Foreword: the italicized text below comes from the introduction to a previous LinuxDevices.com article about the launch of Ascensit, a new Italian Linux supplier that specializes in both enterprise and embedded Linux. It provides a good introduction to this interview about the revival of Prosa, the Italian company responsible for originating an open source Embedded Linux distribution known as EtLinux.

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Coming soon: an Italian Renaissance in Embedded Linux?

Over the past several years, Italy has been home to considerable embedded and real-time Linux development. For example, two well known embedded Linux projects spawned on Italian soil are ETLinux, an open source small footprint Embedded Linux developed by Prosa, and RTAI, a real-time Linux enhancement created at the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Politecnico di Milano (DIAPM).

But while RTAI has flourished, EtLinux development has suffered somewhat of a setback this year.

Whither, EtLinux?

EtLinux development appears to have been scaled back substantially, following the late-1999 acquisition of Prosa by Linuxcare. This is confirmed by a quick visit to the EtLinux website, where there is little evidence of project activity since last February or March. One EtLinux developer characterized the situation following the acquisition as a shift towards contract development and away from product development (beyond a few minor enhancements), “since we are buried with work for paying customers.”

By October, that “shift” took on a new twist, with a report by Linuxgram that Linuxcare was closing down Linuxcare Italia. A source within Linuxcare Italia confirmed the rumor, telling LinuxDevices.com that “after one year, while Linuxcare stopped any attempt to further develop EtLinux by Prosa, they have [decided to] close European operations.” Linuxcare's CEO, Art Tyde, explained his company's plan to dissolve its Italian subsidiary this way: “to really get Europe off the ground, we would have had to invest a large amount of money [which is] not the best business strategy [for Linuxcare] today.”

Notwithstanding Linuxcare's lack of priority on EtLinux development, embedded Linux developers have continued to express strong interest in it for future embedded designs, as evidenced by snapshots of data collected in LinuxDevices.com's Embedded Linux Market surveys in February 2000 and December 2000.

Recognizing the continued interest in EtLinux, a former employee of Prosa recently told LinuxDevices.com, “we hope to restart developing EtLinux.”

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Back to the future

At this time, a restart of Prosa and EtLinux is in process, under the direction of Davide Barbieri, who was formerly the General Manager of Prosa Labs and later served as General Manager of Linuxcare Italia following Linuxcare's acquisition of Prosa.

To learn more about the plan to revive Prosa and EtLinux, LinuxDevices.com's Rick Lehrbaum interviewed Davide Barbieri. Here's what we learned . . .

RL: First, could you give a brief summary of the background, objectives, and history of Prosa?

DB: Prosa was founded in 1998. The goal was to build a profitable company, around a completely open source business model. To be sure to stay on the right basis, Prosa was even forced by statute (through its incorporation) to use, develop, and sell only open source software.

And we did it! Prosa was sold in early 2000 to Linuxcare, when we were profitable. Don't think that we had billions in profit! Not at all. However, it was still a good thing to have created a complete open source company — profitable, in just one year, with only 10,000 US dollars of startup capital and no venture capital behind us!

RL: What were the results of the Linuxcare acquisition?

DB: Bad. Prior to the acquisition, Prosa was growing fast and had a great reputation. But we absolutely needed money to grow quicker. We thought being acquired by Linuxcare was the right choice, because they promised us the money we needed to complete and leverage our structure, in order to grab market share in what was a wide open market for us in Italy and Europe. Instead, our structure was stopped while we were still building it. Because of this situation, we were not permitted to solve the problems we were encountering in Italy and Europe.

RL: In August, Linuxcare announced that they were closing their European operations and, therefore, Linuxcare Italia. From your perspective, what led up to that event?

DB: It does happen. It was expected. We were spending too much money, without making any profit. It was impossible to live longer.

