Slashdot Mirror
Mandrake Asks for Support
Many people wrote in with this news: "Mandrake Linux today reports having a short-term money crunch. They call for users to become members to help float them through the short-term viability issue. Membership dues are the preferred method over budget/project cuts."
Just stop paying your employees for about a year. I heard it worked for Loki... oh wait.
There are currently 2,000 Mandrake Club members. If they can get 8,000 more, they're fine.
/. that use LM enough to fork over 60 bucks.
There are multiple subscription options, all with the same priveledges. It's 5 bucks a month for the cheapest option (which I had to choose currently because of my financial situation).
It's totally worth it to me. 8.2 is showing how mature Mandrake can make a desktop distro, and I'm impressed with not only their attention to detail, but their attention to security, as well as decreasing the learning curve. They warn you during install about what packages may be insecure and what might be seen by the world. They packaged the Bastille firewall into the distro. And their draktools now have an option to display what the GUI tools are doing to which log files.
And to top it all off, 8.2 has had 4 betas and now 1 Release Candidate (which has some critical bugs, so expect a second RC). 60 bucks? Deal of the century. I run it on every machine I own, and install a copy on any Doze Machine that I build for friends.
Surely there are 8,000 more people here on
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
Mandrake is a great product. It is easy to use and has been free so far. This time I will help out. I am still fairly new to Linux but love what I see so far. Mandrake is by far the easiest to use and it would be a real losse to the Linux world if Mandrake went away.
Great people don't need people to complete them, great people complete other people. -- Matthew Pawlikowski.
From the page:
Window$? Very unprofessional.
Trademarks are copyrighted? What does that mean??
Well, anyway, I hope they don't go under, as I was thinking of switching from Red Hat to Mandrake on a new P4 (I always buy my Linux distros to support the companies, and so should you).
By all means, if you think Mandrake is the best thing since sliced bread, support them. However, I think given that they want to be a company that wants to derive profit from making a Linux distribution people will buy, one may well ask the question: why? There is nothing wrong with being for-profit, but if they can't make a good business out of it now, why should they be able to in the future?
I mean, it's only $5 and it was the first distribution I thought got it right for intermediate/beginner Linux users. Folks like me who, at the time, knew quite a bit about computers and programming, but knew nothing about Linux. Plus it was the easiest to install early on for folks (again, like me) who had grown used to the relative ease of install and use of Windows and the Mac.
FWIW, I first installed an early 5.x of Red Hat but got ticked when it didn't work with my sound card. It took me about a month to learn everything I needed to get sound working. After that, I muddled along with Red Hat for a while, but Mandrake came along and really added some value to what Red Hat had done, IMHO. The install recognized everything and even got X working properly. It also helped that the distro included more up-to-date packages (esp. of GNOME and KDE) and the -- probably worthless to me in the grand scheme of things, but still a factor -- pentium optimizations.
Best of all, I think they've kept up their end of the bargain. They consistently provide a really good distro with up-to-date packages. They've done a lot of work on getting Linux to recognize hardware more seemlessly.
Yep, all things considered I think they're worth $5.
--- but I don't want a "sig".
When you can pay for software after you've evaluated that you like it and that it's worth paying for. The only other way is to 'borrow' the warez and then decide whether to pay for it.
I like this system better. C'mon everyone, give them some money. They really have earned it!
Mandrake is great and all (I use it), but how short term is this money crunch going to be?
Could it be that they don't have any viable business strategy, and too much competition?
I love linux and open source dearly, but when it comes to my money, I am cold and calculating. I'll send a check to Microsoft because they force me to. That's a business transaction. I'll use Mandrake's products that they give away for free, that's another business transaction (dumb on their part).
But when they start asking for handouts, that's when I ask "Why don't you guys get real jobs?" I like your products and all, but I am not grateful, any more than I am grateful for any consumer product. I am not grateful for my TV set or my DVD player. Some engineer probably enjoyed designing them. Designing the specs may have even been like masturbating for him. I don't care. I bought a product. If a company was running itself into the ground giving me those things for nothing or next to nothing, I still wouldn't be grateful. I'd be happy, but my feelings toward the company would be those of pity.
I mean it, start a viable company that actually benefits the capitalist system. Pay some taxes and fund a war or two in the Middle East, why don't you?
This seems to be a losing proposition, in the end. Begging users for handouts? Will Mandrake move to the public radio-method of fundraising? "Hi, your boot is interrupted this week to ask, 'User, do you enjoy Mandrake enough to pay $10 a month, or $20 a month? Become a member now, and we'll throw in a Signature Logo t-shirt, signed by RMS'"
This is where normal businesses say "what we're doing isn't working--let's try something else". Mandrake (or any Free Software-based business) doesn't have to show massive profits, but it does have to keep the doors open.
Selling the CDs don't work. Too easy to download ISOs, too easy to simply compile new apps. Selling services works, but only to a select few. RedHat may be able to get away with it, but isn't Mandrake a French company? Too far away, conceptually if not literally.
What is Mandrake's raison d'etre? A desktop-friendly Linux, if I'm not mistaken. Mandrake used to be a rip-off of RedHat, before it matured.
If Mandrake can cut costs by returning to that model--a "wrapper" around a RedHat install that caters to the needs of a desktop user. It can leech off RedHat for the hard stuff, and focus it's energies (and money) on keeping the doors open.
I hate to see them die, but duplicating effort can kill a small company. Unless Mandrake decides to finance the nerds with MandrakePorn. That, I understand, is doing okay.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Why the heck would I want to subsidise a for-profit company? If they want money, they should issue more stock. This is a for PROFIT company. They seem to be trying to get money from people without having to dilute their stock... They are a publicly traded company (on some french micro-market). RedHat issued stock twice in a very succesful IPO and post-IPO offering. Why can't they do the same? If I give them money, I want to share the profits if there ever are any.
This is not a charity! If you want to help Free Software, give to the FSF or SPI (www.spi-inc.org aka the debian foundation).. They will even give you tax deduction.
Giving Mandrake Inc. money is just throwing it out of the window! If they can't make money as a for-profit company, well they should and they deserve to go bankrupt. At least, its all free software and someone else can maybe pick it up and make a business with a serious business model.
Please stop that non-sense! If you want to give, give to a charity!
It's also a better idea and more honest than slashdot, who has asked for essentially the same thing, with NO promise of profitability.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I always hear people making noise about supporting your favorite distro. Personally, I could care less if 90% of the Linux distros disappeared. Let Mandrake die... It's just a bastard distro of a bastard distro.
Would anybody really be upset if we were only left with SuSE, Slackware, Debian (& RedHat I suppose). You can always make your own, and/or customize one of the existing distros to fit your needs.
Save the money would would normally spend to bail out a distro company, and instead spend it on Linux apps. (Have you forgotten about Loki already?)
