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Mandrake Clarifies its Future
fabiolrs writes "Mandrake Linux has an article in response to the message they sent on march 11th. They claim that because of user help they are "cash-flow positive"! That is great news since Linux community is now sure it will continue using one of the nicest distros available!"
"That is great news since Linux community is now sure it will continue using one of the nicest distros available!"
I agree that the Mandrake installer is nice, but I think when you compare installed systems instead of installers, you just can't get any easier or better than Debian.
Keeping your system current takes only two commands (apt-get update, apt-get dist-upgrade). If you need a graphical apt tool, then I would suggest Synaptic.
The linked article mentions that selling Mandrake company shares directly to users isn't feasible for a couple of reasons, but if Mandrake hypothetically got a wild hair and decided to do an offering in the U.S. what kind of hoops would they have to jump through setting it up?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Although this is good news, does this not curb the "free" aspect? i.e look at this wonderful free OS, but we cant keep it going unless the users pay for it.. I know, at least the payments are done out of "love" for the OS and not simply forced upon a user, but still, I find it kind of funny and ironic. For all the hate that goes towards marketing people etc etc, I think they are needed to sell Linux to the main stream, no matter how good a coder you are, or how good the product is, Geeks dont make good sales people. No matter if it costs money or not, you still have to sell the idea of Linux.
Laptop Reviews
I totally disagree with you! :-) In my IT environment I can see more and more companies using Mandrake. You know, Windows 2000 is very focused on the desktop, but companies use it as a server ;-) This is the advantage of Mandrake: it's solid and reliable, which is needed for servers use, and it's very friendly as well, which is needed for a large adoption. I think you should have a look at Mandrake Business Cases to see how much Mandrake is used in the industry.
I'm a Red Hat user since 5.1. Red Hat was my first, and for the most part only, experience I've have with Linux.
At the risk of being labeled a troll, I have a genuine question: If I were to try out a new distro with my next build, what are my advantages in switching to Mandrake? How many people feel Mandrake is an upgrade? I'm interested in desktop use for the most part. I want maximum compatability, and Mardrake has a Red Hat legacy.
I also am aware that Mandrake is regarded by many as a "newbie" distro, and I am interested in progressing in my knowledge. What is a good "power distro" that features the advantages of Red Hat or Mandrake's distros?
I've seen, and tried to install, other Linux distributions, but I keep coming back to Mandrake's product. Right now, if it weren't for all of the great games in Windows, I'd be using Linux exclusively at home. Mozilla runs great, XMMS is up to par, sound, networking, video, graphics - they all exist on Linux, and from my experience, when configured correctly, run twice as fast as the Windows bloatware. Even my "Word" documents saved in the OpenOffice 641 format are 2-5 times smaller in size than the actual MS Word format!
You may ask, well what has it *actually* cost you to learn and run Linux? - Answer: A lot of time reading How-To's (which I love to do), a lot of time configuring the OS (which I love to do), and a cable broadband connection @ $44.95/mth (which I'd be using in Windows anyways). Free? Not exactly. Fun? For me, absolutely.
As someone who is "subscribed" to another "club"(www.transgaming.com) of the same sort - I can say that as long as positive
things are happening and progress is being made people will continue to pay.
Over at Transgaming over the past month there has been a lot of grumbling (read as people saying they are going to unsubscribe) because everyone wants release 2.0 - So the developers had to put a little more time into quieting the masses by giving regular reports about what is being worked on (I use the term "regular" loosely as TG still doesn't have this totally under control). And because of this almost all of the original subscribers are still there - because there is a feeling of progress.
If Mandrake ever ceases to progress - that is the point where people will begin jumping ship. Up until that point I am sure that the club members will feel as if their money is well spent.
Derek
Mandrake pushed the User-Club as a short-term solution to being mismanaged last year. Currently they are under much better management, and now that they're no longer in the red I believe they're clear of immediate danger.
I'm puzzled... Mandrake are saying that it's an innovative idea to offer more stuff in return for more money.
Before you get the troll stick out, go and read their statement. That's exactly what they say. That people were buying the box set (instead of downloading) just to give them funds, and this is a better method than that "charity purchase" because it gives more benefits to the purchaser.
