Over and out for Andover

NEWS Andover.net's senior management resigned last week and twenty five per cent of staff were laid off yesterday. Andover has built up cult status in the US, but VA Linux is looking to sell off all its non-Linux areas. One former employee commented: "It's as if Andover has imploded." VA Linux brands itself as "the world's Linux leader" and is one of the top two Linux distributors in the US, alongside Red Hat. It will keep Andover's popular Linux sites - Slashdot.org, Question Exchange, FreshMeat.net and Think Geek, but will incorporate them into the Open Source Developers Network (OSDN) which launched on 13 August. Andovernews.com will be rebranded as NewsForge.com, which is to operate as a news aggregation service. A former employee commented: "The idea is to be totally Open Source. If any media is done at all, it is done on the cheap." All Andover's other services - including the Animation Factory, Dave Central, IT Manager's Journal, Slaughter House and Tech Mailings - are on the auction block