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I see Mandrake as a fantastic Linux distro. I commonly recommend it above Red Hat and even above the otherwise really great (but more effortful to install) Debian. Definitely, it's what I suggest to my Windows colleagues for a taste of Linux.
Anyways, that's what's kind of ironic about their plea for a subscription-based Member Club. Their perfect niche is Linux newbies, but those newbies probably won't grok the concept of why they should subscribe monthly for their OS. (In fact, it tends to be the Linux crowd shouting at them to NOT buy into evil subscription models that are coming down the pipe by Microsoft.) And those of us that "get" it and recognize how important Mandrake could be are likely "move on" to other distros like Debian (for their social contract)), or maybe even dip into something like OpenBSD (for its priorities on security and robustness). Anyways, as I'm skipping around installing different distros for different purposes, it's hard for me to buy into a Membership for just one. Sigh.
Mandrake, your excellent installer has probably got you unfairly pigeonholed!
Mandrake makes a very good product. It's easy to isntall, update, and use. It is the distro of choice (for the most part) for those Windows refuges. I urge users of Mandrake that do not purchase the boxed sets to support Mandrake for at least a few months.
I've noticed a few people posting saying that it is a bad idea to 'come crying to the users for money.' I see it a diffrent way all together. It seems that they are asking the community in which they have dedicated time and development to for some support to continue their work.
The $5 a month isn't paying for something you already 'own', it's supporting open source development. Think about it. Mandrake releases their code under the GPL. However, if they must lay off their coders, then how will they continue to contribute to the body of GPL software? The answer is easy. They won't.
You're not paying for the code. You're paying for the developer's time, the machine, and the building in which he/she works. While the result is free, the development is not.
For years, the Open Source community has been releasing free code to the masses, many of whom do not, or can not contribute. Well, this is your chance. If you've never submitted code, artwork, documumentation or even a bug report, THIS is your chance to help support the community which has given you so much.
Mr. Anderson, this is your wake up call.
I just want to take over the world...Why does that automatically make me EVIL?
I use Mandrake, but I for one do not plan to send them anything. And I plan to continue using Mandrake, for free, because that is exactly what their business model calls for. If open-source is a viable business model, as is so often argued here, then it deserves to be judged by hard, cold, business metrics - namely, whether companies based on this model can survive on their merits alone. Contrary and au-courant opinions aside, it appears that most companies based on this model CAN'T survive, and Mandrake appears to be just one in what is a growing list of failures. Consumers AND the capital markets appear to have spoken somewhat decisively on Mandrake.
And if Mandrake ultimately ends up surviving, by measure of donations/contributions, I'll judge it as a feasible example of a charity case. Because it seems clear that Mandrake is not going to survive on the merit of the saleability of its products and can only survive by appeals to the goodwill of the open-source community. But the long-term problem is (and it IS a long-term problem, not a short-term one as the source post claims), the community only has so much pocket change to give to so many panhandlers. There is no reason to suspect that a bit of cash here and now is going to somehow change the fundamental, underlying economic reality that there aren't many people willing to pay for software which by rights they don't have to pay for.
I think anyone who's had a Mandrake system on their computer for more than two point-releases without paying for a box should join their Club or buy their boxed 8.2 when it's released.
...") give back to Mandrake for turning their distro into something very distinctive.
It's as simple as that. Try it out free? Absolutely. Test-drives are good. But if you're not moving to anything else (even though you swear that "some day I'm going to try
It would be a crying shame for this company to fall down at this point in their growth, especially when so many of it's users never spend a cent to support them.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
bias: I'm not a linux guru, but I've had other CS students ask me a thing or two about linux.
/dev/whatever seemed so stupid when I could just do C: before...) Eventually I got my system accepting modem calls from two modems, but it was painful.
Back in my early teens, I thought I was *the* power user. I wrote help files telling people how they could put "C:\BATCH" in their path and start up wordperfect, games, anything at all by just typing "wp" or "wolf3d".
Thinking about starting my own ISP, I had heard about this thing called Unix and BSD being really, really good for running servers. Having lots of time on my hands, I got a copy of FreeBSD and threw myself at it, sans manuals or knowledge of "man" (at first) for 48 hours. I made SOME progress and can still remember how weird it was to have a hard drive as a file! (mount
My ego smashed, I didn't touch anything resembling Unix for a while.
I started playing around with Linux a few months before I started my CS program - not knowing that it'd end up being my developement OS for a few years - and I picked up SuSe, RedHat and Mandrake.
Suse had hardware issues and I just didn't get like their config utilities. Redhat was a step up, but I tried Mandrake and found my distro of choice. Things weren't easy at first but with a minimum of effort, I got things going.
After finding out "Mandrake = stupid user linux" and "Debian = if you are smart enough, THEN you can use this one", I started feeling I need to prove myself. Which put me back to my teen years and reminded me *way* too much of high school. This time, I didn't bend and I stuck with Mandrake - I could get things done, the company seemed to be going in a direction I liked and the software seemed to be fairly new and easily updatable (when MandrakeUpdate worked).
Mandrake might not be the best linux for everyone. But I wanted to get something done, without learning EVERYTHING. I had time for that when I was younger.
The $60US I just sent (direct credit card payment, SSL and took less than 30 seconds) might not save the company, but for the effort they saved me, it's not nearly enough.
I hope Mandrake has a long and successful future, and if you are using Mandrake now - how much time has it saved you? Can you afford to eat if you give them $60 per year? Likely, yes.
And a few reasons why users of said company's products might have an interest in seeing that company survive.
Especially when said users have probably been using said product for free.
Personally, I've been downloading new Mandrake ISOs for 3 years now, and I'd much rather donate than buy a boxed version of the distro. More of my $$ go to fund development that way.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
Could you be any more whiny and obtuse?
"We all own it" sounds a lot like "I'm a spoiled leech, waaaa!"
I'm pretty sure the spirit of GNU was supposed to be "let's help each other out", not "gimme gimme gimme and don't let the free market hit you in the ass on the way out". In this case, many people are working FULL TIME to make Mandrake a high quality product that many people have enjoyed for free. They've supported themselves by selling box sets and support, but times are a little tough now and they're asking for some additional help.
If you don't think it's worth money or you're too cash-strapped to contribute, then don't. But it's childish to say "well I already own it, so if they can't give me updates for free in perpetuity then fuck them."
I hope the Mandrake employees read this Slashdot news an don't float the company any personal loans or hang on too long without pay like Loki employees did.
I don't know, it seems odd to me for a publicly traded company to post a notice like that asking for financial support in the form of donations. That seems like it would panic the shareholders and hurt them even more in the long run. The sensible thing would be to lay off those emplyees not contributing to the core of Mandrake's business and save some money in those non revenue generating areas.
'Same speed C but faster'
See the subject. reply if you want.
Mandrake pays programmers to develop this GNU you are talking about. so unless you want to code your GNU/Linux apps, and update them, and patch them, yourself, by hand - don't talk about what a waste paying money to Mandrake is. You are paying for the future.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
This is their business. They offer a service, no diffrent than AOL or your local cable company. Its more similar to a very good magazine.