You ever see that Dilbert strip where Dogbert is explaining the basics of economics to a .com startup?
Sounds to me like Mandrake has just discovered the basics. Sell stuff. Offer more stuff the more money you pay. Tell your customers that they're partners, because that way they're more inclined to pay (in this case, it's actually true, but the point it that it's still standard marketing spin, and business types are comforted by familiar mantras).
Hurrah for Mandrake. I've been thinking for a while now that we could do with fewer commercial Linux distros, and better concentration of funds. I'm a SuSE user (and purchaser), but really, I don't mind who gets the money, as long as we get a few sustainable businesses out of it that we can all donate to/buy from - and get our employers to buy from - with a degree of confidence that they'll still be there next year to offer support.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It's quite early to declare that this isn't sustainable and the early indications are contrary to your declaration.
Maybe it will be. Instead of discounting Mandrake's efforts to stay true to a culture of giving...why not applaud them for innovating. They deserve credit for this.
A lot of people keep saying this, but what on Earth does that mean? It seems to me that people just want Mandrake to conjure up something (boxed sets, support, etc.) and slap a price tag on it. I don't think this is necessarily any better than getting "donations" from users, other than the fact that businesses prefer fixed payments up front.
The word "donations" is misleading anyway. I'll bet most people who send money to Mandrake are themselves Mandrake users, who consider the money not a donation, but a form of belated payment. I myself use Mandrake Linux, and am considering joining the Mandrake Club (whatever it's called). I certainly don't mind paying. I was never under the illusion that Linux distributions are truely free (in that they require money and manpower to produce).
In conclusion, I think getting donations (aka belated payments) from users is a perfectly fine survival plan. As for business plans, well, I don't know.
There's also "American Mandrake", commonly called the mayapple.
I sometimes tried keeping a few of the roots, bruised, on a shelf in my closet, when i was having trouble sleeping. The fumes brought on deep, but often wierd, sleep.
Let's see here:
1. I still can't play Shockwave files with Mandrake installed "out of the box"
- Nor can anyone else on any linux distribution. Get the crossover plugin and you might have luck. Flash is the only native plugin available to linux from Macromedia.
2. I still have to resort to the command line when installing apps like OpenOffice
- Since when is this Mandrake's problem? Talk to the openoffice people.
3. I still have to resort to using LinNeighbourhood as Mandrake won't see my user account exported from a Linux box via Samba
- Again this seems like a KDE problem and not Mandrake's
4. CTRL+C and CTRL+V still doesn't work flawlessly between applications from different Desktop Environments (i.e. KDE and Gnome)
- yet another "talk to the actual application developer
5. I still have to manually configure mime types in Evolution to make it use Galeon instead of Mozilla
- So you decided to use Galeon over Mozilla which Mandrake happily preconfigured as the handler for those file types? Sounds like a you problem. I personally don't WANT galeon to overwrite my mime settings. Isn't that one of the pains in the ass under windows is that every app under god's nutsack want's to be your default handler?
6. I still have to manually configure Mozilla setup a minimum font size so that I don't get those stupid fonts that are so small that they are unreadable
- I'll give you this one. Why can't distro providers preinstall mozilla-fonts and set those as the default. Then again, maybe you like your fonts bigger than most.
7. I still have to re-configure mime types so that when I click an m3u (MP3 playlist) in Galeon, it uses xmms
- Sounds like another case of you just wanting to be a little different. Not a problem mind you but Mandrake (and any other distro for that matter) have to make a stand somewhere. This is our default config. We can help you with some stuff but not others. Hence the support subscriptions.
8. And of course I still can't edit Microsoft Word documents with 100% accuracy, despite all the crowing that goes on about OpenOffice, StarOffice, KDE Office and the others
- So this isn't a mandrake problem either. It sounds like an OpenOffice,StarOffice,KDE Office and the others problem.
