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Stormix Bankruptcy

Posted by michael on from the for-whom-the-bill-tolls dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "So has the news that Stormix has filed for bankruptcy been covered? I was surprised to get a form letter in the mail today from Deloitte & Touche saying they filed for bankruptcy on Jan. 17. And they owe me $20." The Stormix users mailing list has some information, and Newsforge has a summary. I'm typing this on a Stormix system right now, so I hope someone picks it up and maintains the distro.

4 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. This is good news by fmaxwell · · Score: 4
    In the early 1900s, there were dozens, if not hundreds, of U.S. automobile manufacturers. As the market for cars became larger and competition between brands became greater, that number shrunk to the few that we have today. Brands that were weaker because of price, engineering, or marketing, went belly-up. I think that we are seeing the same thing in the Linux distro market. The big players (RedHat, Mandrake, SUSE, etc.) are still solid while the 2nd and 3rd tier distributions are starting to fade away.

    While competition in the marketplace is a good thing, confusion is not. A customer deciding which OS to use has two current choices from Microsoft (Me and 2000). If he is a home user, he gets Me and if he is a business user, he gets 2000 (or so says Microsoft). This same customer is faced with a confusing array of Linux distros, each claiming to be the best. SUSE, RedHat, Mandrake, Corel, Caldera, TurboLinux, Debian, Slackware, and Storm Linux all spring to mind. And there are many more. Unfortunately, these distributions are not all compatible with one another. Someone familiar with Mandrake might struggle with Debian, for instance, and not be able to find utilities and applications that he has come to rely on. Installing a sound card on RedHat is not done in the same was as installing one on Caldera. This type of problem frustrates and confuses end users.

    While my sympathies go out to the employees and creditors of Stormix, I think that this is a natural solidifying of a market and is a sign that Linux is becoming a mainstream product.

  2. Re:Stormix was not a parasite by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4
    No, Stormix was not a parasite. They GPL-ed their software and their package manager is now part of Debian. They had real, shipping product, not mock-ups like LinuxOne. It happens that they had one really bad executive, and an otherwise good team. But that's not what sunk them, the capital market did.

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  3. Sorry to hear, but the Software will Go On! by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4
    Stormix is a Debian derivative. Right now it is being very difficult to get capital, which is what probably sunk them. However, Progeny is doing well, and with Ian Murdock (the Debian founder) and a number of the lead Debian developers there, Progeny will carry the torch for Debian in the business world. I am associated with the company and am thus prejudiced, although I am not their official spokesperson and I don't work for them - this oosting is opinion.

    Reviews of the Progeny install have been very good (go to ftp.progeny.com/pub/progeny/ and download the CD image), and this ease-of-use addition will be a real boost to Debian.

    I'm sorry to hear about Stormix, but there's been an ex-Storm person at Progeny for a while, and I hope the other good people from Storm get to move over.

    Thanks

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  4. Too bad... by Tom7 · · Score: 4

    Too bad... they had a nice, uh, logo.