You subscribe to them, they offer you a community, and plenty of benifits, also you help with the development of Linux Mandrake.
Basically they are offering us the choice. We can subscribe from our own free will, or with Mandrake 9.0 they will just force you to subscribe to download it like Lindows and Suse and others.
They are giving us the choice to tell them how we want them to run their business, if you dont subscribe then you want them to run their business more like a Redhat or Suse, and sell to corperations and OEMs and not offer any free services, because a company in the red doesnt have the money to offer a free forum, mandrake expert, mandrake community pages, and so on.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I will support Mandrake but my reasons are entirely selfish: I happen to like their distribution and wish to continue benefiting from it.
In fact, I now support both Redhat and Mandrake for such similar reasons. Interestingly, the cost of of my support for the two is still a fraction of what Windows costs me.
..
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Why should we, the people, who have just enough money to live an acceptable life, donate money for Linux, while Hollywood studios, big .COM's and huge corporations use Linux for free and save money?
Does anyone have the numbers on how much Amazon.com, Google.com, etc. and hollywood studios give to Linux?
I hate to see an outfit like Mandrake go, but we have too many distributions of Linux. They're all using the Linux kernel, but the differences between them make third-party product support nearly impossible. Each distribution is dividing finite developer resources. To what effect? The value of choice is hopelessly overstated if, by "choice," we refer solely to choosing among the decisions of capricious developers (where files go in the file system, what desktop to use, etc.). There is no "value add" in such things.
Yes, I think Mandrake suffers from the "it's pretty, but doesn't really take us anywhere" problem. In my experience, both RedHat and SuSE make products that are as usable as Mandrake, but with real reasons to use them. RedHat has nearly universal support from third-party vendors. SuSE is doing a nice job on enterprise functions. (In contrast, Mandrake's "upgrade" from 7.0 to 7.1 left me with a completely unusable system.) Perhaps it's time for Mandrake's efforts to get rolled into one of these other distributions.
I have been using Mandrake for a couple of years now and just made my first donation ( besides buying the McMillian boxed copy).
The Mandrake crew ( like many others) are turning out terrific software and asking those that appreciate the work to compensate the makers so they can continue working on their distribution. If you don't want to donate, then just close your hole and stop trying to convince others to ignore the request for help.
If people are intelligent enough to earn enough to support themselves and have some left over that they have to decide how to spend, then they just may also be intelligent enough to spend it wisely.
I'm not so tight that I begrudge these people a bit of support for their work. I also bought RedHat and Caldera boxed Linux when I was running them, it dosen't bother me to pay for quality software, how about you?
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
I've been using linux for over 2 years and I still think mandrake is one of the best distros out there.
/. readers) bitch about windows, mandrake is the only one with an installer you'd even think about letting your mother use.
Redhat has almost certainly stated that it believes linux is not destined for the desktop market. Loki went out of bussiness. Mandrake still claims to be very much interested in the desktop market, and IMHO, is the best for the job, and the only one I know of still interested in it.
As much as linux users (especially
If Mandrake goes under, it will be because people do not support it. And if it does, I don't want to hear anyone complain about windows desktop dominance, because we let it happen.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
There's a funny note on the end of the prospectus ( http://www.mandrakesoft.com/toprint/kbcprospectus_ mdk_en.pdf (look on page 22 of the PDF)) that mentions that they are in talks with the Hearst corporation because of a dispute over their name (Hearst owns the rights to "Mandrake the Magician"). Apparently Mandrake will owe Hearst $200K cash and $600K stock to get to keep the name.
Of course, the Prospectus isn't the latest word and the deal isn't finalized.
It's just interesting what you can find in financial documents.
I must say, however, that I could not find a link to anything as worthwhile as an American-style 10Q or 10K report on the Mandrake site. Their prospectus has basically NO historic financial data, and they depend on some pretty astronomical growth, just to stay afloat.
What's also intersting, is that on p 14 of the aforementioned prospectus, they make a big deal of being the #1 US Linux retail distro, overtaking Red Hat. What is really interesting, however, is that the most phenomenal growth is by SUSE, which doubled it's market share in the same year that Mandrake upped its market share by a measly %10.
evanchik.net
When that one company decided to cut the slackware dev team, a friend of mine started the "Save slackware!" fund to help them out. I thought I would help out by carrying around the jar and asking for donations. The problem was, no one had any freaking clue what slackware was. They thought we were making some joke because of the name "slackware". I tried to explain to them it was just a linux distribution that they had their dev team cut. "What is linux? What is a dev team? Get a job!" We made like ... $50 though. That was after a few months, people starting using the jar to make change and things. I wonder if my friend ever turned it in.
Tell that to all the big corporations who profit and save money thanks to Linux without paying a dime.
The company must emit more shares (proportionally to the amount of money they want to borrow) and offer those shares to everyone, *including* free software people. We would buy those shares and become co-owners of the company. But Mandrake would lose some of share value due to this emission, and this is fair as well because more shares are printed.
As it stands, Mandrake just wants free gifts. Instead, it should offer a deal: "you give me $100, I give you a piece of a company." That would be much more appropriate, IMO. I would *very much* prefer to own a piece of a free software company rather than a "membership" somewhere.
And here I was thinking they named it the narcotic. :
Merriam-Webster:"the root of a mandrake formerly used especially to promote conception, as a cathartic, or as a narcotic and soporific"
I thought that one could not own the rights to something that is an actual word, other than as they have trademarked it within their industry?
But then again, I never did spend much time studying legalese beyond understanding that in the courts being "right" often does not matter.
-S
that the /. effect can actually be a force used for GOOD. :)
Come on people--put your money where your mouth has always been. We talk and talk about supporting open source and free software--that support can't merely be verbal. as the saying goes, "Freedom isn't free." If you really want to see free software succeed, especially on the desktop, then this is definitely a worthwhile cause.
If you don't support mandrake now, you may not get the chance to later. and if you don't care for mandrake, then for the love of Linus support SOME distribution, be it Debian, Suse, RH, or even BSD. Penguins of the world, unite! take a stand!
/end_pithy_rhetoric
... the phrase TANSTAAFL. Puzzled? Try the Acronym Finder or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Mr. Heinlein.
It wouldn't shock me if Mandrake as well as a few other distros don't make it through the current economic crunch. There are companies out there with rock-solid business plans that can't make money right now... is it any surprise that a company with limited IP can't make ends meet?
Sorry to be so anti-warm-and-fuzzy,
--Mid
God how I wish this was true. However its the people doing the actual work who are the first to get laid off while the VP of blah blah blah keeps his job.
BTW I love mandrake for starting new linux users on. I would be more than willing to send them some cash if they post the salaries of their management. Also id like to know what it is each one of the managers actually do.
