suits, its the end.
What you feel is valid, it's good you have standards and care. It's now time to understand work is generally an exploitative relationship. Protect yourself and understand you're being used. Find a situation where being used feels good for now and good for your bank balance.
Thanks for the response. I'm doing great now. Got a new job as a sysadmin making about 35% more than my old job, and I get to work on Linux a bunch, and my team is really solid.
Still sucks that I lost all that work, but I was able to get some of the old hardware back for free, so my old servers can live again in my home lab.
That's great to hear. Congratulations on the pay rise. You've clearly got valuable, transferable soils.
It is hard to keep detached, as we never truly own it until it's ours. Good to hear you got free hardware. It's my favourite price.
@Lettuceeatlettuce such a sad story! I'm assuming you're finding new work? I hope you're able to take your Linux/FOSS skills somewhere they'll be appreciated
Looking actively. I haven't lost my job (yet) I cut my teeth in IT on supporting Microsoft products, so I still have relevant skills for the new corpo's IT, but it already stinks of the big corporate style.
Super inefficient processes, stuck in their ways, everything has to get bumped around to 3-4 different departments before getting approved, etc.
And cLoWd EvErYtHiNg! So we are hardcore vendor locked with Microsoft, there isn't a chance of me getting them to try using anything FOSS as an alternative.
At least my home lab is 100% Linux and FOSS, same with all my personal computers. I'm having even more fun than usual going home after work and playing with my tech.
And one small upside is they are giving me all the old computers from my current company, so I have a huge pile of towers that I can referb and sell, or use for more home lab testing.
I feel you so much on this. Bet your work was really cool.
What cool FOSS things would you do first if this take-over company allowed you to?
Good question. I was in the process of testing out DokuWiki for internal documentation, that was really cool.
But probably using Tailscale to phase out our janky ipsec VPN solution. Super high speed and bandwidth aren't a concern at my current place, so Tailscale would be a great solution to fix the current setup we have and make remote work much easier for end users.
I was looking at a Grafana/Prometheus stack for active monitoring and metrics too, which would have been really cool.
I was also talking to the former owner about developing an in-house piece of software that used machine learning and OCR to pull relevant data out of huge construction PDFs, convert it to CSV formatted data, and import that directly into our estimating software, saving our estimators massive amounts of time having to manually parse those documents and input the data line by line, cell by cell.
That last thing. Can you do it under an Open License and put on git?
Seems like an improvement for all.
If I am ever able to build it and get it working reasonably well, for sure!
Wow. You have some really cool quick-improvenent ideas alongside major improvements. OCR would have applications in so many other situations too!
It definitely sounds like you will be under-appreciated under the new owners, you have so much skill and knowledge that are kinda going to waste with them.
But based on your other comments here, you know this too. Best wishes and good luck in your search.
Thanks a bunch. Yeah, hoping to find a good job doing something I like in the coming months.
@Lettuceeatlettuce okay, glad you still have a job at least. Sick that they're giving you those towers! It'd be a field day for me, I hope you enjoy it!
For sure! 🫶
Libre software is for control of our own computing. We do not own other people's computers.