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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."
I am a 31 year old male virgin and I really, really need to lose my virginity this year. At this point I don't care if you're a guy or the world's skankiest geekette. If you are willing to finally make me a man, please reply to this post with your address. I'll fly over next week.
IMO, Mandrake is about to get thinned from the herd. And it'll be too bad, since they've provided a lot of leadership in terms of desktop Linux, but I think we're all a lot more realistic about business realities than we were a few years ago.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
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.
"Please help these needy software developers. Your donation can get a Linux developer a brand new system, a 100 gig SCSI drive, or maybe a clean t-shirt. For the cost of a Mountain Dew you can give a developer some Mountain Dew to develop trivial new Linux applications you might not ever use or understand. Is that too much to ask for a command-line driven utility?"
For each Linux developer you sponsor, you will recieve a 45K JPEG portrait, and a monthly email detailing his progress."
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'
By my watch, with the amount of money that Mandrake has already spent, they should have the absolute best commercial distribution of Linux available. There should be no question as to the performance of Mandrake compared to any other commercial version. They should be kicking ass and taking names. Unfortunately, the only ass they're kicking is the collective behind of the Linux community, and the only names they're taking are followed by credit card numbers.
Meanwhile, we're a non-profit company that produces the absolute best-of-class general-purpose audio compression codec in the world, proprietary or otherwise. We've been through recessions and poor economic times before; Hopefully we'll live through this one, too. Everybody and their brother has a Linux distribution; Why don't you support the smaller projects that actually make a difference?
Emmett Plant
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation
509 Pepperidge Ln
San Antonio, TX 78213
rawr!
If you like Mandrake and believe in Linux then the only way to show it is by actually supporting the products to believe are valuable. Free software, unless you mean free-beer, doesn't alleviate the producers of a product or service from the realities of economics. If you do not believe Mandrake is viable, despite liking their products, then don't purchase a MandrakeClub membership or box. If you do believe in the products, then support them.
I've got a shiny new Mandrake 9 PowerPack, and I'm happy with it. I've replaced MS Office with StarOffice. Those who value the products should do the same, and those who don't value the products should not. I think Mandrake has a chance to get back into the black, and I've voted with my $.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
Since I regularly use Mandrake, I try to buy the distribution CDs for major upgrades. The price is well worth it, especially if you get the DVD. When I download the ISOs instead, I answer 50 or so support questions on mandrakeexpert.com for free. Since other people pay to ask the questions, this is a way I can indirectly support the product. My point is don't be a leech. If you use the product, find some way to contribute, monetarily or otherwise.
This space intentionally left blank.
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.
Your project is unique, as far as I know, and genuinley useful to lots of people. I fail to see how another Linux distribution, that when I tried it (version 7.0) was more or less a RedHat knockoff, is any sort of huge benefit.
So people, if you are feeling the urge to donate to free software, give it to the Xiph guys. No matter what OS you use, OGG is available to you, and it's GOOD at what it does. If Mandrake dies, well, then they die and we are limited to only the other million and a half Linux distros. If Xiph dies, we don't get updates to Vorbis, and none of the rest of their projects come to be.
Yeah. Sounds like a real solid business model.
Reality:
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.
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.
Nice troll, but in your ignorance, you're overlooking the good Mandrake has done for the Open Source community at large. To date, they have:
1. Donated heaps of cash to KDE developers to encourage development and keep people fed.
2. Open sourced all their software they've created in-house in order to benefit the community.
3. Provided free downloads of their distro from day one.
I'm sure there are dozens more, but first and foremost, they work for the community.