If it appears they are worth their salary then I would feel the money is well spent, then id send them some money. The thing is ive worked to many it jobs were the engineers/programmers dont make enuf while some people in management make hundres of thousands a year doing nothing, and dont forget their bonuses etc.
I love all the trolling the AC cocksuckers are doing with this one. Let's see..I wonder what IP block (Redmond) they are originating from? IF you read it, you will see that they are on track to actually make money this year. I for one have indeed contributed the paltry $60 USD for what I consider a great Linux distro. Compare that to the $299 that Uncle Billy will be taking out on your sorry asses, you M$ apologist. Oh wait, you guys can d/l that for free from the warez groups. Nevermind.
Actually, I think you'll find that most of them are posting from 216.148.218.197.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
From the prospectus, it sounds like there was a lot of stuff in earlier Mandrake releases that could have confused the two, especially regarding the use of magic, etc. etc.
But I agree with your sentiments: lawyers are scum.
evanchik.net
If what Mandrake has to offer is so great and they've done such great things that people find valuable then I would expect the freemarket to take care of things.
We _are_ the free market. Them asking for money, and people giving it to them _are_ all part of the free market.
If you aren't comfortable with the $60 yearly subscription (or you can't spare $60 right now) please consider one-time donations at this page:
http://www.linux-mandrake.com/donations/
You can even choose an individual open source project that you want your financial contribution will go toward development. Choices include KDE, Gnome, Kernel, PowerPC port, Sparc port, Alpha port among many others.
AOL and my local cable company don't ask for donations; they have business models that has them provide a product, and people pay in order to get the product.
if you dont subscribe then you want them to run their business more like a Redhat or Suse
Well, there are several collaborative free operating system projects that do not have a commercial tie-in, so it isn't necessary. I just think it would be better if Mandrake declared what they actually want to be: a money-making commercial enterprise, or a community-supported system. I think it's not right to try to be both, because any company that tries to be both is basically just turning volunteer labor into profits.
I don't know anyone who has ever used either of those. Right now they have about as much credibility with the average linux user as Caldera or Turbolinux. Mandrake I think is excellent for new users (I favor Debian and Slackware myself, but I must concede that I figured things out on Red Hat first). Its just as easy to install as something like Corel/Xandros, but the software set is much more standard and up-to-date, and its easier to upgrade. Maybe in the long run commercial distributions in general are doomed, but for now Mandrake fills a useful niche and even though I don't use their distro myself, I might donate to them were I not completely broke.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
Strangely enough, I *just* had a talk with a good friend about my plans on buying a Mac after I graduate and have a little extra money to play with - for the reasons you mentioned above.
No OS I've used is near perfect - I'm going to kill my new karma by saying this, but I'm have a great time with XP. It'll probably end up that Linux is my development OS, Mac is my "office"/other work OS and XP is my game/toy OS.
It's a good time to be playing with computers right now.
Of course, it helps them sell servers and stuff. I'm not talking about IBM, I'm talking about all those hollywood studios, all those .COM's like amazon.com and google.com
The most ironic thing is that Macs now ship with vi factory loaded! vi has to be the program rated most antithetical to the entire "Mac Way".
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
pathetically, I still dont know how to quit vi, hence I use pico :).
Well, the cash portion is only $200K. Giving cash value to the dilution of shareholder value for the $600K stock award is tricky but essentially zer, and I'm sure that the lawyers' fees are at least a few $10K when all is said and done.
So the cash crunch isn't solely due to the name thing.
What I am particularly horrified at is the poor quality of the financial data presented on their web site.
I'm not surprised that they are reduced to begging for money: I wouldn't lend or invest money with them based on those shoddy disclosures.
This is a tiny company with about 100 employees and a few million dollars in sales.
Let's face it, when a sound business is facing a temporary cash crunch, short-term financing is available. That they can't get thaty financing is a signal that they are not a sound business, whatever the quality of their coding might be.
evanchik.net
That's a good one. I suppose you run your website off of IIS on Windows 2000 Advanced Server, eh? Have fun with Code Red, NIMDA, and the others?
Please. Their products might be easier to install, but "vastly better" is a huge stretch. For a desktop system, sure, they've got more software - that's one of the perks of being the monopoly.
Windows XP is such utter shit that I won't even start with it. MacOS X is better in every way that matters to the consumer, and that's really all that I care about. Anyway, have fun with your superior toys. Some of us have real work to do.
This touches on an important point which most of the people posting in this article need to realize: The fact that Mandrake being a company that supports and sells Open Source software is completely irrelevant to the real issue here, which is Economics 101.
There's a market for Linux distros. That's obvious. RedHat's making a profit, Mandrake's on track to. However, that doesn't mean there's a market for all the distros out there that want to make money on packaging, services, and support.
If the market isn't large enough to support all the distros that are in business today, some of them have to go, plain and simple. Either through closing the doors or consolidating with another distro to lower costs. Once that happens (perhaps a few times over), the market will have itself a few distros who can actually operate profitably. And this is a good thing, even if it means we lose some distros!
Sure, Mandrake wouldn't be my first choice to prune from the list, but that's not up to me, or to any of us as individuals, it's up to the market as a whole.
I don't know why anyone feels commercial Linux distros should be treated as though they're special. They're selling a product. They're a business. Yes, they love Open Source, we do to, and we're glad they're here. None of that matters when it comes down to keeping the doors open, because if they can't keep the doors open on their own, the sure as hell aren't going to by panhandling before their userbase. And frankly, I'd rather see just a handful of Linux companies succeed than a whole lot of them scrape by.
The fact is this points out the dichotomy in the 'free'and open source movement - the fact is that giving away things for free is not a good business plan when you have to develop those things. The flaw i see in the GPL is that it encourages people to use other peoples code and incorporate it into their own, this is a wonderfull idea except in the fact that you are trying to make money or stay alive on it alone, then youre in trouble.
I see so many people on here commenting that they dont use mandrake so they wont join, or that they downloaded the software and its free so they wont pay, or even some claiming that corporations they have encouraged to use Open Source should pay.
What sort of hypocrisy do you function under?
Your money goes to helping a company survive, its $5 dollars for christs sake! If you think that the company is in trouble and that doesnt affect you then youre dreaming, what about Loki and the many other open source companies that have gone under, did they affect you ? what will ?
The attack on corporates is even more laughable as im pretty sure in 99% of cases they are the ones who actually purchase boxed software and DONT download it, thus they have already contributed more than you have.
The fact is this should scare all of you - open source is not at this moment in time a viable business plan and that means its dying and the pace is accelerating. Invariably it means that Open source will once again retreat to the dedicated coders and the academic arena and that will mean the death of Linux in corporates and home user environments.
Donating to mandrake is supporting the movement you are part of. I have just joined even though i now use exclusively MS OS'es (issues with some things OSS and Linux wont do NOT a philosphical anti linux position) becuase i think this is something worth saving - there has to be an alternative and its time you all draw a line in the sand.
