MandrakeSoft Files for Bankruptcy Protection

An anonymous reader writes "It's official: MandrakeSoft has filed a 'declaration de cessation des paiements' - the French equivalent of a U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. From a statement issued by the company: 'This reorganization of liabilities enables MandrakeSoft to continue its current operations, which are showing increases in revenue and significant decreases in expenses. MandrakeSoft's strategic partners are supporting the company in this process and the MandrakeSoft team is focused on continuing to deliver high quality services and products to its customers.' Best wishes to MandrakeSoft as they work through this process."

Comments

And all I can say is good riddance

[ikewillis]

Yes, Mandrake, the distro which brought us a horribly hacked SYSLINUX, hacked so poorly the author publicly denounced it on his web page. The distro that brought us aurora, the gimpy graphical bootloader supposed to hide all those scary startup messages behind a confused looking cross eyed penguin. The distro with the gimpy ANSI art in /etc/issue The distro which the previous admin saw fit to deploy on my network, even though it's an administrative and security nightmare. Well, let me be the first to ask... how was MandrakeSoft expecting to make money? Anyone? Anyone?

Re:And all I can say is good riddance

[Eric Damron]

Do you even have a clue? Mandrake a "security nightmare?" Mandrake is no worse than any other distro and probably better than most. It has several levels of security from wide open to very closed.

Get a clue, buy a vowel or something...

Re:And all I can say is good riddance

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm . . . you mean the distro that's willing to try different things? To support diverse development? To suppport internationalisation? To provide the best KDE implementation? To provide a great user forum and widespread user participation? To provide an easy-to-administer and update Linux distro for anyone with a brain? Oh yeah, THAT Mandrake . . .

Re:And all I can say is good riddance

[TheWanderingHermit]

I have to admit I don't understand this post. I figure it is either a troll, or someone is just venting his/her anger.

Obviously this is a person who knows something about OSS, since he's complaining about what Mandrake did to SYSLINUX, but his last statement: how was MandrakeSoft expecting to make money? Anyone? Anyone? seems to be a clear declaration that he does not understand the open source business model.

People may not like Mandrake -- I've noticed the more someone pisses and moans about Mandrake, the more technically oriented they are. It's a generalization, but it's something I've noticed.

While most of use doing development work realize that without users who need easy-to-use UI's, we would not have jobs, it seems that there are always those who are willing to go on a rampage and complain about anybody or any company that tries to make Linux easier to use.

While you may not like what Mandrake has done in their distro, I dare say they've introduced more people to Linux and have created more happy Linux users than you have.

Personally, I think the more users that are on Linux, the more opportunities there are for those of use doing development work to sell our Linux products. I know some people feel the opposite, and want to keep everything pure and clean and pristine -- all technical, all perfect -- just a haven for techies. We can do that, but if we do, it means VERY few jobs for Linux developers.

Without the users that need easy-to-use systems like Mandrake, (whether they use Linux or Windows or Mac or anything else), there would be far fewer jobs for developers, since computers would remain in the hands of the technically elite.

If you don't like it, don't use it. If you hate it, then it seems only fair that you make sure you never take advantage of what Mandrake has brought to the Linux world -- which is many more users and more opportunities for developers to sell their products and make money.

Re:And all I can say is good riddance

[ikewillis]

"If you don't like it, don't use it. If you hate it, then it seems only fair that you make sure you never take advantage of what Mandrake has brought to the Linux world"

Well, had you actually read my post instead of blindly replying to it you would've seen that my frustrations with Mandrake are due to being forced to use it on a deployed network of Mandrake systems. Many of these users are happy with their current desktops and do not want their systems reinstalled, even if the Mandrake scripts have gimped to the point that they can no longer shut down cleanly. I'm living in the "real world" where I'm dealing with administrating more systems than just my home box that I can do whatever the fuck I want with.

"seems to be a clear declaration that he does not understand the open source business model."

Oh, and you do? Well, let's assume you actually know what you're talking about and your statements logically flow. Therefore, your next one should explain the "open source business model." Let's have a peek, shall we?

"People may not like Mandrake -- I've noticed the more someone pisses and moans about Mandrake, the more technically oriented they are. It's a generalization, but it's something I've noticed."

Oh wait, that has nothing to do with the "open source business model" and neither does the rest of your post.

And if I'm the one who doesn't understand the "open source business model", then why is Mandrake filing for bankrupcy?

You know, the funniest part is you get modded up to 4, Insightful for that bullshit while I get modded to 0, Troll. Way to go /.

Re:And all I can say is good riddance

[Anonymous Coward]

the open source business model

Isnt that an oxymoron??

Re:And all I can say is good riddance

[Anonymous Coward]

but his last statement: how was MandrakeSoft expecting to make money? Anyone? Anyone? seems to be a clear declaration that he does not understand the open source business model.

since when have they had a business model? even still, it's just another take on Red Hat, with their own GUI administration tools and an ungodly number of packages for a n00b Linux user.

I just wish that another company would have the balls to make a solid 'commercial' Linux distribution. choose either KDE or Gnome and stick with it, make a deal with XiG or someone else to provide high performance X servers and either do something useful with WINE or work with Codeweavers... yeah, yeah.. I said good, not some hacked up piece of Corel crap... can someone please look into this, so my engineers will quit trashing their frikkin w2k boxes? or so I don't have to give them a windows box and a Sun just so I don't have to hear them whining about project or outlook?

Can I get a real workstation distribution?

Re:And all I can say is good riddance

[TheWanderingHermit]

Do you realize just how much anger comes through in your post?

Very little else. Just anger.

I read your post. I stand by what I said. If you don't like it, don't use it. It's that simple. What you fail to realize is you have that choice. In this case, it might mean quitting a job. But that means you have a job because of Mandrake. Which means you have another choice. You can 1) Be thankful you have a job that gives you money to pay for rent and food and a car and any tv/vcr/home computer/dvd/etc you might buy, or 2) Complain because you don't like what you have to do in this job, or 3) Quit the job you hate so much and either find another or give up what this job, which involves Mandrake provides you.

It's that simple. I made the point that there are jobs out there because of easy to use software. Your first post and response shows that yours is one of them. Deal with it or get a new job.

Well, let's assume you actually know what you're talking about and your statements logically flow. Therefore, your next one should explain the "open source business model."

Not necissarily a logical conclusion. We're on /. and there are thousands of people her who do understand it. I'm not going to waste time/space by going over it. If you don't know it, you can always do some research.

As for whh they're filing -- that has nothing to do with an open source business model. For example, Chrysler filed for bankruptcy protection in the late '70s or early '80s. They came out of it. Your understanding (or lack thereof) of the open source business models has nothing to do with Mandrake filing for bankruptcy protection.

If you want to look at recent /. articles, you might realize that they worked with a group of venture capitalists for a while who almost drove the company in the ground. Mandrake, on it's own, has done well, and almost all (perhaps all) of their debt problems are related to the business model the VC's set up for them.

As for your post being modded to troll -- take responsibility for what you post. If you post with anger and your post is full of insults and ugly comments, expect to get modded down. You had nothing constructive to say -- just a lot of pissing and moaning.

Re:And all I can say is good riddance

[nusuth]

Pick two: 1- High quality (low support requirement)

2- Open source

3- Profitable.

There is NO profitable completely open source business model. Noone ever came up with one. If you have one, do share it.

Re:And all I can say is good riddance

[AxelTorvalds]

I know 2 kernel hackers that run Mandrake. Users that tend to bitch about like to think that they are technically oriented.

Re:And all I can say is good riddance

[Anonymous Coward]

...and guys that derive their names from terrible John Travolta movies like to think they're not homosexual.

I know 2 kernel hackers that run Mandrake.

that would explain the bankruptcy thing. so, if Microsoft hired two kernel hackers to 'run' things, you would switch, right?

Users that tend to bitch about like to think that they are technically oriented.

no, users tend to bitch about it cause it's fun and it's true. it's like picking on a retarded kid(or France), always loads of fun...

Re:And all I can say is good riddance

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are just retarded and deserve to be fired from whereever you work. It's not mandrake's fault that the scripts on YOUR systems don't work. They do on pretty much every fresh installation. If they don't, it means YOU fucked them up. If you don't know how to fix them, you are not qualified to do your job. Who the fuck hires idiots like you, anyway? I want some of what they're smoking.

Re:And all I can say is good riddance

[Anonymous Coward]

...or the one willing to squander millions, ask for more from it's loyal customers and still make a dogs breakfast of it. Yeah, that seems to be one...on second thoughts that doesn't really narrow it down much.

Re:And all I can say is good riddance

[drewstyle]

I think that retarded is harsh. I understand that everything doesn't necessarily work the best, but I applaude their efforts. I paid for copies of both Red Hat and Mandrake because I wanted to help their businesses. If it weren't for these 2 companies, I would probably still be using windows or possibly Mac. It is companies like this that bring Linux to the common user like myself. They made it easier for me to install and learn, as they would for other new users. To be happy that they are under financial difficulties is essentially a support for M$'s monopolistic hold on the OS market. I would happily spend some of my hard earned cash on this company again to help them in their fight against M$.

Here is your chance!

[Maeryk]

If Mandrake dies a horrible and ugly death, it will not just be one more dead distro, it will be proof to all the closed source liscensing junkie corps. that "free" (as in beer) software cannot survive.

Now is the time to contribute to MandrakeSoft and help them out. If you have ever used it, if you use it now, if you have ever found it useful, now is the time to contribute.

I run it, I have contributed. I even saved them the money by d/ling my copy from linuxiso.org and then sending them the money.

But think for a moment, how much a license for Windows costs, and how little it costs to shoot five, or even one, dollar to Mandrake as a "thank you" if you use their software.

"Free" is a misnomer.. nothing is "free".. but "user supported" is probably as close to "free" as we can get, with an important distinction between "user purchased" and "user supported".

I would hate to see what is a rather good distro tank now, because of money woes.

Re:Here is your chance!

[Anonymous Coward]

first of all sir, i won't contribute, i'll buy.
save welfare for the po' folk.
secondly, if i'm going to buy, then i certainly need something worth the price, which honestly, mandrake has never seemed to be.
damn stupid frogs

Re:Here is your chance!

[pubjames]

If Mandrake dies a horrible and ugly death, it will not just be one more dead distro, it will be proof to all the closed source liscensing junkie corps. that "free" (as in beer) software cannot survive.

But doesn't it prove just the opposite? The company dies, but the software lives on. I expect that the vast majority of people who use Mandrake will have no problem moving their setup across to another distro. But imagine what would happen if a traditional, closed source company died. Then you'd be screwed.

Re:Here is your chance!

[Geekenstein]

Sorry buddy, but the Sally Struthers approach didn't help your cause.

I'm a capitalist, and I firmly believe that any business must make money through the sale of goods and services to turn a profit and survive. Look at RedHat. They took the same product, spent large amounts of capital developing a product, and sold not only that product, built on freely available technology, but support services and add-ons that people want to buy.

The difference between them and Mandrake? They created a business model that works. Mandrake was built on top of RedHat, with most of the work already done for them. If Mandrake has been unable to attract investors in a Linux-crazy world, something must seriously be wrong with their fundamentals.

So sorry, Sally. I won't be giving a failed company a handout. I'll continue to purchase products that warrant it. This is Darwin's theory of Capitalism at its finest....the strong survive.

Re:Here is your chance!

[Anonymous Coward]

> If Mandrake dies a horrible and ugly death, it will not just be one more dead distro, it will be proof to all the closed source liscensing junkie corps. that "free" (as in beer) software cannot survive.

I assume that when you said "'free' (as in beer) software cannot survive" you meant "'free' (as in beer) software companies cannot survive". If so, what about Red Hat, SuSE, Xandros, Slackware, Libranet, Lindows? They seem to be doing fine last I checked. Or perhaps you meant, "make fabulous profits like Microsoft, Oracle, Sun & so forth"? I'm unclear what you meant.

(and if you really meant "'free' (as in beer) software cannot survive", what about Debian, Gentoo, et al that will survive regardless of the fates of commercial companies?..)

Re:Here is your chance!

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, consider the amount of debt you have to be in to file for Bankruptcy protection.

Now, think of how many people run linux, and have the cash to donate.

You will need a VERY SERIOUS movement to keep Mandrake alive. And by serious, I mean big enough to grab media attention. Then what are you telling commercial software companies? We can help our companies when they are down. But what happens when they go into debt again, then a third time...

I love linux, don't get me wrong. And Linux isn't going to die, even if all the 'company distros' go out of business, but to think that you can save it to prove a point to proprietary software is, well, its a sad dream that will, most likely, not come to fruitation.

Re:Here is your chance!

[Anonymous Coward]

The beauty of capitalism is that companies fail on their own merits. The marketplace has spoken, there is no place for a company like this except in the junkyard.

Re:Here is your chance!

[Maeryk]

But doesn't it prove just the opposite? The company dies, but the software lives on. I expect that the vast majority of people who use Mandrake will have no problem moving their setup across to another distro. But imagine what would happen if a traditional, closed source company died. Then you'd be screwed

Not sure. I would think from the "us" level, yes, that would be true. Most of us can do that without too much trouble. But from the "them" (read: big business, small business, etc) perspective, no, its catastrophic.

This is a pretty big name distro, at least in the eyes of Joe Buying Software Off The Shelf. He has seen it. If he is thinking of moving his small to mid-sized business to it, he wont if he sees this and realizes the company could tank on him at any time. We all know Microsoft Support is often less useful than the 17 year old next door when a problem crops up, however one of the major selling points is that _it is there._. If one of the "larger" (figuring RH, SuSE, Mandrake as "large presence" distros) tanks, then Joe Consumer will lose even more faith. What RedHats stock did after the IPO put a hurting on the reputation, because most of the people approving these things spend time looking for the enter key and watching stocks, not having a clue about software.

