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Mandrake Appealing to Community, Again
An anonymous reader writes "It seems that MandrakeSoft's short-term financial problem is worse than was thought. A new page on the Mandrake web site says: 'Everyone who is concerned with the company's future is encouraged to read and distribute the following message. In order to reach the next release, MandrakeSoft currently needs to raise cash, and quickly complete the Increase of Capital.' Darn, and I thought they were almost over this hump. Looks like a good time to help recruit Mandrake supporters for the Club."
509 Pepperidge Ln
San Antonio, TX 78213
rawr!
Mandrake 8.1 beta (I think) showed pictures of the developers and office during the install process.
..
From what the pictures showed they looked like a small outfit with nothing really fancy -- it looked like an older office, the chairs looked comfy but reasonable and the computers also looked average.
It would be a big shame to loose Mandrake. They have several developers that work full-time on open source projects and nothing else -- in other words they contribute solely to the projects and nothing value-added for Mandrake.
For instance, looking through the kernel ChangeLogs Mandrake recently added a lot to the network drivers' mii interfaces so that mii-tool would work properly with more network cards. Little things like this make a big difference but no one ever notices. .
Are you trying to be a troll? If this is a serious question, go look at fsf.org . It should suffice to say that there would probably be no Mandrake distribution without their work.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
In spite of the very unfortunate way MandrakeClub is "advertised" (ahem), MandrakeClub is not a charity, but a service.
I am in charge of MandrakeClub, and i have worked very hard for last 12 months to build that place into something really special.It isn't finished yet, but it is indeed on a good way to become by far the best "service" for private users and small companies.
I wan't bother you with the details (as if someone would care to read anyway), but there is a whole bunch of people there who are really happy to be Club members today, so I must have done something right after all.
I know that everyone on Slashdot is telling you that Club is no-good, but maybe you should just go there once, and try to build your own meaning.
OK, it wan't be a very excitiong trip (site is not made for anonymous users, and it is in fact even quite unfriendly towards them), but maybe you could still get a feeling that it isn't "just charity" by browsing trough FAQs, and looking at the discussion in the "future" forum on MandrakeClub.