Support Open Source or find another crusade - anything else makes you a hypocrite of the worst type as you wont put your money where your mouth is (and your heart is supposed to be).
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....
Some people don't like the idea of "donating" to a publically traded company. I tend to think of it not so much a "donation" but rather
1. My thanks to the great work done by the Mandrake developers.
2. My investment in the future. Mandrake developers contribute heavily to Open Source. By giving them money, I invest in the future of Open Source Software. No matter what occurs in the future, their work will always exist for free and open usage. 5 years from now, I wont have to buy it again from a proprietary vendor.
Provide a service to us, or provide a service to other businesses.
Mandrake is giving us the choice, do we want them to be like Redhat? OR do we want them working for us.
If they provide services for us, we have to be their business model, their source of income, if we refuse to do so, they will provide services to people like IBM and other big companies.
Its $5 a month, thats the price of a mc donalds meal which i bet you all eat every day. $5 a month people, I'm supporting transgaming, i'm pretty much broke, but i will support mandrake as soon as i get the money to do so.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
See, now, there's a huge difference between using Windows on a desktop, and Windows on a server. I was offtopic (admittedly) because I was ridiculing Zico for (apparently) using Windows on a server, which I think we can all agree is pretty retarded these days. I still haven't seen the outcome of Microsoft's "full month of focus" on security, have you?
.NET, or join us on the Linux side. The thing is, Microsoft's options just don't make much sense anymore.
As for your "facts" - I still don't quite see exactly what your point is. I understand that Windows is the dominant corporate desktop. It sure didn't get there because it's superior.
It's hard to dispute "facts" when they aren't backing a single coherent point. My point remains that for a server, Windows is ridiculous. For a desktop machine, you should probably buy a Mac, because Apple's offering is actually superior to a new PC with Windows XP. If you're a developer, stick with MS and follow them to
Its called a service. They beg users for handouts because they are actually trying to help the USER. They are giving us the option that Redhat didnt give us.
Would you prefer they offer services only to businesses like Redhat? Please. The begging is for OUR benifit, if you ran the company you would become another Redhat like company and in order to do that, Mandrake cannot be the same Mandrake.
No more forums, no more mandrake expert, in fact no free services at all.
Mandrake would instead force you to pay $60 before you can even access member services, you wouldnt have free services.
So you see, they are giving you the choice right now, if we the users offer them enough money to earn a profit, they'll base a business model around us, if not, they'll deal with businesses, and forget we exsist.
Also Mandrake is no longer based on Redhat, that was 6.1, try using mandrake before you actually talk about how it works.
Mandrake die? They arent in position to die, in fact they are going to profit either way, they are simple giving us the choice, do we want them to profit off of us, or off of businesses.
I mean why should any consumer oriented businesses ever do anything for us if we prove ourselves to be greedy leeches, thats why they are focusing on PDAs and the server market and not the Desktop, or Gaming markets, because we havent PROVEN to them that we will pay.
Well if you want these companies to work for us, then put your money up and force them to work for us.
Its that simple, and just like with transgaming, if you want games in linux you'll subscribe, if you want a good Desktop Linux thats built based on what we want and not so much what businesses want, then you'll pay up.
You have the choice, make your decision.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
But also- there just seems to be something not right with asking directly for support like that, money crunch or no. I mean, support over and above what they produce... even though they do certainly work hard...
As it happens, I DO have a money crunch, and I too have been working my butt off. If you go to ampcast and poke around, you'll find loads of newly remastered stuff all of which is going to have proper CDs available. I understand you can stream stuff just at random- if you register w. the site (I know, but hear me out) you can download it all free and I get a nickel for each DL without you having to pay for it, and if you _rate_ the tunes I can appear on the 'charts' they have- I ask for bad ratings too if that's your honest opinion, it's all feedback and there's somebody to like everything.
Plus (and this is where the money crunch comes from) I've been placing orders for electronic parts. I'm the guy who puts out the GPLed mastering app Mastering Tools (which I use on all my stuff for Ampcast), and I've been building stompboxes and mixers and stuff for over a decade- and I'm onto a design that promises to be a _really_ slick mini-guitar DI that comes in three gain levels. Just a teeny box with two jacks on it, and you control volume from the guitar- the Anti-Line-6-POD- so I'm rationing food because buying 10 project enclosures, 50 .1 polypropylene capacitors, 100 battery clips etc was of course WAY more important. (any true geek would understand this without having to be told ;) )
So yeah- I'm in a money crunch too. But here's the difference: _I_ saved enough money that I can buy cat food, some boring human food, etc. I paid all my bills at the beginning of the month and I completely paid a debt that had to do with a retroactive rent hike.
So I'm not in a threatening money crunch- and I can afford to mouth off and make fun of my own foolish situation because I PLANNED IT and I'll get by even if everyone goes "God, not HIM again!" and scrolls on with an elegant shudder of geeky distaste ;)
But there's a deeper level which I'm not sure if I can express. For starters- I've worked to the brink of RSI on my GPLed Mastering Tools program- but THAT is not for sale. That's free. I've got 7 finished Red Book CDs next to me, which are going to Ampcast to be duplicated on demand, and THOSE are for sale. My business is making them so good, making the packaging and the art and everything so nice that it's _worth_ having a proper one instead of some cloned thing with magic-marker label. I'm trying to make these guitar stompboxes- THAT is tangible, and my efforts of designing them are 'sunk costs' like the coding on Mastering Tools- it's what I can produce that people CAN'T just clone effortlessly, or the ways in which I can at least reward someone's good will (like in buying a CD). I'm OK with people having that good will but nothing I've done or ever will do will entitle me to it, and I refuse to ask for it without also wising off and de-hard-selling it ;)
That said- it is not THAT unreasonable to encourage people to buy Mandrake dists. I'm Mac-based, and I bought the LinuxPPC dist, and kept it even though it didn't work on my main machine. Now I have another old Mac and this one will run it, so it's now installed on one of my machines. But if you asked me to donate money to LinuxPPC- well, I don't know. I'm not sure I like that as a motivation. I sure don't do my OSS work so I can ask for DONATIONS. I do it to make other stuff that I do, better. Then I share that part of the work.
Coincidentally, when I loaded this comment page, the first thing that I saw was a ThinkGeek ad. It's the one about tiny radio-controlled desktop tanks for $58.99 that can play laser tag with each other. I know, because I went STRAIGHT to ThinkGeek to look at them. And if I wasn't in a serious money crunch, that would be terribly compelling- an argument to give money to ThinkGeek because they'd come up with something to sell me that was SO COOL that I just couldn't resist it.
I don't know when or if I'll be on that level- to out-cool tiny robot tanks is quite an order, though my tiny two-jack guitar-amp effect box sounds some of the same notes (miniatureness, elegance, effectiveness, more miniatureness etc), but to me THAT is the area to emulate. That's where Mandrake should be heading... if it is even possible, with a Linux dist. It's just that 'toss a few bucks my way because _I_ am worthy' is a hell of a lot more nebulous than 'toss a few bucks my way and you can have one of THESE'... with the latter, it's a simple question of whether the thing is really cool or not, where with the former it gets into your evaluation of WHY the person is supposed to deserve support when there's a million people out there who deserve to pursue their work without money headaches...
If Mandrake reworded their sentence, it would be a typical AOL style service subscription.
Instead of telling you that you have a choice, simply say "You cannot download the new mandrake 8.2 until you subscribe" Effectively making it capitalism instead of a donation.
Face it, its capitalism either way, however right now its capitalism with a choice, we can choose. Would you rather be forced to pay?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Uhm, you do realize this is Slashdot right?
You're talking to the people that stood up (or sat down, in a dark corner, where they couldn't be seen or beaten) and told their highschool class why Einstein was wrong. Or got involved in a month long heated debate on just how many dies should be rolled for a Grul's Fireball of Kickass.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
AOL does the same fucking thing and i dont see you or anyone else complaining.
You see, AOL provides a service, AOL uses marketing and brainwashing to trick people into paying them. Mandrake is straight forward with people, and being honest about the situation, and everyones saying its begging?!
Ok so mandrake should have DEMANDED $5 a month from you saying "You cannot download Mandrake 8.2 unless you subscribe"
Would you prefer this business model to the current one?
Fucked company? You dont understand the open source business model, its not about selling products, its about providing a service, they write the code for us, we pay them for the service.
Its no diffrent than subscribing to a magazine which you could easily read for free.
All magazines of course are begging for charity and begging people to pay them, however they lie to people and use tricks instead of just asking you to support them.
Capitalism isnt about lying, and using tricks, its about getting people to pay you for your hard work, period.
Whats wrong with us paying Mandrake for their hard work?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
That's a good one. I suppose you run your website off of IIS on Windows 2000 Advanced Server, eh? Have fun with Code Red, NIMDA, and the others?
Why would they cause me any problems? Microsoft came out with patches for the holes well before Code Red and Nimda ever came out. Since you seem baffled by the concept of security patches, I hope nobody ever points you to MacOS X's (or RedHat's, or Debian's, or Solaris's, etc.) security fix pages, because you're likely to faint at how wide open to being rooted your computer has been all this time.
Service based, If thousands of us are willing to subscribe they wont need to sell anything.
Cant you see whats going on? If 10,000-20,000 people subscribe they wont need to sell any CDs at all, they'll be set, we will be their busineess model.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The point is that many Windows people will turn to Linux to find out how good "free" can be. They don't understand RMS yet. They don't understand the distinction between different "free" definitions. Can't blame them. It takes a little while for that kind of paradigm shift. Anyways, a typical Windows user has been lulled into such comfort that he doesn't have a hope of installing any Linux distro except maybe Mandrake. And now it seems to be going commercial like they perceive the Open/Free/Linux crowd says is so evil. I'm not saying this pereception is correct, but I believe it will happen and may be hard for a newbie to understand. Anyways, so perhaps they'll turn to something truly non-commercial like Debian, say, and have a really rough time at it and then just give up on Linux. Perhaps. I truly hope not. Just throwing out a prediction here and some reasoning behind it.
Very simple.
We'd prefer to bring in more revenue. We'd hate to have to change our business model to waste less money.
Oh, its not waste? Then why are we not profitable?
Oh, its R&D? This will pay off later? Is the CEO and other officers taking a significant paycut to help through these rough times?
This is just a MONEY CRUNCH.... nothing more. just buy more of our games and we're SURE to recover..... oh wait... my bad.. this is Mandrake, not Loki.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
They are paying redhat, so yes they are going to use linux for free.
If you pay for Mandrake you'll be able to decide what mandrake has, mandrake wont develop software for hollywood, and hollywood will go to redhat.
Or you can not pay a dime and let mandrake taylor their OS for hollywood and others who will pay
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
AOL is making a fortune, so is redhat. Its not because people buy copies of AOL software, or people buy Redhat, its because of the services they provide.
Open Source is about services, not selling information.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
If Mandrake can't afford to continue to pay developers to maintain free software, then someone else will maintain that free software - if the community cares enough about that software, that is.
It's survival of the fittest, in more ways than one.
Anyways, I don't believe in corporate welfare. Let them eat cake.
Fortunately most people in the community are not dead inside like yourself. It would indeed be despiriting if that was the case. When I go to a party I may not help with the cooking, I tend to avoid doing the clearing up, but at least I pitch in a generous amount of drinks. That's my contribution. Someone else who can't afford to buy drinks but is a great cook can make just as valuable contribution. It wouldn't be much of a party if everyone just turned up empty handed, tried to raid the house owners private wine collection, and then made off with the furniture.
Contrary to current belief, a company does not just have to be about making as much profit as possible. If an Open Source company can stay afloat then it's a success. The employees get to do something they really enjoy and believe in, and the user base gets far more time put into the software they want to use. And don't suggest that by just staying afloat it's not going anywhere. A great legacy of code being built up. I hope plenty of users contribute to keep Mandrake's run going. It's by far the best distro imho.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
instead of enriching those who use the world for support.
I am no longer running Mandrake on any of my computers, but it was the best distro I've come across (only missing apt-get). The installer eased me into the world of linux, diskdrake is lightyears ahead of fdisk, and the command center is sorely missed in other distros. I never would have been able to learn linux without their help. An encrypted filesystem might be enough to convince me to upgrade to a supported video card and give Mandrake a fourth (lifetime... the other three have been given away) computer.
Mandrake, and community software, are like public television... They do philanthropic deeds for many people, but philanthropy is never profitable. They need money? I own a box set, and I haven't had an income in 5 months, but Mandrake is worth it to me. Count my Donation.
The ______ Agenda
So, in effect I'm paying them to keep doing what they're doing (service). As opposed to the proprietary model where I'd pay a company to not share their software with anyone else who hasn't paid.
FWIW, I tip at restaurants, too. Even if it means someone who doesn't tip gets their food brought to them and I end up (by some measures) subsidizing a for-profit waiter...
Just joined ..
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Let me put it straight: we shall never endorse other people's pet projects or stupid businesses. Mandrake is a for-profit company, yet it begs for donations.
Have they did *everything* in order to survive as a regular business? Certainly not.
A business entity like theirs have mainly three departments: marketing/sales, development, and support.
Marketing & Sales Dept. shall remain where is located (i.e., France). After all it is the core of the company. No comments to be made about them
But...
Support Dept. and also Development Dept. employs most of the 100-member crew of MandrakeSoft, while still being located in France. That's hardly a sound business decision, since moving out those operations in a lower-cost country will save them lots of badly-needed funds. I'm Romanian and I cand say having an excellent Linux dev here cost about 800 US Dollars all taxes included!!! We have high-speed Internet, we have PCs, we have everything an IT company might need. And the same conditions (costs may vary) can be found in Bulgaria, Russia or Ukraine. Same conditions but almost double the salaries can be found in Hungary, Czech Republic or Poland. Same conditions as in Romania/Bulgaria/Russia/Ukraine can be found in India but the travel costs will be rather big.