Im not looking at this as much from a personal standpoint, as from a "company X is seriously thinking about moving to a cheap alternative to MS, which would be Linux.. what can I show them to point out a GOOD reason, with a solid company behind it."

Maeryk

Re:Here is your chance!

[Khalid]

In fact Mandrake Did ! attract investors, but they have hired very bad (at that time they called it experienced management) which has adopted an inceredible cash burn rate, they suddenly doubled the number of people working for them, then hired a very expensive office, and adopted an e-learning strategy nobody was able to say what it was really. That was during the dot come craze. They have been slowly recovering since they have fired their management, but I don't know if this will be enough for them to avoid banckrupcy.

Re:Here is your chance!

[teslatug]

Mandrake makes a really nice desktop ditro. I wish RedHat would buy it for chump change and sell it that way (get rid of the name Mandrake) or incorporate it into its own distro. That way all the newbies would go/get pointed to that distro. Never going to happen, but it would be nice.

Re:Here is your chance!

[Synn]

If you needed a big business distro, why on earth would you be looking into Mandrake anyway?

What can you show them? Try Red Hat which caters specificially to business needs and has one of the best cert programs in the industry: http://www.redhat.com/training/rhce/courses/

As for RHAT's IPO, everyone tanked when the dot com bubble burst. Hell, I think Red Hat's stock is about twice the value of Sun's right now.

Re:Here is your chance!

[yamla]

Actually, there was a study which showed that Microsoft Support was actually less useful than the Psychic Friends Network. The 17 year old next door is miles above either of those two.

Re:Here is your chance!

[Gehenna_Gehenna]

So...

I suppose this means no Mandrake Feebies at Linux World NY next week.
Dammit.

Re:Here is your chance!

[fitsnips]

Sorry man but your a littel off on this one. I am a die hard capitalist also, but in a true free market people pay the actual value of the product. In this case if the perceived value is $0 then they deserve to fail. If this where true people would elect not to run it, but by installing this software people give it value. That value is diffrent to each individual, but still value that many are not paying. So these dontations are more like shareware payments rather then "gifts".

Red Hat has done well by turning there back on the desktop, and going after the buisness server market. Even in the last year with all their GUI changes I have not seen desktop improvement. They do not care about the desktop, the improvements they have made are only for the use of low quality sysadmins. If you take their classes they say X on all servers, who in there right mind puts X on a web or ftp server?

What distro do you use? Have you ever contributed a penny to them? If so then I would guess that either you are a buisness user or one of the few who has. I purchase RH everytime they come out for with a distro, because I use it on servers. I have started using debian on my desktop and laptop because I like the tools. If I find that it works for me I will give via http://www.debian.org/donations. The free market at work, give it to the people and let them pay a "fair price" as defined by them. Nothing gets more capitalstic then that.

The problem with the model is that the F**KERS who take and never give. If you give code then you have done a good part, if you give money then you have done a good part, if you take and use but never give then you are a drain on resources. Its like f**king welfare for the computer user!

So grow up and pay what you feel its worth, if you do not use Mandrake then its worth nothing to you. If you do then you use it for a reason, and it has value. Same thing goes for any other distro!

Yea I know my spelling sucks, but you get the idea.

Re:Here is your chance!

[yog]

Hell, I think Red Hat's stock is about twice the value of Sun's right now.

Heh... Not quite. Stock price is meaningless. It's market cap (price x shares) that counts, when you're comparing valuations. Sun's market cap is $11.77 billion (according to today's WSJ), whereas Redhat's market cap is $1 billion. Sun's total equity as of June 2002 was $9.8 billion. RedHat's total equity was $327 million as of 2-28-02, probably has gone up since then.

Still, a market cap of a billion for a Linux company is pretty impressive.

Re:Here is your chance!

[squiggleslash]

It's only about 2 million Euros of debt according to the article, which is only around $2,000,000: you don't have to be Ted Turner to bail them out.

Personally, I think a better reason not to do so is the same issue that everyone else raises: Mandrake obviously has a poor management model. It's not as if there aren't viable alternatives. If we're not prepared to build a charity to keep Commodore alive, we certainly shouldn't be pulling out all the stops to save Mandrakesoft.

I think when this is over, there'll only be two operating systems left: RedHat Linux, and OS/2.

(OS/2 will succeed because nobody realises it's still alive. It's laying there on the battlefield pretending to be a corpse. Once there's one person left, it'll jump up, hug the survivor, and yell "Yeah! Woooo-wooop! We beat them! Let's go have a drink and celebrate.". And a very confused RedHat will stagger to the bar thinking "Who is this person? I can't remember him. Well, he seems to know me...")

Re:Here is your chance!

[fucksl4shd0t]

If we're not prepared to build a charity to keep Commodore alive, we certainly shouldn't be pulling out all the stops to save Mandrakesoft.

Maybe in the last 10 years of Microsoft dominance that might have otherwise been prevented we've had a chance to review our attitudes. Eh?

Re:Here is your chance!

[legojenn]

I've always wondered what the motivation was for people to call themselves capitalists. There really aren't that many capitalists in the world. Who actually makes a living from moving their money (capital) around? As wealthy as some Slashdot readers are are, I doubt that that many of are capitalists. Mr Gates, the Fords, Duponts, Reichmanns, Aspers are capitalists. Workers who earn more than the average worker are still workers.

Re:Here is your chance!

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree with you that a business should succeed on its own merits, the comparison with Red Hat is at best laughable.

Red Hat is the most successful Linux company to date, and they have had a grand total of 2 profitable quarters which were primarily achieved through accounting tricks. The insipid thing is that the Net profit posted for each of those quarters was for around $300,000 USD.

If I were a true capitalist, I sure wouldn't bank my money with a company who has been through a couple hundred million dollars and has shown a return of $300k.

Re:Here is your chance!

[Otter]

Well, you're the one person using the word correctly, in the Marxist sense. Everyone else uses "capitalism" when they mean "free-market" or "laissez-faire" or something like that. I'm sure there's a Ph.D. thesis in the story of how that usage came to predominate outside of Pravda.

Anyway, aren't the Reichmanns broke now?

Re:Here is your chance!

[ga53n]

usually 1 (one) cent debt should be enough. When you owe any amount of money and are not able to pay, the people you owe the money can file bankruytcy for you. This is a way to make people pay, because you can threaten to file bankruytcy for themy when they obviously are not able to pay. At least in some parts of Europe it works this way.

Re:Here is your chance!

[numark]

You know Red Hat's stuff is cooler anyways :)

Re:Here is your chance!

[DriceX]

It isn't the strong that survive. Survival is dependent on the ability to adapt to change.

It isn't the strong that survive. Survival is dependent on the ability to adapt to change.

Re:Here is your chance!

[pstemari]

If I understand that correctly, Sun's market cap is roughly 20% above the book value of the company, while RedHat's is about 3x book value.

That's a pretty impressive display of confidence by the market in RedHat.

Re:Here is your chance!

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy it for what? If they want the code they can just download it (for free).

Re:Here is your chance!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Microsoft support is great. I actually was put in touch with the programmer who worked on the relevant networking section of the NT kernel that I was having problems with when I called.

Re:Here is your chance!

[rirugrat]

I knew Mandrake was in trouble when I could go to my local Dollar Store (the place where my wife goes in for no good reason and spends $35 on *NOTHING*!) and could purchase a fairly recent version of Mandrake Linux on multiple CDs (and assorted goodies) for...a buck!

Chris

Re:Here is your chance!

[27B-6]

This is Darwin's theory of Capitalism at its finest....the strong survive

I may not be the most qualified person to reply to this, but it's my understanding that Darwin created a theory of evolution, not capitalism. Perhaps mentioning Maynard Keynes or Adam Smith might have been more appropriate.

Not only that, but I believe his theory speaks more to survivial of the fittest - with fittest meaning the best suited for a particular environment. While strength may be the most desired trait in one environment, in another it could well be a road to extinction.

It seems to me that people who substitute "strength" for "fittest" are commonly those who are quick to use apply their malformed idea of Darwin's theory to support their own poor behavior towards others.

Re:Here is your chance!

[jasonditz]

It seems to me you're missing something about the "free market", I think we lost you before we finished "free".

Things have a specific value, yes.
Things also have a specific cost.
These are two distinct concepts.

That cost is not always equal to its value to you, and getting something at an agreed upon lower cost than you perceive it to be worth is not some terrible sin.

If you buy a bag of potato chips on sale does everyone call it welfare for the chip eater? If the company is selling the product for below its cost are you obligated to pay them the difference?

Mandrake made a business decision to give away its product for free. Many people took them up on that offer, and somewhere along the line they noticed that they don't make money doing that. So now we're supposed to go back and pay them extra? Sorry, it doen't work that way.

Re:Here is your chance!

[swv3752]

By al accounts they have a viable model if they didn't make some stupid mistake by letting some boneheads rack up a huge bill.

Re:Here is your chance!

[facelessnumber]

Can you email him? For free?

Re:Here is your chance!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I'm too lazy to register, so I'll wear the Anonymous Coward Dunce ... hat.

What I believe red-hat did that I don't think any other distro does (as much as I love Mdk), is Marketing. They figured that out from the start. MS doesn't have the most technically advanced OS, but they market it like a SOB.
I believe if mdk focused more of its resources in that arena (speciall y since Europeans hate buying american (rh)), they would be in a much better position. Too bad. I'll still renew my club membership and use it.

Re:Here is your chance!

[EdIsSoKewl]

I think you're missing the point. You could just as easily say that Red Hat took stuff from GNU, X11, KDE, GNOME, etc., and that "most of the work was already done for them" as well.

The fact is that Mandrake has contributed quite a few high quality original programs to the free software ecosystem (their graphical configuration tools are particularly nice) and that their employees, like those of other distros, help us all by filing bug reports with upstream maintainers, sending patches, participating in mailing lists and conferences, compiling binary packages, and engaging in advocacy.

Most people who have actually used Mandrake would probably agree that it's a fairly well done distribution. Personally, it's the one I recommend first to newbies or "switchers" or whatever we call them these days. They do a lot of good work and it will be all our losses if they fail.

That said, if they want to continue to operate as a commercial entity, as opposed to a non-profit organization like the Free Software Foundation or Debian, they need to come up with a business model in which revenues meet or exceed expenses. It's just simple economics.

I will go over and donate a few more bucks to them today, but I'm not very optimistic about this as a long-term business model.

Re:Here is your chance!

[thona]

Even worse. Compare their cash flow (revenue) to the market cap, and you see that redhat is overvalued. By a large degree.

Re:Here is your chance!

[lurvdrum]

I would be shocked if "big business" were in the habit of implementing Mandrake out of the box with no development, no customisation..I'm sure it doesn't happen. You'll find teams of technicians putting together specialised versions of Linux (maybe based upon particular distros in the first place) and switching base distros would in practice be a relatively trivial affair. It's more likely to be a problem for the smaller customer who has taken the distro "vanilla" out of the box - but then again, just because the supplier goes broke it doesn't stop your computer from working immediately.. Just switch distros when it's time to upgrade.

Re:Here is your chance!

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone with $1000 in a mutual fund is a capitalist

Re:Here is your chance!

[Anonymous Coward]

The original poster may not have realised this, but the link between Darwin and capitalism is stronger than you think.

The idea of the 'survival of the fittest' in an economic environment was already around when Darwin was developing his theories, and I think there is evidence which suggests that he was influenced by those theories.

Re:Here is your chance!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless of coarse a capitalist sees money saved, value and lowest price.

I'm not going to buy $19,000 bolts unless I really need them.

Linux Distribution Companies

[jcannava]

i'm surprised that more companies that make distributions of linux have not had this problem. Open Source in itself is not a great business model, being free and all, and you can only make so much money off of cd's. Anyone have any idea how the other companies are making it in a microsoft dominated world? I know RedHat has one of the more expensive certification exams, but other than that i'm not sure how any of these companies make it.

Re:Linux Distribution Companies

[jav1231]

I think where RH makes the bulk of it's money is services. You take a large client who's lived in a MS-centric world and give them RH and it's going to take time to understand what the distro is all about. Most of these companies are going to want to buy some support and have someone at their backon call to answer problems. I know I personally would love to have such an arrangement as there are things that I would love to ask. As an individual, it's expensive for me but as a company, RH Advanced Server and some support contracts would still be cheaper than W2K Advanced Server and a MS contract. >

Selling...

[Anonymous Coward]

... stock prob wasn't such a good idea, esp in today's IT market. Too bad Mandrake didn't advertise in many of the IT magazines rather than rely on word of mouth for gaining new customers.

A Shame

[Anonymous Coward]

A shame. This is a good distro for n00bs, easier to setup than windows. Oh well, only the good die young.

Cue the...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cue the responses from people that DIDN'T read the article.

"Mandrake is shutting down? See, this is why Linux will never be profitable. You can't sell what you give away for free."

You know that it'll happen.

High quality

[Anonymous Coward]

"MandrakeSoft team is focused on continuing to deliver high quality services and products to its customers" This is good to hear, now how about reducing the cost of the packaged goods? Might sell more?

It's not the end, yet.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Having used many different distributions, I can say that (at the time) Mandrake was the most user-friendly of them all, from installation to use. Still, as a GNUBee, it was intimidating. Now, I use SUSE (my wife bought it for me for X-Mas) and couldn't be happier.

The French vs the Germans, round one to the French, Round two to the Germans.

But still, weren't they both based on the RedHat distribution in the beginning?? Busniess models aside, we've got a long way to go, Baby...

Re:It's not the end, yet.....

[Anonymous Coward]

> weren't [Mandrake & Suse] both based on the
> RedHat distribution in the beginning?
>
Mandrake was. Suse was based on Slackware.
Btw., how come Slackware having been around for ten years now never issued these kind of financial dire news? Because most Slackware users take responsibility for "their" distro and pay for the CD's. Of course, it helps, that it's only $24.95 for 4 CD's. It further helps, that it ships promptly, unlike Mandrake (9.0 came two months after ordering and then it came TWICE!). Looks like a nice distro though, albeit it has some shortcomings, including the installation procedure. Strangely enough, user-friendly as it is supposed to be, I don't find Slackware much more difficult...in fact, sometimes I find it actually easier.

I wish I were a major investor of Mandrakesoft

[Hairy_Potter]

cuz I'd sue for full possession of their source code, and then become a Linux millionaire!

Re:I wish I were a major investor of Mandrakesoft

[Anonymous Coward]

cuz I'd sue for full possession of their source code, and then become a Linux millionaire!

It's open source, luser! Anyone who wants access to the source code can get it. At the moment, there's nothing stopping you from grabbing the source code for any major distro, putting a few cosmetic enhancements on it and slapping your own name on it. With that attitude, I doubt you'd make a single cent.

Yes, I know I'm posting AC. I forgot my damn password, OK?

The announcement (anonymous, no karma involved)

[Anonymous Coward]

The liabilities accumulated by MandrakeSoft through a series of quarterly losses have prompted the company to file for "declaration de cessation des paiements". The filing, similar to the U.S. Chapter 11-Reorganization, took place on January 13, 2003.

This reorganization of liabilities enables MandrakeSoft to continue its current operations, which are showing increases in revenue and significant decreases in expenses. MandrakeSoft's strategic partners are supporting the company in this process and the MandrakeSoft team is focused on continuing to deliver high quality services and products to its customers.

Following this filing and with the support of the court via a court-appointed Administrator, MandrakeSoft will be protected from its creditors, renegotiate its liabilities and prepare a continuation plan to be approved by the French Court in the coming months.

Version 9.0 of the product was a success both technically and commercially and the company is now focused on Version 9.1 which will be announced as scheduled in April.

Story in The Register

[Guiri]

Here is a link to the story in The Register

This is bad news...

Cheers

Re:Story in The Register

[eliphas_levy]

asdf

Not a surprise

[abh]

Given that Mandrake has been begging for money I don't think this really should surprise anyone.

awful quiet

[greechneb]

This seems awful quiet for MandrakeSoft. Most of their releases contain a lot more info than that. I'm curious as to what else they might be hiding. Some deals with the devil might be in the works (By devil, I don't imply Microsoft).

This really makes me wonder about what their plans are for the near future, or if they have any significant plans. It will be interesting to see...

rumors

[jbolden]

This is all rumors so please take it with a grain of salt.

From what I understand during the dot-com boom Mandrake signed contracts regarding e-Education with many bankrupt / troubled dot-com companies. Mandrake has pulled out of those contracts and is now in the penalty phase. These companies want to collect their penalties from Mandrake and Mandrake cannot make the payments.

Under French bankruptcy law these penalties would be voided and the remaining company (the company that sells a Linux distribution) would be viable. So by threatening bankruptcy all they really mean is walking away from their e-Education related debts. This may or may not be a tactic to get the e-Education creditors to be willing to take 10 cents on the dollar rather than the nothing they would get under a bankruptcy.

In any case a bankrupt Mandrake my not mean the end of the Mandrake distribution.

Just to throw in a person note I hope its not the end. Mandrake has a great niche as the desktop distribution for the computer power-user who is not necc. all that knowledgeable about Linux. That's very different from the current crop of easy desktop distributions which are much more power limiting and very different than the server / corporate based distributions. I think its an import niche and one that gets filled regardless of what happens to Mandrake.

Re:rumors

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to throw in a person note I hope its not the end. Mandrake has a great niche as the desktop distribution for the computer power-user who is not necc. all that knowledgeable about Linux. That's very different from the current crop of easy desktop distributions which are much more power limiting and very different than the server / corporate based distributions. I think its an import niche and one that gets filled regardless of what happens to Mandrake.
I tried many distributions until I settled on Mandrake(RedHat, Suse, Caldera). I could have made any distribution work, but I found Mandrake to be the correct balance for me. If it were not for Mandrake I would not be using Linux. I also would not be 'Windows free in 2003'!

Re:rumors

[blibbleblobble]

"Mandrake has a great niche as the desktop distribution for the computer power-user who is not necc. all that knowledgeable about Linux"

More to the point, Mandrake's 'niche', as you call it, is to be the best linux distribution for pretty much everyone who's not running either a server or a distributed computing project.

And even those people probably use Mandrake for their own computer. It's a great distribution for anyone who wants a real computer (graphical desktop), even if the kernel-compilers and ASM-programmers may look down on it.

Re:rumors

[madpuppy]

Same here, in my opinion and experiance level All other Distro's are lacking, only Mandrake gives you an easy to use real Linux Distro (it's not idiot proof and it's also not a full blown hacker os) Without Mandrake and thier large community of great people (no damn RTFM assholes) I would have stopped using Linux after my first try.

Bummer

[otis wildflower]

I did purchase the 8.0 powerpack awhile back, and I've been a fan since 7.1. I've installed it on all sorts of systems from workstations to firewalls, and been happy with it in all applications.

I hope that MandrakeUpdates will continue to be free, as opposed to RedHat's update scheme which requires hackarounds to automate without paying the overlord, but I bet they won't be.

Perhaps bankrupcy is a good opportunity to restructure, and get out from under whatever obligations remain from their disastrous VC ownership debacle..

Re:Bummer

[Anonymous Coward]

for RedHat, download apt-rpm then run:

apt-get upgrade

There you go, free updates. No hacking. Make it a cron job for once a week.

Don't worry!

[PhysicsGenius]

Remember, their only valuable asset was the code and Linus owns that. He's a man of principle and I'm sure he'd never sell out, so we are probably safe. What we need to focus on is making Linux stronger than ever. It doesn't matter if 1 or 5 or 10 or a million Linux companies go out of business, because Linux isn't about making money, it's about making choices. Apparently Mandrake made some wrong choices and I hope RedHat avoids the errors Mandrake made, such as a reliance on bells and whistles instead of hardware compliance.

Re:Don't worry!

[Anonymous Coward]

their only valuable asset was the code and Linus owns that

Are you being sarcastic? If so, I don't get the rest of your post...

In truth, Linus (by his own admission) "owns" about 10% of the kernel source.

And he doesn't own any of the other 99% of the stuff that makes up a complete distro.

A shame

[endrek]

I truely hope they are ok. Mandrake was my first distro and a wounderful way for windows users to get the hang of linux. My friends and I agree that the mandrake install is easier than that of windows. I hope they can continue on because they are a wounderful distro.

Translation

[Telastyn]

...and significant decreases in expenses.

We don't have to pay employees smart enough to get off our sinking ship.

Optimism. This is a good thing.

[SenatorTreason]

I use Mandrake Linux on my laptop, and am very happy with 9.0. They have a good,solid product, and I think that ultimately this is a good thing. A rebirth of sorts. They made some very poor business decisions early on, but they are on a better track. Unfortunately, this better track could not make up for the past decisions financially quick enough. So they file for bankruptcy, reorganize, refocus on their key advantages, and come back out swinging. Look for a K.O. in a couple of months when come out of their financial corner. Good luck, Mandrake.

Re:Optimism. This is a good thing.

[ReverendRyan]

I use Mandrake 9.0 on two boxes as well. After reading this article I felt guilty for D/Ling the ISOs, so I joined the Club at the $5/mo level. The only thing that made me fell ok about it before was puchacing the 8.0powerpack edition.

Thier default install is a bit bloated, but that is easially remidied by using rpmdrake, or just not selecting the packages you dont need durring the install. Mandrake has the best balance of gui features for newbies and poweruser control of any distro that I have tried.
br It will be a sad day if they are not able to recover from their past mistakes.

well damnit

[burninginside]

mandrake kicks ass & now they file for chapter 11

Re:Here is your chance! GET A CLUE

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do with free software, it has everything to do with mis-management and not knowing how to run a software company.

Get real, if they can't run a business then they should fail, it has nothing to do with Linux or free software.

can't say i'm surprised

[Snafa]

who didn't see this coming?

good riddance of a bad distro.

Re:can't say i'm surprised

[vsprintf]

I didn't see it coming. I thought they just might make it to a black bottom line this year. Since you're obviously much wiser, enlighten us, and explain what makes it such a bad distro.

Loki

[phlyingpenguin]

So, will they actually pull it off, or will this be just like the reorginization that Lokigames didn't pull off. I'm questioning the chance OSS has without making much money off a product (mandrake) and and how it kills its market for closed source apps (Loki)

Re:Loki

[Synn]

I'm questioning the chance OSS has without making much money off a product (mandrake) and and how it kills its market for closed source apps (Loki)

The problem isn't OSS, it's bad business models. We had a TON of those in the dot com era, people throwing money at technology as if it'd just magically create profit.

A lot of OSS businesses got their start in this era, so it's natural to see a good deal of them die off horribly.

Loki died, and yet http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com/ lives on.
Mandrake is in trouble, yet Red Hat seems to be doing fine.

Also TrollTech seems to be doing okay, MySQL has been chugging along, the PHP folks started up Zend and are doing alright... probably all because they have sound business models or just happened to find the right market.

What is it, 1 out of 10 businesses actually succeed? A few OSS companies folding doesn't reflect on OSS has a whole.

Re:Loki

[phlyingpenguin]

There may be plenty of companies that still accel, but even so Lokigames was the largest game publisher (and was even in the USA malls!) and Mandrake is among the most widely used distros around, these aren't just little flops. I have no problem with a company folding, but when it's something this large, it makes people look really bad. Mandrake going down would only be slightly less hurtful than SUsE or RedHat going down, and that's even from a person who doesn't use it. As stated earlier, it's not for sure about the future, it sounds like they have Ch11 under more control than Loki did. Thus I am forced to believe that MDK is actually doing fine and just weaseling their way out of debt. Mark my words, if they screw up, it's really bad news for the face of Linux in a world that Microsoft is trusted simply because somebody's child uses the OS to play Solitare at night.

"Rumors are just that"

[sfraggle]

This is kind of ironic conisdering the recent newsforge article, "Mandrake: Rumors of our imminent demise are just that".

Re:"Rumors are just that"

[Roblimo]

Yep. Apparently Gael Duval was not entirely truthful with us. See today's NewsForge story about MandrakeSoft.

- Robin

Re:"Rumors are just that"

[civilizedINTENSITY]

"similar to the U.S. Chapter 11-Reorganization"...

now if they were doing a "similar to Chapter 7" then it could be a "demise" situation. Reorganization under chapter 11 is a way to continue forward avoiding corporate death.

Re:"Rumors are just that"

[Anonymous Coward]

i work at mandrake - this is not the first time, and will not be the last

Re:"Rumors are just that"

[leviramsey]

The fact that you think that Chapter 11 constitutes an imminent demise demonstrates how little you know. Chapter 11 in essence buys you time to reorganize the business while not paying your creditors. It is far from a death-knell.

True, many companies file Chapter 11 and never bounce back. But many companies file Chapter 11 and come back in a better financial situation than ever before. Donald Trump filed Chapter 11 about a decade ago, and he's richer now than he was at his peak in the 80's. Wayne Newton filed for bankruptcy ten years ago, and is better off now. Several airlines over the years have filed and are still in business many years later (Continental comes to mind immediately).

Re:"Rumors are just that"

[numark]

Sometimes. A lot of times companies come into Chapter 11 with the intent of reorganizing, but the court puts too many restrictions on the company to keep it viable at all. I don't hold out much hope for Mandrake, it's just a poor company in terms of managing its money.

Sad to See

[TheWanderingHermit]

It's not only sad to see Mandrake having to declare bankruptcy, but it is also sad to see some of the nasty comments that have already been posted.

At my LUG, whenever a newbie asks, "What distro should I install?" A bunch of techies respond, "Debian." To which I now point out (after having spent over a week trying to get Debian Woody to work with my ATI Radeon) that newbies have no idea how to handle the module config and that I've had a post on the local LUG board for almost a month now and NOT ONE Debian fan there has been able to tell me how to get Woody to support a common video card (I did get it working - that is not the point -- the point is that it wasn't supported.)

At this LUG, Mandrake has become a dirty word. I've noticed, overall, that programmers (and I used to be one -- used to program a LOT in Assembler on my Apple //e AND made money at it!) and techies tend to hate Mandrake. I cannot see why. They may not want it, but it seems to me the more technically oriented a person is, the more disdain they show on those who are not "as smart" as they are in that particular field. I think this shows a fundamental lack of understanding that comptuers are made for people, not people for computers.

If computers and all OS's stayed as difficult to set up as Debian or Slackware, there would not be many computers in offices or homes. As much as I hate M$, Windows is easy enough for even my 80 year old mother to use. That ease of use is a large factor responsible for the omni-presence of computers.

Mandrake has brought Linux to thousands, probably tens of thousands (or millions, for all I know) of users and computers. This is the distro that dared to explore the desktop years before Redhat introduced Bluecurve. This is the distro that is easy enough to use that it is pre-installed on computers at Wal-Mart. While those of use who think we know better act like snobs and talk with disdain over any distro that does not play by our rules, Mandrake has done a better job of any distro (except maybe Lindows) at spreading Linux aroudn the world and making it more popular among people other than programmers and techies.

If you want to talk ugly about Mandrake, go on. It just shows an elitist side that does not realize that without users, programming is just writing utilities and tools so we can write more utilities and tools. In short, without users who need easy to use distros, all we're left with is writing code and making systems for ourselvs. I don't know about you, but to me that is a bit much like masteurbation.

I hope Mandrake pulls out of this.

I also hope those who keep ragging on Mandrake take a step back and realize if it weren't for the easy to use desktops, computers would not be popular, would cost MUCH more, and far fewer of use would have jobs in computers (and these jobs are getting rare enough already).

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

the more technically oriented a person is, the more disdain they show on those who are not "as smart" as they are in that particular field.
You've just described 99% of all slashdot posters.

Re:Sad to See

[otis wildflower]

I don't know about you, but to me that is a bit much like masteurbation

What, like computer nerds don't get enough already?

Onanism: the only universal philosophy..

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

...masteurbation...

Is this what they do in France or something? ;)

Seriously, I feel for MandrakeSoft. I'm not sure I'll support them financially, but right now they have the greatest chance of getting my money of any distribution.

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep.

Basically we've got a group of people that is so smart they feel they can ignore and be disdainful of everyone who does not know as much as they know in their one particular field.

They're so damn smart they don't see they need everyone else, such as the doctors that keep us healthy, but can barely keep their AOL account working, or any other peopel that provide them with services.

It's a bunch of people so smart they aren't smart enough to realize without users and the rest of the world, there wouldn't even be computers for us to work with or play on.

Re:Sad to See

[hoop33]

. . . the more disdain they show on those who are not "as smart" as they are . . .

You seem to be forgetting that the tech industry is dominated by people whose only socially redeeming quality is their intelligence. I'm not trying to troll--it's an observation that has been borne out repeatedly. Anytime the "unwashed masses" or "Joe Sixpack" figures out something in technology, too many in our industry scurry to raise the bar in order to maintain an intellectual elitism. As soon as regular people figure out bash and vi, those will suck, too.

As much as Linux users preach about how much better Linux is than Windows, if the desktop market suddenly rushed to Linux, Linux users would rush out.

One of the biggest obstacles to widespread Linux adoption is the Linux community.

P.S. I use Linux

Re:Sad to See

[gregRowe]

Somehow I think the Debian you use isn't the Debian I use. Debian has been *by far* the easiest and most logical distro I have ever used (mandrake included). I love Debian and don't understand why people complain about the install. I had no problems, and I have installed debian on at least a dozen different machines. ...And to say that you couldn't get your video card to work in "Debian" makes no sense. You couldn't configure Xfree86 properly perhaps, but that isn't "Debian". I have more debian installations that don't even have X on them.

Greg

Re:Sad to See

[lunenburg]

If you want to talk ugly about Mandrake, go on. It just shows an elitist side that does not realize that without users, programming is just writing utilities and tools so we can write more utilities and tools. In short, without users who need easy to use distros, all we're left with is writing code and making systems for ourselvs. I don't know about you, but to me that is a bit much like masteurbation.

I wonder how many Mandrake fans who feel like this turn right around and talk shit about Red Hat being "The Microsoft of Linux" or say "Red Hat sux0rz! Mandrake is 31337!!!11" or try to score cool-points by fighting against "the man"?

Pot, kettle.

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

Bash and Vi do suck.

Emacs forever.

Vi users just dont understand.

PS. I use Unix!

Re:Sad to See

[Angst Badger]

At my LUG, whenever a newbie asks, "What distro should I install?" A bunch of techies respond, "Debian."

Sad. My first year with Linux was a matter of endless frustration. It was only because I desperately wanted to get off the Microsoft treadmill that I stuck with it. I'm glad I did, because I love Linux, and the process of clawing my way to competence taught me a lot. (And made me a lot of money, since I went from selling furniture to being a sysadmin over the intervening eight years. Not everyone wants or needs to be a sysadmin, however.

I tried installing Debian recently. Frankly, I was appalled at how primitive it was and how many common packages (including some I depend on) were not included because they were not "free" enough. I would recommend Debian to someone who likes tinkering with their OS, just as I would (perhaps more strongly) recommend Slackware or the highly educational Linux From Scratch. I wouldn't recommend any of the above to a newbie unless I hated their guts and wanted them to stick to Windows.

Mandrake is quick and painless for inexperienced users and, in my experience, autoconfigures more hardware than any other distribution. Nor would I say it's just for newbies -- the experienced desktop user shouldn't have to manually configure anything unless the defaults don't suit him or her. Ever. It's just plain asinine to suggest that there is some kind of moral virtue in using unprofessionally packaged software.

Mandrake is also nice for certain server applications. Their Advanced Extranet Server project bundles pretty much every commonly conceivable Apache-related package in a series of modular RPMs. (Yes, I can compile it myself, but I get paid for producing results, not my hard-won understanding of the poorly documented and often poorly designed dependencies between the necessary packages.) Mandrake's install disk functionality means I can do one install and have some newbie intern roll out dozens of machines for the web server farm without a hitch and without working out the networking issues in advance.

Easy is only bad when it comes at the expense of power and flexibility, a la Microsoft. Mandrake delivers the full power of a feature-packed Linux distribution and manages to make it easy to use as well. I hope Mandrake manages to come through their current difficulties for the simple reason that they make good product that actually helps people get real work done, and they are to be commended for doing a much better job than the other commercial distributions which have had much larger resources to draw from.

Re:Sad to See

[TheWanderingHermit]

Actually, that's the way I originally learned to spell it back in prep school. I just never changed it.

Re:Sad to See

[Gareman]

As a Mandrake user (now switching to Red Hat), Mandrake had postive qualities over other distrubitions. It was the only distro that would work on my Thinkpad using VMWare. It also supported my Winmodem and Wireless card while Red Hat didn't. Mandrake also had an easy to use Hardware Database that allowed me to print a list of compatible parts I needed to buy at my local computer store to build a guaranteed Linux compatible server (at least Mandrake compatible).

Similarly, Caldera was the only distro to work on my old Emachine. That it couldn't check for dependencies with it's update service, breaking about 30 applications, drove me to build a new box to run another distro.

What's my point? Often the choice of Linux distributions has little to do with choice and more to do with technical details such as hardware compatibility (Caldera is excellent), default installed packages (Red Hat is packed with goodies), or even the number of ISO disks available for download (Where's the latest SuSE?). Think LSB, Linux Installed Base, a guarantee of Linux compatible and consistency. Mandrake has it.

Re:Sad to See

[TheWanderingHermit]

Actually, I copied the config file from Knoppix at one point, since Knoppix is Debian based and worked perfectly. I spent a LOT of time working with the X config files.

That was just one of MANY things I tried. Not one of the local Debian fans or anybody else I contacted had a good suggestion that actually worked.

My experience is that many Debian people have forgotten the install because updates are so easy. That's the reason I wanted to change over. If/When I can get Debian working on that machine, I'll probably switch. In the meantime, it's Mandrake, which I got up and running quickly and even got all the extras (like firewire) working easily. It's my first Linux video workstation!

Re:Sad to See

[TheWanderingHermit]

I could not agree with your post any more than I do. This is an intellectual elitist community and the members are beginning to get upset that other people are coming to play in their playground.

One of the biggest obstacles to widespread Linux adoption is the Linux community.

That is just so true.

Re:Sad to See

[TheWanderingHermit]

I never knew this was a problem. I've never seen Mandrake users raggong on Redhat like that. If it is going on, I'd consider it the same as the attitudes I mention in the paragraph you quote. We all have our favorite distro. That's no reason or excuse to be ugly about others.

Re:Sad to See

[diaphanous]

To which I now point out (after having spent over a week trying to get Debian Woody to work with my ATI Radeon) that newbies have no idea how to handle the module config and that I've had a post on the local LUG board for almost a month now and NOT ONE Debian fan there has been able to tell me how to get Woody to support a common video card (I did get it working - that is not the point -- the point is that it wasn't supported.)

Did you try asking for help on one of the Debian mailing lists? That would have been a more appropriate forum for a Debian-specific question.

~Phillip

Re:Sad to See

[zonix]

I haven't tried Mandrake yet, but I'm sure it's a fine distro. You have to remember though, that all the distros out there serve the needs of different people. I don't believe there's "One Distro To Rule Them All", because what some people will like about one particular distro, others will hate - because people are different. Surprise!

Don't let the others at your LUG get to you. Be happy that there's a distro for you too.

Oh, one last note. For those who have been told that the Debian installer will kill you, read this: you only ever have to install Debian once. :-)

z

Re:Sad to See

[frohike]

Preface: I'm a long-time and hard-core Debian user myself, though my server runs FreeBSD.

For the longest time, my fiancee had two boxes on her desk: one running Debian which did most of what she wanted, and one 2K box for viewing the odd movie file that wouldn't play on the Linux one. The Linux one was slower in the physical hardware, though it was actually more responsive and user friendly for her otherwise. We decided the best thing to do would be to install Linux on the faster box and combine hardware so she'd have one kick-ass machine to work with instead of two semi-good ones.

She's been using Debian for a while, but there are still lots of worts for someone who isn't really a Linux-guru. So I said, let's try Mandrake! My friends say that it's got lots of good driver support, easy to install, comes with a package that makes it easy to setup all those movie players, etc. In fact, I've said much this same recommendation to any number of people.

When we tried to do it, it simply wouldn't install. It would very mysteriously foobar up about a third of the way into the installation. Try as I might, I couldn't get any logs or error info out of it that would let me fix it. We tried a net install, a CD install, all sorts of stuff.. nothing would work.

This has been my experience for about the past 2-3 times I've tried to install Mandrake for people. We usually ended up installing Debian or something else instead (in her case, we installed FreeBSD and she's lovin' it).

I think the thing is, Mandrake has become a version of RedHat with lots of extra layers of "user friendliness" that makes it difficult to debug failures in that install process, just like the "W word" OS :). I also think that the difficulty Debian's install process is greatly exaggerated. Debian's installer does a very simple and Linux-like beautiful thing: it asks the user what to do when it doesn't know, instead of assuming.

No, I am a hard-core Debian user who used to recommend Mandrake to people who weren't as good at Linux, but I don't really do so anymore, or only very reluctantly. I have friends who look down their noses at the "newbs" like you describe, but I'm not one of them and I still won't recommend it.

Re:Sad to See

[lunenburg]

If you haven't seen the horde of drooling fanboys demonizing Red Hat every chance they get, simply because it's the most "mainstream" Linux distro, you should check this website.

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he just isn't quite as pasty white or pear shaped or all around nerdy as you are.

Demonstrating your geek abilities by installing Debian a dozen times isn't going to get you a girl. It is only going to make you a geek that sucks at choosing operating systems.

Re:Sad to See

[JohnFluxx]

I'm just going to play the devil's advocate here..

You complain that debian was hard to install.
This is good! Because:

*) Like you said, you learned a lot in the process.
*) It forced you to realise that some packages aren't totally free, and made it just that tiny bit harder to get them - that's a good thing.
*) If you weren't smart/compentant/knowledgable to install debian, then what use are you to us?
*) You used the new found knowledge to make money, and so I assume helped someone else move/use linux, and possibly develop for it - definetly a good point.

Over the years of helping on a chat channel, I've noticed questions have gone from "How do I check dma is on on my hard disk" to "How do I use kmail?","How do I add a bookmark?", "".

I've noticed more than one person complain/comment on this. If you feel I'm being elitest, just imagine all those AOL'ers suddenly using linux and clogging up the irc channels with really dumb questions.

At the moment, the linux community wants people that will help and develop. Even if that is in translating docs, writing docs, doing art, etc.

Having said that, there are some useful points to having the general AOL'er using linux:
*) More people = hardware companies taking linux seriously.
*) More people = games companies taking linux more seriously.
*) More people = UI considerations taken more and more seriously. (Good as long as the UI only becomes easier to use, not dumbed down and reduce efficency of those who know how to use it)

Re:Sad to See

[TheWanderingHermit]

Don't let the others at your LUG get to you. Be happy that there's a distro for you too.

That's my feeling. My complaint is about the techies who are so out of touch with anyone who is not at their level that they feel their solution is the best and others should adapt to their answer, rather than there being many answers that should adapt to the people involved.

Oh, one last note. For those who have been told that the Debian installer will kill you, read this: you only ever have to install Debian once. :-) per machine... ;-)

Re:Sad to See

[TheWanderingHermit]

Helpful people.

No working answers.

Re:Sad to See

[MrResistor]

I'm not entirely convinced that Mandrake actually serves the niche that everyone says it does. Bear in mind that I'm a SuSE user and have not yet tried any other distros, but I have been plugged in to the local Linux community for a few years now (Sadly we have no LUG, but everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who "did that once", so it usually works out. Kind of an unofficial LUG that doesn't have meetings), and here are my observations regarding newbies:

In my area newbies try one of two distors: SuSE and Mandrake. The ones who start with Mandrake generally try it for a few weeks and then go back to Windows saying something like "Linux isn't ready for the desktop". The ones who start with SuSE generally only use it a little at first, but within 2 years are using Linux as their primary or even exclusive desktop OS. About half of those stick with SuSE, with the other half going on to Slackware or LFS (or even Rock in one instance).

It's important to note, I think, that I haven't yet seen any exceptions to this rule. I haven't seen anyone starting on Mandrake use Linux for more than a month, and I haven't seen anyone starting on SuSE not switch to Linux primarily within 2 years.

I don't know that this necessarily means anything, and certainly my sample size is small (about 20), but it certainly has got me thinking about what, exactly, it means to be a good distro for newbies.

I'm not trying to slam Mandrake here. Obviously there are people who use it and like it, and there has to be some basis in fact for its reputation as a good newbie distro, but I think that perhaps many (most?) of us have misjudged Mandrakes true place in the Linux community.

That said, I hope they can use this to their advantage. Mandrake has certainly made some valuable contributions to the community and it would be truely sad to see them go down while companies like Caldera/SCO remain. I think they can pull out of this if they play their cards right. A friend of mine was able to do so with his construction business when he made it clear to his creditors that he was going to have to file bankruptcy (sp?) if he couldn't work out a deal with them. IIRC he ended up paying roughly 50 cents on the dollar, avoided bankruptcy, and was eventually able to rebuild his business and his life.

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

"Debian's installer does a very simple and Linux-like beautiful thing: it asks the user what to do when it doesn't know, instead of assuming."

Ah, and that's where your opinion differs from that of the parent poster and myself.

For a sufficiently-experienced person in installing operating systems, having the operating system ask the person is a fine move. The person may well know more than the installation package does.

For an *end user* (defined as somebody insufficiently experienced in installing operating systems), having the operating system ask the user is doomed to failure. The user won't know the answer in all likelihood. And, if the installation program has no option to proceed without the answer, the user's pretty much stuck.

Mandrake's Expert install mode, for 8.2 at least, seems to be a nice model. It asked the questions, but typically had a default answer set up based on its guess. If you thought you knew better than the Mandrake guys, you could override their selection. If you hadn't a clue, you could accept Mandrake's default.

Of course, the right answer is to get Linux (whatever distro) available as an operating system the way most end users get their operating systems -- pre-installed on the hardware, whether by an IT department in a business or by your favorite PC distributor.

Re:Sad to See

[gregRowe]

Not a bad troll! ...actually not a very good troll either. I suppose you assume that I am a stereotypical geek, well, you'd be wrong.

It's a good thing there are so many operating systems to choose from, otherwise I might have to use the operating system you like. Or at the very least the distro you like.

What's the point in bashing me for my opinions?

Re:Sad to See

[Simon Lyngshede]

I completly agree with you. People who start out with Mandrake almost always goes back to using Windows 100%. I Think it's because the installation process is to easy. Yes that's correct: TO EASY. The user really doesn't learn anything during the installation, like they do with Slackware and Debian, therefor they will have problems using their nice Linux OS later on. If however the installation is a bit more complicated moving on won't seem that hard later on.

That said, I have seen people install Mandrake an dropping Windows completly later on.

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe so. But, a year from now Debian will still be around, and Mandrake most likely won't be. Not bashing Mandrake, but dealing with a reality.

If you don't like something about Debian, join up and change it. It isn't a commercial distro, but a volunteer organization. It has been around longer than Mandrake, SuSE, Redhat, and many others.

If you spend some time and learn how Debian/GNU programs operate, you can work wonders. I don't find administrating dozens of Debian systems tougher than any other Linux distro. For that matter, I don't think it is as difficult as administrating a Windows 2000 installation.

As we keep seeing these commercial distros drop of the map, think about the future. If you have the knowledge about what is happening under the hood, and give back a little to the community, you will be "free".

Re:Sad to See

[zonix]

You're right! Anyway, I guess the real answer lies in which distro has the best documentation available, as in easy to digest and not necessarily written by the people who created the distro (which tend to get quite verbose and is better to use as a reference).

If your local LUG made their own step-by-step beginner's guides to installing/using some of the different distros, the newbies could read these and then judge for themselves which one to _try out first_? I know my local LUG uses this approach.

per machine...

Oh, I think that's implied. :-)

z

Re:Sad to See

[praedor]

I've never heard any. I am a Mandrake user for 2 reasons: it IS easy and fast to install. I do NOT enjoy dicking with installation. I'm no newbie, I simply want to get the system up and running fast without muss or fuss. After that, I'll tweak and build as time and interest allows. I need my system to work for me, not vice versa.

I disdain those anyone who badmouths this distro or that distro - it is ridiculous. It's ALL linux. I switched originally to Mandrake several years ago because it was the only distro at the time that optimized beyond generic i386. Yeah, yeah, you can build your own tarballs or packages and optimize it on other distros but this one CAME that way from the get-go. I wanted pretty damn optimized from the start so I wouldn't NEED to rebuild this or that package to optimize it unless I really had a hankerin.

Mandrake has been/is a nice distro. 8.2 was pure simplicity itself. 9.0 is troublesome. 9.1 is looking to be a thing of beauty. If my father or sister wanted to try linux, I would recommend Mandrake (8.2, or if I was available to get past the problems, 9.0) without hesitation. It is the distro with which I am most familiar right now (I have used Redhat and Suse in the past).

If Mandrake pulls through this bankruptcy, I'll go to 9.1 when it is available, otherwise, I have no particular preference: Suse or Redhat depending on user comments/input. I don't have broadband so I will not do any distro that requires downloading to install. That is my primary requirement, even before just being able to install and use my system productively as quickly as possible.

Re:Sad to See

[TheWanderingHermit]

Maybe so. But, a year from now Debian will still be around, and Mandrake most likely won't be.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Right off, the best example I can think of is Chrysler. They went under bankruptcy protection, but came back strong and even paid off loans and debts early.

If you don't like something about Debian, join up and change it.

Good point, but, to me, the computer is a tool. I use it in business. I'm not a programmer and, frankly, I don't have the time to sit around debating or going against the grain to try to improve.

If you spend some time and learn how Debian/GNU programs operate, you can work wonders.

Like I just said, to me the computer is a tool. Like a hammer. I'm in business, which means I produce products. I have to focus my time and efforts on producing products that make money, not on playing around with Debian and learning what it does.

Different people have different needs. I'm glad we have a lot of distros. I don't like seeing ANY distro go under.

My only complaint, in my original post, is that so many Debian fans keep talking about how wonderful it is, but seem unable to understand the basic fact that if you're interested in productivity, you don't have time to sit around learning a new system. You have to go with what works. Again, different people have different needs.

Oh, and whether or not one distro is around in a year and another is not does not prove anything. Betamax was better than VHS. When is the last time you saw a home betamax for sale in a store?

Re:Sad to See

[TheWanderingHermit]

Almost everybody I've seen who started with Mandrake is still using Linux, many who use it exclusively.

Yes that's correct: TO EASY.

That's like saying, "This car is too esay to start. All people have to do is turn a key and it starts. They don't learn anything when they buy it or when they run it. That means they'll have problems with it later.

For some of us, the computer is just a tool! That's right -- a tool. I use computers to do work. I bought a car so I could drive places, not to learn about automechanics. If I wanted to learn automechanics, I'd buy something I needed to restore so I could learn. I have five comptuers in my studio/office so I can work. So I can produce the products and services my clients need. Yes, I want to learn, but I can't afford to spend time learning when I need to produce.

In my eyes, the fact that it is easy is good. It means I can download or buy the product and use it to produce goods and services quickly. It costs me less, in man hours (and that translates to money) to get a Mandrake box up and running than to get almost any other distro (except Redhat) running. And, aside from Mandrake costing less to install because it is easy, that means I can be producing faster, which means I start making money with that box sooner.

I do not mean to offend, but your comment about it being too easy is a symptom of what I'm saying is a problem with the attitude behind some distros: that one should be at a certain level of intelligence or knowledge in order to use a Linux based system and if one is not there, one should get there now.

Re:Sad to See

[TheWanderingHermit]

I wouldn't disagree with you. You have based your opinions on your own experience and done what works for you.

I think Mandrake is basically just Redhat with a better UI. I don't see a problem with it. It makes it easier for me to get a box up and running so I can use it faster.

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

My god, you are an arrogant prick. And this is because, what, you managed to install Lunix? I shudder to think what you'd be like if you had an actual skill.

Out of curiosity, what contribution do you make that is so crucial that you can patronize "even" people who only write documentation, translate or make icons. Seriously, I'm dying to know.

Re:Sad to See

[fucksl4shd0t]

It's important to note, I think, that I haven't yet seen any exceptions to this rule. I haven't seen anyone starting on Mandrake use Linux for more than a month, and I haven't seen anyone starting on SuSE not switch to Linux primarily within 2 years.

I started with Mandrake almost a year ago, and now it's my primary OS. My wife loves it too, and she's not a techy like me. :) (my kids love it, but at 4 and 2 it's kinda hard to place a lot of confidence in their recommendation at this time, but give a few years)

Re:Sad to See

[Ankh]

For what it's worth I've seen similar nubers of people start with Mandrake Linux and stick with it, and really like it.

I think what makes the biggest difference is the people around to give support. If you use SuSE (say), and can't answer Mandrake-specific questions like how to use rpmdrake or urpmi, or don't know about Mandrake Control Centre, people asking you questions might not get the best answers.
If someone asks me about YaST under SuSE, I can't help them either. One friend switched away from SuSE for that reason: he wanted support that neither I nor his other frinds could give him.

If your friends say they are moving back to MS Windows, try to find out why, and whether they'd prefer a Linux distribution that you can help them with more, if you are willing and have time, or see if someone else can help mentor them for a while. Or show them #mandrake (or #debian or whatever) so they have somewhere to ask questions.

Re:Sad to See

[molarmass192]

I agree to a point. However, I disagree that "joe sixpack" will *ever* feel comfortable in bash and vi. Reality is that "joe sixpack" was never comfortable in command line envs (think MS-DOS) and almost certainly never will be. Non-tech users operate in a point and click world. A keyboard to them is used only to bang out emails.

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

linuxtoday.com and its posters are also a hotbed of moronic anti red hat flamers. nothing is too stupid for them to pick up on and slag RH over.

sadly, redhat is also a target for KDE zealots too... since they don't worship at the altar of trolltech.

Re:Sad to See

[JohnFluxx]

Someone moderated my message as flaimbait. While I agree it probably was, I disagree it should be moded down. Perhaps there should be a flaimbait(0), or flaimbait(+1) even :)

Re:Sad to See

[Cro Magnon]

Oh, one last note. For those who have been told that the Debian installer will kill you, read this: you only ever have to install Debian once. :-)

But it only has to kill you once! :-)

Re:Sad to See

[JohnFluxx]

Arrogance is a funny old thing - and I did preface it with the whole "playing devil's advocate".

But anyway, I was not putting down documentators etc. I added that as an after thought incase someone called me an arrogant prick for thinking everyone can code - oh well, you can't win them all.
In fact, I'm a documentator myself - search for my nick on the web.

Btw, other than just calling me names, do you actually have any points to go against me?
All my posts have tried to be constructive, and so I hope for the same in replies.

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried installing Debian recently. Frankly, I was appalled at how primitive it was and how many common packages (including some I depend on) were not included because they were not "free" enough. I would recommend Debian to someone who likes tinkering with their OS, just as I would (perhaps more strongly) recommend Slackware or the highly educational Linux From Scratch. I wouldn't recommend any of the above to a newbie unless I hated their guts and wanted them to stick to Windows.

I'm glad someone is saying this. I'm someone who uses Linux 100% at home... and I know a Slackware zealot who recommends it to FUCKING WINDOWS NEWBIES WHO CAN'T FORMAT A FLOPPY WITHOUT HELP. He knows this... I've told him to stop pushing a distro meant for more knowledgable users, but simply cannot stomach the idea of recommending an easy to use distro for new users. No matter how often I explain that getting people onto Linux means they can explore their options later on (such as investigating more niche stuff like Slack) he will not listen. Newbies must be directed to Slack... and straight back to Windows with a the message that "Linux is impossible for newbies."

Dammit, the guy annoys me. He does more damage to Linux than Billg and his marketing budget could ever do. And the thing is... there are probably thousands of dim zealots like him driving away users every single day.

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point in bashing me for my opinions?

To show you that your opinions are wrong, you clusterfart geek!

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like something about Debian, join up and change it.

I don't like the kernel. Or the GUI. Or the hardware support. Or the documentation.

Screw it- I'm just going to install XP.

Re:Sad to See

[fermion]

The problem is that Linux has the same delusion as MS. That it is the the sufficient and necessary OS of the world. Rather than focus on specific things that it does well, it tries to do everything. For instance Linux is excellent for high demand server applications, as well as simple home application like email, web browsing, and simple apps. Likewise MS is very good at simple server application and dedicated office processing. With Linux it is even more complicated because of the many distributions,.

So this is the issue. The Red Hat and Debian distros may be very good for certain applications, but is absolutely wrong for the home user. I have used many distros, and I think Mandrake is the ideal ditro for the new, especially home, user. This is very important, as this is the critical desktop market. It is extremely price sensitive, is not necessarily dedicated to MS office, and just wants something that works. However, I think the zealots are trying to push 'their' favorite app to the detriment of over all success.

OTOH, home users can often 'borrow' software, so much of the market in impenetrable. As long as they buy a computer with Windows pre-installed and get the applications for free from work or friends, Linux has no chance. This is why we need to support every effort of MS that forces people to pay full price for MS product.

Re:Sad to See

[RabidOverYou]

If Chrysler is the best example you can think of, then Mandrake is doomed. They got megatonnage of federal help.

People see a company [United Airlines] go into bankruptcy, and think the sub-dollar stock becomes 'a good bet'. It ain't. Stockholders are last in line. They get bupkis.

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

just imagine all those AOL'ers suddenly using linux and clogging up the irc channels with really dumb questions.

Uh, the fact that IRC doesn't scale as a support channel hasn't seemed to hurt any other operating system.

Re:Sad to See

[MrResistor]

Think it's because the installation process is to easy.

I don't think that's it. SuSE is also ludicrously easy to install and update (in fact, that's the main reason I haven't bothered to try any other distros, I'm just to used to having YaST).

Anyway, if being easy to install were the issue I think I would see an equal amount of attrition with SuSE.

Re:Sad to See

[AngryPuppy]

Overall, I do agree with you. I have a problem with technical elitists. I do believe that the less you have to know about the internals of a tool, the better.

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy a challenge, and I do love to learn, but on my own terms. I don't want to do hours of research to do something simple on my desktop. I'm not lazy, but now that I'm a family man, I can't dedicate time to my hobby like I used to.

Mandrake was easy to use. I used 8.1, 8.2 and 9.0. I purchased boxed copies of the last two. I have Powerpack 9.0. I am also a club member.

My experience has not been the same as yours, however. My initial install went great, but I experienced stability problems with all three including occasional hard lockups where the machine would not even respond to a ping. A hard reboot would then cause it to report a corrupt superblock.

I've switched to Red Hat now, and my stability increased greatly. I don't think Mandrake ever had quite the right driver for my IDE controller. I do wish I could have resolved it, but I never had any luck. Red hat has been a better newbie experience for me because I can spend more time exploring and less time fixing.

Re:Sad to See

[MrResistor]

If your friends say they are moving back to MS Windows, try to find out why, and whether they'd prefer a Linux distribution that you can help them with more, if you are willing and have time, or see if someone else can help mentor them for a while.

The most often given reason is games, although with id supporting Linux and UT2003 shipping with Linux support in the box (which I am loving, although it beats the hell out of my 2 year old hardware) I think that will be less of an issue in the future.

Thats the only solid reason I've been given, and it's closely followed by the sort of nebulous Linux bashing you see on /., "Linux is a toy, not for serious work" and "Linux isn't ready for the desktop".

I have to say though that IRC is the last place I would send someone for help, mostly because of the maturity level I've encountered on IRC. If I can't answer a question myself I can usually find the answer through google, and I'm always willing to do that. On the rare occasions that I can't find it comp.os.linux is the best place I've found to get answers.

Re:Sad to See

[blafasel]

lol, young padawan. learn to spell before you troll the next time. if this is how you code, then good luck. cheers, b.

Re:Sad to See

[nathanh]

My god, you are an arrogant prick. And this is because, what, you managed to install Lunix? I shudder to think what you'd be like if you had an actual skill.

He's not being an arrogant prick. He's looking at a possible scenario for the future. Linux continues to improve because the users are also the developers. As Linux becomes more "idiot-friendly" there will be more non-developers consuming the time of developers. Development will slow down and possibly stagnate. It's a high cost and so the risk should be evaluated.

I personally don't agree with the argument - I believe that more users will mean more professional services catering for these users, which means more developers and faster growth - but it's still important to understand somebody's argument instead of insulting them.

Re:Sad to See

[TheWanderingHermit]

Speaking as someone who spent 10 years teaching in treatment settings, I'm willing to bet your friend can't recommend an easy-to-use distro because he needs people to try something hard like Slack and fail so he can reinforce his opinion that he is smart and better than they are.

Re:Sad to See

[madpuppy]

That sounds about right, I was going to say the same thing....

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

you are SO right it's not even funny. I have been saying the same thing for about a year now, and have realized that the main reason linux doesn't succeed on the desktop is because it's so difficult to find a FRIENDLY knowledgeable person to help you. The "elitist" community you refer to is committing social suicide by proceeding in this manner.
This problem isn't limited to BBS, msg boards, or IRC. It begins with the nerd in an IT environment acting like his/her shite doesn't stink and treating windows users with either total disdain or like they're dumber than a bag of hammers. Then the "victim" tells all his/her friends what a bunch of assholes comprise the community. This problem is killing linux slowly but surely on the desktop, and in more than a few backoffices.
How does a real company sell software? By being actually helpful and enthusiastic about someone buying/using their product in lieu of a competitor's.
my .02

Re:Sad to See

[Arandir]

Obviously there are people who use it and like it, and there has to be some basis in fact for its reputation as a good newbie distro

Mandrake is a good newbie distro. But that's precisely the problem. You're not a newbie forever. Eventually most users will graduate into the "somewhat experienced" class. Some will move on to the "moderately experienced" class. A few will make it to "expert" or even "guru" level.

But Mandrake sux for the expert and guru, and can be very annoying for the moderately experienced. "Centrist" distros like SuSE and Redhat are still easy enough for the newbie to install and configure, but not so dumbed-down that people are forced to graduate to other distros.

In short, Mandrake does not progress with the user.

Re:Sad to See

[linzeal]

We will always have emacs, nothing could possibly elucidate it completely.

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

My only complaint, in my original post, is that so many Debian fans keep talking about how wonderful it is, but seem unable to understand the basic fact that if you're interested in productivity, you don't have time to sit around learning a new system. You have to go with what works. Again, different people have different needs.

I can understand your point, but I think just as different people have different needs, different people have different definitions of productivity. In Mandrake, Windows, Mac or any GUI OS you are presented with a set of buttons or menus that let you accomplish a set of tasks. The number of things you can accomplish, and the ease you can accomplish those tasks with varies.

However, if you can learn to write a shell script, perl, C, whatever, your productivity and options can be greater than ever. I have nothing against things being easy, and agree we should try to make applications and systems as easy to use as possible without sacrificing speed, security, or stability. Debian does have a desktop project that is working toward those goals. This is just a start, but I think most (I am not saying all) Debian users are willing to help.

Re:Sad to See

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose you assume that I am a stereotypical geek, well, you'd be wrong.

So are you saying you don't smell like Cheetohs? Yeah right, fattie.

Here's your chance (not mine).

[BoomerSooner]

Hate to tell you this but free software can survive just fine. It's a bloated company based on free software that cannot.

Why the hell should I give my hard earned money to a company that isn't doing enough innovative stuff to be able to sell their product? RedHat and Apple don't seem to have these problems.

Realistically how many people does it take to make a distribution? Patrick V of slackware probably doesn't do it alone yet I wouldn't be surprised if he did.

If you really want to contribute just write free code. Otherwise stfu about "contributing" to a bad business model.

To say it in french, "Je m'en fiche".

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[Arjuna Theban]

RedHat survives because of their corporate strategy and partnerships (with IBM etc). Apple's survival has absolutely nothing with the free software projects, it's an absurd example.

Mandrake is mostly a Joe User distro, and as much as I don't like it, I can see that the people maintaining it (even if it was 3-4 people) need to get paid. When everyone goes and downloads the iso in under an hour with their broadband, they see no money in their hands. THAT's the problem.

-bm

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[johnlenin1]

Not everyone who wants to support open-source software is a coder. And I wouldn't dream of recommending Slackware or Debian to such types.

Distros like Mandrake give the typical user a useable-right-from-the-box alternative to Windows, and this is a good thing.

And Mandrake not innovative? Please. Multi Network Firwewall, MandrakeClub, letting the users pick the packages they want in the distro, all the Drak tools that make administration easier for a newbie, an installation easier and quicker than Windows...every bit of this is innovative. All this while maintaining a commitment to GPL sofware. I am happy to support a company like that.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[sweetooth]

MandrakeSoft is under no obligation to make thier software freely downloadable. They can choose to only distribute thier software in either boxed form, or on servers that you pay to access, or whatever other distribution method they choose. Any losses incurred from makeing the software freely downloadable are due to thier business decisions.

If they did remove free downloads public mirrors would still exist when the software started showing up on peoples doorsteps, however Mandrake could save money on bandwidth this way. Cost reduction is smart business, and typically the only people affected are the ones that wouldn't buy the software anyway.

Asking for charity and having a donations page is hardly the way to run a successful for profit business. If they want donations they should change to a not for profit organization.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[Drakonian]

Correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't the GPL mean require them to release the source code freely? (As in publicly downloadable?) So a user could compile Mandrake free of charge? I'm not sure about this, but it seems to me that Free-as-in-GNU is a superset of free-as-in-beer. When you have to release your source under the GPL, how do you have to do that? If you CAN release it on a CD, how much can you charge for that? $5? $50? $500? Where does it cross the line?

However I guess that would negate the essence of Mandrake - user friendliness.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[Arjuna Theban]

Donations are an option for die-hard fans who really don't want to see Mandrake go under, or for people who really really appreciate their work.

I think buying a boxed set every once in a while is enough help from an average user. If everyone who uses Mandrake yet never purchased a boxed set goes out and buys one now I think Mandrake would be in a much better shape.

-bm

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[Drakonian]

OK, I have an opinion. I imagine it is an unpopular one, so mod me as troll for flamebait if you like.

I don't think companies can make money selling completely open source software. I think selling completely open source software IS a bad business model.

I haven't seen any examples of corporations making a profit doing this. RedHat makes it's money from selling services, right? How much of their revenue is from shrinkwrapped boxes? I'd be surprised if it was over 1%. Apple uses open-source software such as Darwin but they don't try and sell it by itself. They add their proprietary code such as Quartz/Aqua/Finder/etc and sell the whole package as OS X. It's great for them because they saved a lot of money on kernel development, however they aren't trying to sell their kernel. And Safari is free-as-in-beer.

Are there any companies making money from selling a completely open source software product? To me the point is this: the GPL requires you to release your source code, essentially for free (as in beer). I say essentially because you can release it at cost of distribution. People don't pay for things when they can get them free-of-charge - it's human nature.

Sorry if I grossly misunderstood the GPL or something.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[_|()|\|]

Correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't the GPL mean require them to release the source code freely? (As in publicly downloadable?) So a user could compile Mandrake free of charge?

No, if Mandrake distributes source along with binaries (you know, those three CDs you never use), they have fulfilled their GPL obligations. The GPL does not require that you host an FTP site for the whole free-loading world.

You can charge as much as you want for a CD, but you have to accept that someone can turn around and distribute GPLed programs from the CD. Note, however, that the CD itself (i.e., the compilation) is not necessarily GPLed. The proprietary installer and configuration tools on SuSE CDs prevent you from sharing them with your friends. The trademarked icons on Red Hat ISOs prevent you from selling them.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[tuffy]

Correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't the GPL mean require them to release the source code freely? (As in publicly downloadable?)

You're wrong. The GPL is not "internet aware" and doesn't require any sort of free download for code licensed under it. Put simply, the GPL requires that anyone who gets a binary is entitled to the source code freely (or for a minimal fee) and without further restrictions on distribution. For people who post their GPL software online, it's simple enough to add a "source code" link to satisfy the GPL. But for a software company like Mandrake, they're free to put the source *only* in the box along with the software and not put either online for anyone to download.

Red Hat, Debian and other Linux distros are kind enough to put their binaries and source online to download, but the GPL license doesn't require it.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[someone247356]

Ok your wrong.

The GPL only requires that they release the source code, to GLPed works to the people that they distribute (sell is ok) there work to.

If you buy a copy of their distribution, then the GPL entitles you to a copy of the source code at a reasonable cost, to cover distributing the source to you.

If you haven't bought, or otherwise acquired a copy of their distribution from them, then you aren't entitled to squat.

I hope that clears things up.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[breser]

The cost reduction wouldn't happen. Mandrake doesn't directly run their own mirrors. The mirrors are simply provided by people who want to provide mirrors. Only a couple of mirrors have access to Mandrake's cluster that has the originals on it. All the other site simply get it from those few sites.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[Maeryk]

Are there any companies making money from selling a completely open source software product? To me the point is this: the GPL requires you to release your source code, essentially for free (as in beer). I say essentially because you can release it at cost of distribution. People don't pay for things when they can get them free-of-charge - it's human nature.

You are right, of course. I like Mandrake.. it may not be the best one out there, but it is the only one that has full featured creamy smoothness, installs right off the bat on the majority of my machines with little or no problems, and comes pre-optimized for my processors, so I dont have to spend 2 hours of wanking glory being 31337 h4x0r dud3 and recompiling everything.

that being said, I support them for their packaging, their pretty installer, and the fact that all the menus all work with all the windowmanagers.. thats a nice switch for me.

But you are right.. people will not buy when they can get for free... look at all the knee jerk bullshit on this very board of people on one hand going "I wont support a company that cannot make money on its own" and "its allright to steal from the music industry, because they make money on their own and have the temerity to get pissed when I am stealing from them"

Wonder if those same people would be pissed if I borrowed their car for several hours a night, but filled the gas back up when I parked it?

maeryk

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[sweetooth]

You have to make the source available, there is no requirement to make it free (no cost), though many people believe you should.

See the following for examples.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.h tml
http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/standards/ORDERS
http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/standards/DISTRIB

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[Drakonian]

Ahh, so it's only for people that they distribute their work to? I didn't realize that at all. That's a much different scenario. So they can charge $1000 and only include the source in that $1000 package?

But I guess you can't do that in the real-world, because someone would buy your software and re-release it free-as-in-beer, which they would be legally entitled to do.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[breser]

That's precisely what I ask in the OpEd piece that I had been writing for a while and just finished this morning before this news broke. I've included a lot of details that aren't generally clear without a lot of digging or without being really active in the Mandrake community as I myself am.

You can read the piece here:
http://ben.reser.org/rants/invisible.cgi?month=01& day=15&year=2003&t=00

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[sweetooth]

My point is that corporations make money from sales/services and not donations. If Mandrake has to rely on donations to survive they probably will not.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[fucksl4shd0t]

Correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't the GPL mean require them to release the source code freely? (As in publicly downloadable?) So a user could compile Mandrake free of charge? I'm not sure about this, but it seems to me that Free-as-in-GNU is a superset of free-as-in-beer. When you have to release your source under the GPL, how do you have to do that? If you CAN release it on a CD, how much can you charge for that? $5? $50? $500? Where does it cross the line?

Now, it wouldn't be free as in freedom if you weren't allowed to charge a fee, now would it?

I couldn't find a link to give you, but I have read documentation written by Richard Stallman about this exact subject. Basically, what it comes down to is that you can:

• Charge for free software (it's free as in speech, not free as in beer)
• Charge for the source (see above), but no more than you charged for the binary. That means that if you charge $50 for the binary, you may charge up to $50 more for the source, for a grand total of $100. Charging more for the source would not be considered giving free access to the source (free as in speech, again).
• Prevent people from acquiring a copy of the software through your own distribution channels until they pay your requested fee. This includes things like holding the box until they pay at the register, or using authenticated servers to prevent them from downloading until your credit card clears.

However, you can *not*:

• Prevent someone who has bought the software from copying it for their friends, provided they make the copy available under the same license (GPL) under which you gave it to them.
• Prevent someone who has acquired the software by copying it from their friends from passing it along as well, including posting it on a website for free (as in beer) download, or even charging a fee themselves!
• Prevent someone who has acquired the software from viewing and/or modifying the source code.
• Prevent someone who has modified the source code from distributing it with their modifications. You may require them to notate that they modified it somehow so as to distinguish it from your "genuine" product.

• This isn't a complete list of cans and can'ts. The important thing to remember is that the purpose of the GPL is protect freedom. It's not about making software available non-gratis, it's about making software available without sacrificing the end-user's rights to protect corporate interests. When a company decides to make/distribute free software, they have to make a serious commitment to protecting their end-users' freedom, or they will fail somehow.

  As far as mandrake is concerned, they have worked damn hard to stick to the GPL, and have had a LOT of problems besides that. I love their distribution, and I'd hate to see it go (although I'm willing to try out something besides just switching to RedHat), and I really want them to pull through. However, I agree with some of these other posters, that if they failed they've failed. We should move on.

  But filing for bankruptcy protection doesn't mean disappearing completely. They may still have a chance and make a comeback, so I'll be watching for that. :)

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[mickwd]

"It's a bloated company based on free software that cannot."

That bloated company was Mandrake under the previous management team - the one who tried to turn it into some sort of e-Learning company, and increased its operating expenses by 400%, dot.com-style.

Mandrake sacked that management team, and cut costs drastically, but obviously not soon enough. During 2001-2002 their revenue increased 31% while reducing operating expenses by 42% - see here.

The current Mandrake may not be bloated any more, but they have a huge financial debt around their necks (not to mention long-term contracts entered into by the previous management team). Chapter-11 proceedings should help them cope with this, and if their customers don't desert them in the mean-time, they have a strong chance of survival. Ironically, this may be because they are end-user oriented more than corporate oriented - corporations will take fright from a company seen as failing, whereas end-users, I think, are more prepared to pay money simply for something they like that works.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[Evan927]

The GPL does not require them to let you download the source.

The GPL requires you to offer, for an at-cost charge, the source on the same format you offered the binaries. Thus, if Mandrake only sold the CD's, then they would be required to put the source on a CD and offer that to anyone who bought the binary CD

Offering ISO's on the website is a long-standing tradition of distros, but it isn't required. In fact, Lindows doesn't.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[HanzoSan]

YEah so Mandrake shouldnt relesse Mandrake 9.1 until they get their donations. They shouldnt provide any free services until after you pay for them.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[fucksl4shd0t]

But I guess you can't do that in the real-world, because someone would buy your software and re-release it free-as-in-beer, which they would be legally entitled to do.

That happens already, except when it's not GPLd software it's called "piracy". When it's GPLd software it's called "exercising your rights of ownership". I wish we had one word that summed up the proper meaning that we could throw back at all the people calling us pirates for committing piracy.

Oh yeah, we do.

"Freedom"

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[shepd]

>Wonder if those same people would be pissed if I borrowed their car for several hours a night, but filled the gas back up when I parked it?

Yes, but if you made a copy of my car, and heck, even kept it, I really couldn't care. Toyota might not be happy, but that's not my problem.

If you were nice and asked first, I'd even lend you any tools I had to help you.

That's the difference between stealing and copyright violation / plain copying. One leaves the owner (by owner I mean the last person to puchase the item) without, the other leaves the owner with what's theirs.

And if Mandrake is dumb enough to let everyone suck off their bandwidth, that's their problem. Time for them to step it down a notch (as in to 14.4 kbps) for non-paying users. Let them use a mirror, which is what they should be doing anyways.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[fucksl4shd0t]

But you are right.. people will not buy when they can get for free... look at all the knee jerk bullshit on this very board of people on one hand going "I wont support a company that cannot make money on its own" and "its allright to steal from the music industry, because they make money on their own and have the temerity to get pissed when I am stealing from them"

I disagree. :)

People will pay for something they can get for free for a lot of reasons. Take the prostitution post made farther down. Why pay for it? Because otherwise you have to deal with seduction, and whether you're successful or not, it's going to take a lot of time. There are plenty of other places, but I need not go into detail. Reason is: for many things you are also absolutely correct. Best thing, IMO, is for businesses to acknowledge that people will pay for free stuff, and people will steal stuff that's not free. Adapt to these facts, I say. And free software requires such an adaptation for any such business to succeed.

Great, I made point, proved it, then contradicted it.

Wonder if those same people would be pissed if I borrowed their car for several hours a night, but filled the gas back up when I parked it?

If you manage to start my truck and back it out of the driveway, I'll be surprised. Even if you don't, I'll fucking kill you. :)

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[Drakonian]

Thanks for the info.

[You cannot]: Prevent someone who has acquired the software by copying it from their friends from passing it along as well, including posting it on a website for free (as in beer) download, or even charging a fee themselves!

Now that is interesting. That leads to my original point which I poorly communicated - when you sell Free Software (as in GNU) users have the right to legally get that software for free-as-in-beer. (By means of purchasing it originally, then posting it on a website for free.) Isn't this a serious flaw in the business model?

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[cje]

Dude, calm down. Take a deep breath. Go outside for a walk or something.

Nobody is suggesting that you (or anybody else that is unable or unwilling to help out financially) should feel obligated to send money to MandrakeSoft (or anybody else, for that matter.) The point that the original poster was trying to make was that if people use Mandrake and have been toying with the idea of sending them a contribution, then now would be a pretty good time to do it. If you want to help out by writing code, then that's great! Code away! But telling somebody to "shut the fuck up" simply for suggesting another way to help out is enormously immature.

If you couldn't care less about the whole thing, then there's no reason to get worked up over people making monetary contributions, right? I know that I will do so (largely as a result of your post.) By and large, it's a free hemisphere; folks are allowed to do what they want with their money. If you disagree with how I or others spend our own money, je m'en fiche.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[fucksl4shd0t]

Now that is interesting. That leads to my original point which I poorly communicated - when you sell Free Software (as in GNU) users have the right to legally get that software for free-as-in-beer. (By means of purchasing it originally, then posting it on a website for free.) Isn't this a serious flaw in the business model?

It's a serious flaw in the business model if you depend on software sales because you're stuck in the "software-as-product" mindset. "Software-as-service" has proven to be a very valuable business model. In fact, considering that 80% of programmers are employed to program in non-production capacities (ie they write software to be used internally by companies), perhaps we should look at this as a sure sign that there is money in service. Red Hat makes a ton of money because of the services they sell, both to would-be administrators (that will after they're certified) and to companies directly.

Look at Microsoft. They're sitting here with 90% of the desktops in the world running Windows. Many of them are *not* upgrading because they're happy with what they have. Same with Office. So in order to try to spur sales in these areas (the ones that actually make money for the company) they've had to revise their licensing scheme to try to extort more money from people. In the process, they are learning that they need to have more value-add services to their own software products! IBM learned the same lesson during the '90's and have managed to turn themselves around as well. They sell hardware, but it's their services that make the money now.

Software-as-product is a failing business model for the same reason that NASA is a successful bureaucracy. When Microsoft delivered a product that satisfied people (win98) and then took 3 years to release an upgrade (winXP), everyone got used to windows 98. At this time, the only people I've seen that actually upgraded existing machines were techies. Value-add services are the way to go.

We just acknowledge that ahead of time so we don't get into too much trouble later.

Now, Mandrake is having a different problem. Like Commodore, they got screwed over by top guys. Unlike Commodore, they have a chance to turn it around before they die.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[Anonymous Coward]

Your second point is wrong. GPL allows you to charge as much as you want for binaries, but with source code you may charge no more than the costs of physically distributing it.

GNU position on selling free software

gpl

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[zapfie]

The GPL only requires you to release the source to a party if you also gave that party the binary.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[fucksl4shd0t]

Your second point is wrong. GPL allows you to charge as much as you want for binaries, but with source code you may charge no more than the costs of physically distributing it.

Um, it wasn't there. All it said was that there is a limit on the fee associated with source code. I wish I could give a link. I'll google harder for it, but later. I read something that said specifically that the fee was limited to the price of the original software.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[Anonymous Coward]

when it's BSD licensed it's not piracy or APL or Apache licensed for that matter. These are all FREE as in beer as well. GPL is not the only license you twit!

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[m_evanchik]

Another drag on Mandrake was they lost a copyright infringement lawsuit by the owners of the old "Mandrake the Magician" comic strip.

So not only did they have to pay a seetlement, but they also had legal costs, which can be expensive.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[fucksl4shd0t]

Ok Troll, I'm biting. I hope you're happy.

If you go back and read the whole thread, you'll find that we were discussing the GPL and no other licenses, and comparing it to proprietary software, and the business methods associated with the two. I chose my phrases in order to avoid a lot of verbiage, but in the context of the thread, it's quite clear what I"m talking about.

Bitch. :)

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[kubrick]

If you want business models, check out Open Source.

I get the feeling that when he wrote the GPL, RMS didn't really care whether or not people would make money by releasing Free Software. He wanted to encourage people to share software freely (as in freedom), which is why the license is agnostic as to the the question of charging money.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[tshak]

You don't have to make it free, but it's legal for me to buy it and put it on my FTP for free so that other people don't have to buy it. The fact that you are selling your software with a license that says you can make unlimited copies is virtually giving it away for free. Hency why there's no point for me to buy GPL'd software since I can legally download it for free.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[Tim C]

Not everyone who wants to support open-source software is a coder. And I wouldn't dream of recommending Slackware or Debian to such types.

I am a programer, and I still wouldn't recommend Slackware or Debian to other programmers.

Don't get me wrong, my first couple of Linux installs were Slackware. Back in about '97 or so, while I was still at University, I downloaded Slackware onto floppies (lots of floppies) to take it home and install it on my PC.

Since then, I've been through a few distributions, including Debian and RedHat, but I've been using Mandrake since about 6.1 or so.

It's just so much easier to install. I don't want to spend a day or two installing, configuring and tweaking my OS. I want to get it installed and configured as quickly as possible, so I can get on and do some real work. Sure, I'll be tweaking things from time to time for a little while, and installing stuff I forgot, but that's okay - it's a little here and there, spread out over time, and the system is still usable the whole time.

I'm a programmer, not a sysadmin. I want to program, not admin my own system, beyond what's necessary.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[Omnifarious]

But, that download site won't have your brand and label associated with it. So, if you make your brand valuable enough (like RedHat), people will go buy it, even though they can freely download it elsewhere.

Re:Here's your chance (not mine).

[Anonymous Coward]

For a person with a name like yours and trollers for friends, you sure have intelligent posts. :-)

Unrealistic Reasoning

[Skyshadow]

MandrakeSoft is a business. When it became fashionable to start shilling for "contributions" or "donations" to businesses, I'll never know, but it's a stupid, unrealistic idea which needs to be killed and buried in the unmarked grave it so richly deserves.

For-Profit businesses exist for one reason and one reason only: to make money. If they cannot do this, it's their own fault -- especially if they are expecting people to whom they give away their product to send in "contributions", as you call it.

MandrakeSoft is going the way of the dodo because they haven't successfully created a way to make money. End of story. God willing, they'll be replaced by a business which can do so, but don't expect me to send my hard-earned bucks to save 'em.

Re:Unrealistic Reasoning

[doorbot.com]

MandrakeSoft is a business.

You're exactly right. The parent of this post needs to be modded up and it's parent modded down... way down.

I'm still trying to understand why I should donate money to a for-profit business. Why don't I just give my money to Microsoft? Or the government? Oh that's right, because I don't "give" money to a business, I "invest" money. And I expect a return on my investment, or I'll take my money elsewhere...

If you feel bad for Mandrake, get over it, and donate some money to the EFF or Debian. Or if you don't like their social contract, donate to a local LUG.

Re:Unrealistic Reasoning

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't do donations they ask that you join the Mandrake club. You get access to extra software and services (mirrors, forums). This isn't the same as a donation since you get something in return for your money. I joined because i didn't want to wait for the latest versions to come out in the stores and wanted to help support my favorite distro. Apparently this model works fairly well as they have some 20k users. The financial problems they are having are related to poor management in previous years. I think they tried to get into the educational market, signed a bunch of contracts and couldn't come through on them. This is the problem not there current business model.