The problem was basically that Linuxcare didn't give us any bucks for marketing and didn't provide us with any sales managers, even preventing us from answering the overwhelming requests we kept receiving from the biggest Italian and European companies. This is not the right way of doing business! The European structure was never completed after the well known Linuxcare issues. [Editor: Linuxcare deferred its planned IPO following a management shakeup]. After that, San Francisco didn't give Europe the support it required, so there was no possibility of solving our problems. That's why I say that it was expected.

RL: Do you have any plans to restart the activities of Prosa and EtLinux? Are you going to start a new embedded Linux company?

DB: It's not easy to form a company, and what remains of Prosa, honestly, has been put at serious risk by the recent events. However, we have received tons of requests to rebuild Prosa, because of its principles, and this makes us very happy. So, yes, we are restarting Prosa as a company along with its well known activities (e.g. EtLinux).

RL: How many people do you expect will remain with you, from the remnants of Linuxcare Italia?

DB: That is difficult to say — we are restarting the company from scratch.

RL: Do you have funding? Do you need funding?

DB: We have to rebuild our structure wisely, and to restart thinking about the Italian and European market. Do we need funding? We absolutely need funding! Within a couple of days of the announcement of Linuxcare closing its European offices, we had already received several venture capital offers. We certainly wouldn't mind receiving more offers! However, given our previous experience, we are hesitant to accept venture capital funding and have begun a different approach.

We are restarting Prosa in cooperation with Ascensit, the Italian Linux company founded by Eurotech (an embedded computer board company). This should give us many more possibilities, considering the synergy with Ascensit. In the embedded space, in particular, we will have a strong cooperation with Eurotech — which is the company that initially started developing EtLinux with us in order to create support for their embedded single-board computers.

RL: What will you name the new company, and what will be its objectives, goals, and target markets?

DB: The name? Obviously . . . Prosa! Who would want to change that? I think the market is wide open for us, since we fortunately still have a good reputation among customers and, especially, in the open source community.

RL: Could you clarify the “cooperative” relationship between this “new Prosa” and Ascensit? Since Ascensit is also an Italian Linux startup, and you plan to cooperate strongly with them, do you have any plans to merge the two companies together?

DB: Actually, the owners of both companies are the same people. Think of Ascensit and Prosa as the same company, except that the two have different approaches and strategies for the market, which can be characterized by two expressions: while Prosa will be more community-driven, Ascensit will be more business-oriented. The decision to have two different companies was especially (but not only) made in order to take advantage of the old Prosa statute (i.e. articles of incorporation), which requires Prosa to be pure open source oriented. That is: Prosa must use, develop and sell only free software. You might also think of Prosa as the R&D labs for Ascensit, although this is somewhat oversimplified, but it is an idea we are working on.

RL: Given Prosa's philosophy with respect to open source, what will be the strategy to build a profitable business based on open source software?

DB: The philosophy, as always, will be to play by the rules of the open source game, completely, and to put open source above everything else. The business will come accordingly. You don't have to adapt open source to the business world — it's the business world that will have to adhere to the open source philosophy.

RL: What's the current status of EtLinux? Did any development continue after the acquisition of Prosa by Linuxcare? Have there been any recent enhancements to EtLinux?

DB: EtLinux development was completely stopped following the acquisition of Prosa. We tried to continue development of EtLinux, but we faced strong opposition from Linuxcare. That was odd, since gaining our embedded Linux expertise was one of the goals of the acquisition.

RL: What are the near and long term plans for EtLinux?

DB: It's difficult to say at the moment. We had lots of plans for various features and enhancements to EtLinux prior to the acquisition, but they were completely stopped. Now, we need to sit down together with the community — both open source and business — ask what the community needs, and decide where we want to go. In any case, our primary goal is simple: to do something useful!

Alessandro Rubini, the main contributor to EtLinux, is cooperating with us and he's still willing to contribute to the project with his own ideas.

RL: Do you have some ongoing customer projects that you plan to pursue in your new company?

DB: I would not say “ongoing.” We have had a lot of requests from customers which we were forced to drop while with Linuxcare. Now, these customers have begun approaching us once again, restoring their trust in us.

RL: Thank you! And best wishes for great success with your “new” company!

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This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.