My point is any intelligent company shall try pro-actively find lower-cost resources, and MandrakeSoft do not run their business this way. Most of their running costs come from Development and also from Support, which can be confidently moved out in Eastern Europe (where English literacy is bigger than in Western Europe, BTW).
Siemens, Alcatel, Motorola, Microsoft are doing R&D, Development, Support in Romania (I'm insisting on Romania simply because living there I know it better). Why MandrakeSoft are not willing to behave like a responsible business?
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
To me that sounds more like a bad attitude than anything... Caffiene in the morning usually helps.
Now on one level you are correct. Free software can and may be maintained and passed along to whom-ever. One person stops working on a project, another can and will take over if the project dictates it, and / or the project deserves it.
BUT,
A project as large as Linux Mandrake, to think that they can just shut their doors, and someone like yourself can just step in and pick up where it all was left off, the projects, the production, the distribution on a project of this size... you're dreaming.
And to not support a project that has given so much to the Linux community? We all like free "as in beer" software. I like to use the code and learn from it... But you need to think bigger. Think past your own dorm room... Or office in my case....
Don't we all want Linux to grow? Hasn't Mandrake done so much for the Linux Desktop community? Yes, and yes!
If we let a project such as this fail, because you can't scrounge in your cushions for $5, even for just one month of dues, then what exactly to we stand for?
I can make free software, you can make free software, but even together we could not make Linux Mandrake.
Free as in beer is great, but we all need to support what we love. Either in $$ in times of need, or bug reports to make it better, and if you're too cheap to do both, at least recommend it to your friends.
Until I get a call from another company asking if they can send me the document in kword.... I'm going to give support, and push others into supporting them.
Finished Ranting... Back to my Coffee....
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
If anyone is a current or past club member, could you give us some comments on the benefits of joining the mandrake user club? They claim "Club-only download of commercial applications normally only available in retail products" Is there anything useful there?
I'm sorry to see them in a pinch like this-- I have purchased a couple of versions of their distro in the past, and had planned on buying 8.2 when it arrived. I don't want to just hand a commercial company money, though-- if they need the revenue, they need to make it worthwhile for people to subscribe.
I can just see Linux torvalds and the OPEN SOURCE TELETHON!
Pledge $400 and recieve this great Linux Penguin Doll!
Pledge $1,000 and get this great boxed set of RedHat 7.2!
I'm not going to bother getting pissed off about your "baffled by the concept" insult, but I will just say this. All I need to do to stay reasonably secure on a Debian machine is run 'apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade'. This keeps me up-to-date, safe, and happy. And, in the event that it isn't enough, I actually do grok the idea of disabling ports and services that I'm not using.
Doesn't it bother you that the vendor who issues your service packs doesn't bother to test to see if they work with their own software?
Aside from Microsoft's extremely shitty security record, which is reason enough to avoid them, I'd rather not have to deal with their instability. Not to mention the fact that I hate having to reboot (at least) four times just to get the damned OS installed. Not to mention updated, patched, and secured well enough that I can sleep soundly.
I'm glad to hear that you keep your machines patched. I'm also glad that I don't have to inform my clients about operating-system related downtime, since it doesn't happen. To each his own.
Mandrake should offer to sell share directly from the web page. DRIPS - Direct Reinvestment Plan. Basically they sell the shares to us (directly from their website) we buy them, they cut out the middle man, make it easier for us to buy, we benefit by not paying outrageous broker fees (especailly for overseas), and they benefit with capital. All of a sudden these new shareholders have a vested interest in the company, a vested interest in $$$$$!
Mandrake has a more vested interest in keep us happy, and will cut back if needed on high over-head. If that is not possible, then the share holders would be happy to give more.
And maybe, just maybe, we both could make a profit when Microsoft announces that it was Mandrake and the OpenSource community that put them into chaper 11
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
That's exactly why I just joined a few minutes ago. I'd rather buy their stock, but it's very hard and expensive to get in the US. I bought the $600/yr membership to help in tough times, then I'll probably drop it to $120/yr after this year. They make a great product and put full time developers onto open source projects. It's money well spent.
I think a few thousand dollars of their stock would be a better investment (long term) and would give them much more money. Plus I'd get a return on investment years later, besides all the free software. It's really too bad their stock is difficult to purchase in the US.
Developers: We can use your help.
Mandrake is not begging for money...they are requesting that users enroll in their membership service which (as I understand it) supplies tech support. This is a far cry from "I'm bleeding, give me money, please", which is how this request is being portrayed. It makes perfect sense for Mandrake to go to its user base and ask for help before turning to more draconian means of freeing capital.
The reason this makes perfect sense is because if they have to start killing projects or trimming the work-force, it is the user base that will suffer. Oops, no more diskdrake. "Hey what happened to drakconfig?"
Open source software is not about getting something for nothing. The "Free" refers to freedom, not $0. That doesn't mean its a crime to dl your distro for free, but why not reciprocate with patch submissions, ideas, or, giving $ where you can. I think that's what it's about.
If we as Open Source advocates don't pull together, we will be split apart. Heavy hitters with virtually unlimited resources are training their gun-sights on the community.
--
"I'm don't know exactly what an AS/400 is, but I'm pretty certain I wouldn't want one up my ass" --Lou
This is a limited time offer so call now. Operators are standing by. Miss Chloe knows you want to call.
This might seem silly, but why doesn't IBM sign up 8000 of their employees to the members group? $40k isn't much of a hit on someone 'dedicated to Linux's future' and they'd gain tons of loyalty for helping out the little guy when he needed it.
Homer: Hello, I'd like to pledge $10,000 to get them to shut up.
Oh, why did I sign up for InstaTrace?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
No more free services.
No Mandrake forum.
No support or help services that are free.
No free download of Linux Mandrake on their servers.
No extensive help files.
No programmers working on KDE or the Linux Kernel.
The reason they are in a cash crunch is because they are supporting us and the community.
By proving to them we arent proftiable (by not paying them) they will simple stop providing all these free services, and this would get them out of the cash crunch.
If you were running their company, there wouldnt have been free services to begin with, what you'd have is a typical caldara, turbo linux or suse.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
One of the upper management DID charge to his credit card at one point so that they could make payroll.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Somehow I get the impression that the same sort of plea for help would be derided pretty quickly if it came from a company like Apple or Compaq.
"We're working on the new version of Tru64, and it's got some really wonderful new feature, but we're really in sort of a crunch right now. If you join this club, you'll pay us 60 dollars and we'll email you naked pictures of Carly from the last merger meeting. And, uh, you'll get the satisfaction of helping a deserving for-profit corporation. Yeah."