Having said all that, I still fail to see what your problem with mandrake is? I don't personally use it but everything you've listed is not related to mandrake by any stretch.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
When an investment house floats an IPO and gives the IPOing company millions of dollars, it's not called charity because they expect a direct return on their investment greater than the invested money. The same when I buy copies of RedHat or sign up for subscriptions. I'm investing in the future of the software I use. I expect greater returns in terms of usable software than the money I put in. If I didn't put this money in, I would not get the software I wanted because it would stop being made.
It's not charity. Charity is an investment in the world around you that you expect no direct repayment for. You expect some sort of vague repayment in that if you make your society a better one somehow, you will reap those benefits too, but there's no way to determine an ROI in any reasonable sense.
The money I give to RedHat has a direct ROI. I'm getting something measurable for my money. Sure, I _may_ get some of that value if I don't invest, but if nobody invested no value would be created, and I'd be much worse off than I was before.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
(see next post "I just joined..") I can't say anything about your posting(s) on Mandrake, but it sounds a bit extreme to boot you for what you said above (I would like to hear Mandrake's take on booting you). Actually I agree with you on this. But I still feel joining is worthwhile. Hopefully Mandrake will learn from this for the future.
Gizmos Gagets For Ninjas
I must respectfully disagree. I haven't used either OSX or WXP yet, but so far KDE blows the socks off of Win95/98/NT/2k in terms of user friendliness, usability and functionality.
I've used everything *but* Windows for the past twenty years. CPM, 44BSD, DOS, GeoWorks, OS/2, Linux, FreeBSD. But recently I've started using it. There were some games I wanted to use, and they're also making me use it at work now and then. Frankly, it sucks.
Most people who say Unix/Linux/BSD is too hard say so because they are used to Windows and not used to Unix. My situation is the opposite. I'm used to Unix but not to Windows. Windows is hard to use. It's inconsistant. It's clunky.
I can install most Linuces and every BSD with one single reboot at the end of the process. I can rebuild every piece of software except the kernel and never have to reboot. I upgraded from FreeBSD 4.4 to 4.5 with one reboot, and that included a fresh partitioning and format of the harddrive. Try that under Windows. I did a Windows install a couple of weeks ago and I had to reboot four times. Afterwards I had to reboot forevery driver and program I installed. This is ridiculous.
Under XFree86 I have to tell it what video card and monitor I have. That's easy. Under Windows it won't let you specify what your hardware is. It must guess instead. And it kept guessing wrong.
And configuration! Don't talk to me about ease of use until you've tried to configure a Windows system without knowing WindowsSpeak. Why do they hide all the necessary configuration stuff under layers and layers of badly designed dialogs? Why must it keep resetting all the values I type in by hand? Why can't they use plain English instead of their stupid euphemisms for god knows what? And what they hell's the difference between the hostname and the machine name, and is a group name the same as a domain name? Gah!
Finally, the desktop. Gnome and KDE win hands down. Frankly, the Windows desktop is a piece of shit. Windows under Windows won't snap to the edge or to other windows. You can't send them to the bottom of the window stack with a single mouse click. You don't have window rollups. You can't maximize vertically or horizontally. You don't have multiple desktops. Hell, it can't even display a JPG wallpaper without firing up an instance of Internet Explorer!
A few months ago my employer decided to standardize on Outlook. So our engineering department all got new PCs with Win2K installed next to their Solaris Sparc workstations. What a horrowshow! People who could write kernel drivers in their sleep couldn't figure this Windows thing out. The rest of the company looked at us like we were idiots because we didn't know what to do. IT was flabbergasted because we were asking questions they had never heard before.
"How do I ssh to stomper from Windows?"
"How do I enable plaintext in Outlook?"
"How do I turn on command completion in the DOS shell?"
"Where's vi, emacs, gcc, pine..."
"How do I get a static IP like I've got on my Sparc?" "You don't need one." "Then how to I log on remotely to my PC?" "Why would you want to?" "Because I might be in the lab." "Aargh! Why can't you guys be like everyone else and just do what you're told!"
I guess that's the big difference right there. Windows users are content with being told what to do. Unix users are only content if they are in charge of their system. Maybe Windows is user friendly to sheep, but it ain't user friendly to most other species.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned