When your company owns the biggest open source code repository online, the most venerable geek news aggregator there is and many geeks’ favorite place to shop for wacky stuff – what do you do next? Hopefully we’re about to find out, because the owners of SourceForge, SlashDot and ThinkGeek are apparently working on a new project.
One of the most interesting ways to get an idea where companies of interest are headed is by watching who they hire. That’s one of the reasons why we launched Jobwire, our site tracking who gets hired in tech and new media. SourceForge, also the name of SourceForge and Slashdot’s parent company, has made a couple of interesting hires lately.
This morning we reported on the hire of Michigan software developer Dave Brondsema, who wrote on his blog that he will start “working on a new project within the company, not any of those [well known] sites” early next month. Brondsema is a young programmer with a wide range of interests, from Java to trust systems to the theological implications of Greasemonkey.
The company told analysts in its final earnings call of this year that it is now limiting hiring to “a few key select positions and only when we can find exceptionally well qualified candidates who might be coming on to the market.” Combine that statement with Brondsema’s mention of a whole new project and we’re pretty interested to see what SourceForge has come up with.
Earlier this month, we reported on the hire of a new CEO at SourceForge. Scott Kauffman will take the helm on January 5th. Kauffman has a diverse background, ranging from music to advertising companies.
Neither the company nor the new developer hired have responded to several inquires this morning about the new project. It won’t likely be a software index, that’s taken care of already, nor an open source development tutorial site – the company’s already got one of those too.
What will it be? We look forward to finding out more.
Update: A spokesperson for the company contacted us today and confirmed that a new project is in the works but said that “SourceForge is not quite ready to talk about it just now over the holidays.” Watch this space for coverage when the news is ready!
