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Mandrake Appealing to Community, Again

Posted by michael on from the maxing-out-the-credit-cards dept.

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."

4 of 569 comments (clear)

  1. Boxed Sets by xombo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I remember my first Linux Distro... It was Mandrake 6.0. It is the best one I've ever used, for it's bare-bones Red Hat compatability and ease of use. They are missing the boat by trying to compete with people like Red Hat because they know they can't steal Red Hat users. RH users are dedicated to RH and usually revere Mandrake as child's play. Mandrake needs to re-evaluate their position and make themselves a Linux for the working man who doesn't have the time to sit around for hours making it work.

  2. Yeah its sad and all.. by antis0c · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But why continue to throw money into toilet? It's already started flushing man, get out while you can. When a company begins a downward spiral like this, the first instinct it to start throwing some money into it, putting out fires here and there. However the damage is too much and without a huge investment, and I'm talking more than the Slashdot community could ever raise, its going to continue all the way down.

    A second point to be made in this is Mandrake is a company. When they start begging for money like this to save the company, I want to see a plan. I want to know how my money is going to help. What they have is way to vague.

    Our current cash needs are approximately 4ME ($4M USD). This level of cash infusion would resolve outstanding debts, cover the expenses needed to become profitable, plus secure an extra amount to satisfy the needs of future growth.

    What kind of outstanding debt? Is my money going to pay for those 1,500 dollar Aeron chairs the executes who are already being paid 6 digit salary are sitting in? Is it to cover "corporate meetings" held at the Sheraton or some other overly expensive restraunt? Those are the things that bother me the most. I'd be more than glad to help a company that is going under due to the pressure of the market, but I want to know why they got to where they are now. Is it because of a sincere inability to raise profit and lower required expenses? Or is it because the executives demanded fresh squeezed juices while they sit back in an Aeron chair.

    I'm not saying Mandrake is like that, but I know plenty of companies that are to be overly cautious about investing any money into a company about to go bankrupt.

    --

    ..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
  3. You people are incredible by WankersRevenge · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I got the karma to burn and after dealing with a very crashy server, I got the angst to burn as well.

    I swear . . . you people amaze me. You cry a river over Palladium and litter these message boards with cheers when some country decides to go Linux. You hate Microsoft - yet - when the most user friendly desktop distro is in financial trouble - you scorn them. I mean - wtf? If you believe in the cause and a major leader is having problems - you help them out. You help them out not because you want something in return, you help them out to keep the movement alive. And don't give me this market philosphy bullshit either. If you really believe that shit, stick with MS.

    I swear you people are incredible. You cry so much about the DRM thing yet you make it invetiable by turning your back on Mandrake. You're just proving to everybody (including the RIAA, MPAA) that you just want a free lunch. Nothing else. Nothing more.

    Go ahead - flame me to death and knock me down to the -1 country. I don't give a shit.

  4. It couldn't be the business model could it? by fmaxwell · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Let's see if I understand this:
    1. Mandrake gives away their primary product to anyone who has a fast enough connection to download it.
    2. Every year, more and more people get a fast enough connection to download it.
    3. The number of copies that they sell in retail packages is already too low to cover their expenses.

    Yeah. Sounds like a real solid business model.
    Reality:
    • Most people will find a way to rationalize why they should keep their money whenever possible. (Just look at all of the people that think it's okay to cheat on their taxes.)
    • People like to get bargains. Very few people would want to pay money for an OS when their friends downloaded it for free.
    • The majority of people who claim to be part of the "open source community" are just leeches who want free software. They don't contribute code, money, testing, documentation, or anything else.

    Mandrade could make money selling distros by following the OpenBSD model, copyrighting the ISO images and not making them available for download. Alternatively, they could write proprietary installers and configuration tools that are not open source, witholding those from people that download the OS components. What they have now is a losing business model that will only get worse as more and more people have access to broadband.