--saint
I suggest that you take into consideration the importance of the so-called "distributions" to Linux's ultimate and hopeful success. Because the Linux system's development is primarily driven by a bunch of hackers doing it part time and for fun, it is very important to have some entity assembling all of these packages, in their various states of disorder, full time as a cohesive body into something that at least resembles an Operating System as thought of by most consumers.
Unfortunately, the community's overwhelming choice of the GPL license leaves little, if any, viable avenues for revenue for those that expend the kind of energy necessary to create the distributions. Furthermore, on the other end, the non-profits entities have shown a lack of ability to produce what the consumers demand. For instance, Debian may be good enough for those in the computing industry, but they're not the ones that really make things come together to the extent that the average consumer needs. As insufficient as these "charity" requests on Mandrake's part are, they may be quite reasonable as a temporary remedy in light of the facts, i.e., the imposition of the GPL on those that provide (some of) the necessary missing pieces, at least if you're a proponent of free software for its own sake.
Although I personally feel that all the distributions are all fundamentally weak and will ultimately prevent Linux from ever gaining substantial footing on the desktop, their importance is nonetheless critical to what little success Linux can hope to enjoy. In lieu of a truely viable alternative, the believers have no other choice. They may allow Mandrake to die, but what about when SuSe, Redhat, and all others that add value cave into these same kind of problems? At its core, they all have the same fundamental problem and it will ultimately catch up to all of them to varying degrees.
There was a way to take the money being donated to or VC'd to all of these different distributions and somehow take the value added features (easy install, hardware detection, control panel, etc... etc.. etc..) and merge these changes into Debian. This is not a plug for Debian from a usibility standpoint, but a plug from a reality and longevity standpoint. All of these distributions very existence other than Debian rely on the almighty $$$ to further their life. Each day is a tightrope -- will this company be able to distribute security patches, or even make payroll??? -- who knows, it's a crapshoot....The ironic thing is that the best examples of utter finacial failure have been distributions that were built upon debian. This is NOT rpm VS. apt --- this is community VS. commercial .... and it is proven that when the dust settles, the community remains, and the commercial is liquidating assets, missing payroll, and guest starring on fuc*&dcompany.... HOW MANY commercial distributions have to go under before the masses realize that the best way to market a free product is to keep it free. And for those of us that want to pay -- we will learn to send our money somewhere where it is building on the future of Linux -- and not to pay for another week of life for a choking commercial product...that may not be gone in a month -- but most likely will not be able to supply you a security patch in 6 months....
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Yes times are hard. 20 developers worked for me before the "recession". 15 work now. The herd has been culled....The 5 that have parted were OK developers -- but then again, I am an OK driver -- does that make me eligible to be a professional race car driver??? -- most likely not. It would be hard for me to believe that the economy is so bad that the professionals are looking for work. I see different -- the professionals are as busy as ever....The amateur's and recent grads with no work history may be hurting a bit...But thats what "culling the hurd" means.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
They are asking people to sign up for their service. You give them $5 a month, they give you benefits. How is this a "donation/contribution?"
C'mon, their so-called "service" is lame. Chat with developers? Gimme a break. Maybe a couple of the bullet items they listed are ok (discounts on hardware). But the primary reason (they even say it is #1) is that you're supporting development -- that isn't paying for a service, that is making a donation!
The Daily Build
All this BS can easily be avoided if people just realised that its OK to charge for a software product! It's OK to pay developers to develop software! Stop convincing people that they can have everything for free. A modest charge of $30 for the base OS and $10-$30 for modest software $50 for larger and people would WANT to pay for it! It's the $300 for an OS and $500 for software that's the problem. Make it cheap and valuable! I for one would LOVE to pay quality software. And I'd love even more to keep my fucking job! (thank you very much)
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Oh yeah, since you use Mandrake but don't want to give them a donation do the next best thing - BUY SOME STOCK.
What Mandrake needs right now is a CASH INFUSION. Unless you purchase stock directly from the company you are not giving your cash to the company. I don't know if it is possible to directly purchase from the company; one of the benefits of membership was direct stock purchase, so I'm assuming that you can't make a direct purchase unless you buy a membership. If you buy shares on the open market, your cash is going to the person who sold you his shares, not to the company!
The Daily Build
Redhat is a corperate distro, Mandrake is for Desktop users
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I joined the Mandrake Club a couple of weeks ago after realizing that they had saved me from buying yet another version of Windoze and putting up with Redmond's hegemony. The fact that Mandrake installed and ran flawlessly also figured into the decision.
I figured that I would be spending lots of money not only for the windoze OS but for the antivirus products and other crap required to keep it running. At that point, joining and, for that matter, buying some stock is enlightened self interest. Someday I hope to contribute to open source but for now, I will contribute money for true value received and feel good about my investment and what it will give me in the future.
IBM sells Linux servers, it fits perfectly within its business plan. Of course they're gonna invest in it.
Problem with 8.1 was that our kernel team kept telling "yeah, supermount will be ready, don't worry", and we trusted them. So, supermount wasn't ready, and we had to get it out of the distro in the last minute, which resulted in the lack of the devices links under KDE and GNOME.
This time PPC version will be finished
shortly after the i686 version.
FYI, we decided to skip every second release
with PPC, in order to spare a bit on developement costs.
That's why there has been no 8.1 version, there will be 8.2 version, and we'll (probably) skip the next release again.
As a SuSE user, you aren't one of the people
this is directed to, and I really
don't think you should give any money to Mandrakesoft.
Not that I would mind it if you do, but what's the point in paying for something you don't use?
IBM doesn't give a s* about mandrakesoft.
They have their "favorites", and they take
good care of these companies: RH, SuSE, TurboLinux.
I think folks at IBM would be quite happy to see Mandrakesoft gone.
I'm not talking about a payoff. What got Linux to the point that it was pre-VC interest? There was a good deal of time between 90 and 97, and a lot of work occurred. I'm not speaking about companies making a profit. I'm talking about the massive contribution of hobbyists.
Most paid OS developers, aside from the distros, are developing in certain areas that help their products. If SUN needs x functionality from their next big iron server to sell the hardware, and the easiest way of adding that functionality is to pay someone to hack GNU code, then that's what they'll do.
I was protesting the original post claiming that most OS hackers hope to get something in return for their efforts. Significant contributions of the big boys aside, I think the bulk of the reason for Linux' success lies with the little guys, who all work day-jobs.
I'm not a blind OpenSource devotee. For common home-officie tasks, I use Windows, because in all honesty there is no reason to type a paper or surf the web or play a game on Linux unless you're just interested in *doing it on Linux*
And I didn't get the implication of your last paragraph. They left the VC funded "foosball and pizza" companies with dollar signs in their eyes and got kicked in the ass? If you left a startup for the promise of an eventual payoff and got punished, wouldn't that be contrary to your argument?
Ahhh well... goodnight
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!