Re:Unrealistic Reasoning

[Blimey85]

Actually, if I understood everything that I read on their site, they aren't losing money on the distro. They lost money (lots of it) when they had problems with idiocy in management. They have since gotten rid of those people and have tried to turn the ship around. I think at this point the ship has already reached the rocks and water is rushing in to the hull but whether or not the ship sinks is yet to be seen.

I like Mandrake. I've used it for several years and it has just finally gotten to a point where I don't have any problems with it... or maybe my knowldege about Linux in general has matured to the point that I can take care of problems as soon as they arise... either way, as time goes on, Mandrake keeps getting better. I would hate to see it fail after so much time and energy has gone into such a wonderful project/product.

They have a lot of good people working there and a lot of good ideas, but like anyone else, they need to be able to eat and pay their bills at the end of the day and they may end up having to find other jobs or other ways to keep their company going in these tough times.

Re:Unrealistic Reasoning

[mickwd]

"MandrakeSoft is going the way of the dodo because they haven't successfully created a way to make money. End of story."

MandrakeSoft is in the current financial situation because of their former management team (now sacked) who tried to turn them into some sort of e-Education dot.com company - increasing their operating expenses 400% in the process.

They've sorted out the worst of the mess, and they're doing much better now, but they have a big financial hole they can't fill. This is the reason for the Chapter 11-like filing. Without huge debts to service, I believe they can easily be profitable (although they might have to be a little less generous with how much they give away for free).

If you're going to say "End of story", make sure you've read the book, not just the covers.

Re:Unrealistic Reasoning

[kdart]

Of course Mandrakesoft is in business to make money. They are simply relying on the "honor system" to do that. The real shame is that there is little honor left in the world that anyone, or a company that relies on it, can depend on.

Re:Unrealistic Reasoning

[vsprintf]

I'm still trying to understand why I should donate money to a for-profit business. Why don't I just give my money to Microsoft? Or the government? Oh that's right, because I don't "give" money to a business, I "invest" money. And I expect a return on my investment, or I'll take my money elsewhere...

If you don't use Mandrake, then you don't need to worry about it. The people who use it (I do) should "invest" a few dollars or join the Mandrakeclub (I did) in return for the use of the software. In this case, it happens to be voluntary rather than forced, a la Microsoft.

The return on my investment is that I continue to get a very solid, easy-to-use product for a few dollars rather than pay a lot of money for Microsoft's bloatware.

Re:Unrealistic Reasoning

[Eric Damron]

You rant on about how Mandrake fails to live up to the traditional business model. Let me give you a hint: Free software is not a traditional business model and, in fact, the correct model if there is one had not been fully defined.

Mandrake puts out a good product and God forbid that they should ask for donations! Oh horror! The assumtion is that people who contribute use mandrake so it's not really wealfare!

Re:Unrealistic Reasoning

[NiceGeek]

Don't consider it a "donation", if like me you downloaded the ISO's, just consider it payment for the product.

Re:Unrealistic Reasoning

[alienw]

Well, MandrakeClub is not much different from Apple's .Mac. They didn't do such a good job disguising its real purpose as Apple did, but essentially it's the same. You pay a fairly high pricefor a marginally useful service (homepage hosting and email vs downloads of packaged rpms and forums and stuff). Apparently, the apple folks don't mind paying a bunch of cash for that shit, and Mandrake does essentially the same thing. Apple does offer more services, though.

Re:Unrealistic Reasoning

[swv3752]

Mandrake is actually looking at offering email in the future.

MandrakeClub?

[grub]

Will all the MandrakeClub members have to turn in their funny hats with the ears?

Re:MandrakeClub?

[vsprintf]

You're thinking of the wrong distro. Those users all wear red fedoras when no one is watching. Heck, some of 'em even wear the things when people are watching.

This is odd...

[AnonymousCowheard]

It's not written in aramaic...it's English! That's the language of the trolls! Maybe this message will tell us where we can find CowboyNeal's golden fingernail clippings and set an example for all of the slashdot kingdom! It reads,

"To f## the #i#Cl#p#ngs##, y#u se##ch woo## of C##ada in backpa#k# of AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH."

Strange, it just says "ahhhhhhhhhhhhh" at the end. Perhaps this troll was dictating to another troll as he died? The only "ahhhhhhhhhh" I know of is an old folk-lore tail about a wizard of "ahhhhhhhhhh-zzzz"; "oz" for short. Perhaps he was dictating and died as he was trying to mention Wozniack's codename: WOZ. It wouldn't make sense for him to dictate "ahhhhhhhhhhh" if he were dying, I think it ... IT IT GOT ESR, RUN !!! IT'S A MOUNTY!

Not Fair to Rail MandrakeSoft

[chewtoy-11]

One has to wonder why everytime a Linux distro company has problems, everyone pipes up with the slew of "That distro sucked" messages. Personally, I don't think it's fair to bash them based on their feature sets.

However, I have to say that for a company to successfully market Linux, it would seem most logical to use a minimalist production schedule, keeping the boxed copies to a minimum, just enough to fill orders anyway. Everytime I go to Best Buy or Wal-Mart, there's 100s of Mandrake boxes sitting around with price tags a bit on the heavy side (for a free OS anyway).

Perhaps eliminating the fat manual would have saved a bundle. Maybe a better question now is: How could they adjust their marketing/business practices to recover from such a blow? Perhaps we can tell them what we expect from a Linux distribution, and what is useless (or unnecessary).

Re:Not Fair to Rail MandrakeSoft

[pben]

The market for Linux is Regional so there are plenty of people out of the region that don't use or like that other Linux.

I have often wondered how Slackware could still be around and turning a profit after all these years. Maybe it is because they work just how you describe.

Re:Not Fair to Rail MandrakeSoft

[Jason Earl]

Slackware turns a profit the old-fashioned way, they keep their overhead extremely low. If Slackware has more than a handful of employees I would be shocked.

Re:Not Fair to Rail MandrakeSoft

[Anonymous Coward]

> Perhaps eliminating the fat manual would have
> saved a bundle.
>
Huh? You mean the Mdk9.0 manual? It was absolutely minimalist and rather disappointing, given that most users buy "Powerpacks" just for "the books" a lot of times. The manual sucked big-time and wasn't even a book (cover is about as this as any other page). Hell, the Slackware book beats the pants of this "manual"!

Bankrupcy...or as the French would say...

[gpinzone]

WE SURRENDER!

Re:Bankrupcy...or as the French would say...

[Arctic Fox]

Hate to pile on the French, but as Al Bundy said, "it's good to hate the French".
Did you know that French tanks have 1 forward gear and 5 reverse gears? *rimshot*
Seen in classifieds in paper: "For Sale: French rifles. Never been fired, only dropped once"

Re:Bankrupcy...or as the French would say...

[Anonymous Coward]

hey don't be so hard on them, after all they invented mayonaise.

vee cee you later

[Anonymous Coward]

> Secondly, it wants to get Venture Capital (VC). The email claims the company is close to cutting a deal with one or more VCs. The author of the e-mail was hoping its recipient would be an investor, or would at least claim to intend to invest to help convince the company's board of the validity of the bankruptcy scenario.

Suuuuucker!

I find this humorus...

[rindeee]

...in contrast to the article on Newsforge where Gael Duval says (paraphrased) "There is really no problem, but we're working to fix it". And to the guy whining about this being bad for Open Source and Free software...you're a bigger doofus than Gael Duval. To succeed at becoming the primary Server/Desktop OS/App/whatever, OSS doesn't have to make money for companies trying to modify and sell it based on a pretty install or nice out-of-box configuration....it just has to work as good or better than its commercial brotheren. I design and install Linux based systems for my customers. I make a lot of money doing so. I have bought maybe half-a-dozen commercially packaged distros in my life (only in cases where the customer wants the crappy books). Odd...I use free software and yet, I make money. Why you ask? Becuase I am adding value. Mandrake, RedHat, etc. are all in the business of adding value to the software in terms of "polishing" it. If people want what Mandrake did/does in terms of "polishing" and can't manage to do it themselves then they'll buy it. This would lead me to believe that either people don't want it or are doing it themselves.

Just what the hell is going on?

[labratuk]

First we hear a rumor a week or so ago that Mandrake were going to file for bankruptcy.

Then, yesterday we get a Newsforge article completely denying it.

Now we hear this.

Mandrake certainly do seem to have issues with being honest with people. Plus I think they have a history of this, don't they?

Re:Just what the hell is going on?

[ashpool7]

Glad somebody modded you down. That newsforge article doesn't deny anything except Mandrake's death.

They implicitly included bankruptcy as an option in their statement. There's no honesty problems here; they just didn't know what they wanted to do.

Bankruptcy protection doesn't mean the whole operation shuts down.

Re:Just what the hell is going on?

[StarTux]

All well and fine, but they did file bankruptcy on the 13 (check the articles again), which is a day after the story broke. One of two things is happening imho:

1. They are lying, which brings up a whole slew of bad possibilities.

2. Duval had no idea that they had already submitted bankruptcy.

Oh and also your post assumes that chapter 11 in France (bankruptcy protection) is the same as the US. Dangerous thinking, should never assume anything. Todays message is very ambiguous, chapter 11 like protection? What does that mean in France? For all we know they maybe selling out and moving to Southern France...

StarTux
PS I hope that I am wrong, but no way to prove otherwise. Only thing to do is wait and see.

Re:Just what the hell is going on?

[StarTux]

How the hell is this flamebait?

Asking some good questions and got flamebaited by thoughtless id10t's.

StarTux

What I would have said, if i didn't actually have

[notque]

to work sometimes.

Exactly. You are right on, mandrake serves a perfect niche, and was wonderful as my first install.

It picked up everything I had on first load. No other distro has, and I still can't get a sound card to work under Slackware.

Back to work!

Teh funny

[unicron]

I honestly feel bad for the french clerk responsible for handing out these "surrender" forms. He HAS to be the busiest man on earth. Pit traders on Wall Street has less stressful jobs than he does.

Re:Teh funny

[vsprintf]

Even though I'm a Mandrake user, I don't think you should have been modded troll for that. I would have given it a +1 funny.

Re:Teh funny

[Maquis196]

Oh ha ha, typical bloody american/british humour! (and to clarify im both british and french)

Really why is this funny to you? France has done a lot for this world (believe it or not), I take it all the surrender jokes are about French military history no?

Well as a historian let me tell you this; (please excuse all incorrect spellings)

France (or the franks at the time) under Charlemagne brought Europe out of the dark ages!
The French revoution marked the 1st step of the downfall of MANY monarchies!
Napoleanic France brough about the Napoleanic code,a lot of which is still in use today with countries all over the EU!
Unfortunatly due to Napoleans defeat France has been very week population wise, this is how Bismark defeating them shortly after.
In WW1, French troops suffered the highest casualties (with the possible exception of German troops) because they where the most effective. British troops where useless because their leaders were still in the 19th century and American troops didnt arrive until the last year of the war.
At the beginning of WW2 France was next door to a very powerful enemy, France fell quickly, so would have Britain,America and everyone else for that matter if they were next to them. The channel saved the British (I live in London) and the Atlantic saved the Americans.

So could some sad Troll here please explain this surrender thing to me please? Cos I would love to hear from someone (virtually every country in the world has surrendered to someone at somepoint!)

My 2p
Maquis196

Re:Teh funny

[Maquis196]

Oh and just to clarify; I use Mandrake (sorry if my last post was a little of topic but I h8 how people can get away with Rascism when it involves Europeans) Maquis196

Re:Teh funny

[unicron]

Last time I checked, the French weren't a race, they're a people. And second of all, I wouldn't call the army with the highest casuality rate "The most effective". Maybe if they're suicide bombers or something I MIGHT be able to see your point, but sadly, I cannot.

Ya cheese-eating surrender monkey.

Re:Teh funny

[Anonymous Coward]

the usa is a sorry turd world nation
fuck you taco-breath

Re:Teh funny

[unicron]

The term "third world nation" is a direct reference to the GNP of a country. We have the highest GNP on Earth. Please re-think your statement, anonymous boy.

Re:Teh funny

[Maquis196]

Check your dictionary you cock,racism applies to any group of people or race,and you are simply racist (not that I give a shit) and about the casuality rate; I worked the wrong angle, the fact remains that the French army was the most effective on the Allied side but in those days victories came at a high price. Look at the british army in WW1: very little achieved but extremely high casuality rates. So stop your trolling you f***king idiot Maquis196

Re:Teh funny

[unicron]

Man, look how angry you got. Swearing, writing almost unintelligble sentences in a rushed and ticked-off manner. I'd say it's pretty obvious you infact DO give a shit. In fact, I think it's readily apparent that I will be the highlight of your day.

And I don't troll. Whatever I post, I agree with. Every French person I know is a snobbish asshole that quickly turns on an extreme defeatists attitude when plagued with any difficult situation.

Re:Teh funny

[Maquis196]

"Every French person I know is a snobbish asshole that quickly turns on an extreme defeatists attitude when plagued with any difficult situation." You mean like most people? And fyi im not angry I just passionatly enjoy arguing with narrow-minded peeps who wont change there mind. Lol reminds me of an arguement I had with a bunch of mulims about whos opinion on the world was right,theres or mine (Im atheist so it was quite a good arguement) Maquis196

Re:Teh funny

[Anonymous Coward]

No ammount of dollars will not make you civilzed, fuckface. You have high crime, no culture, and all filthy losers like you ends up there.
Truly a turd world shithole.

sorry spanky..

[Anonymous Coward]

> I don't know about you, but to me that is a bit much like masteurbation.

You really are out of touch with today's techies!

Re:sorry spanky..

[TheWanderingHermit]

Not really. I know why so many keyboards are trashed and why $5 keyboards are so popular.

I just think a lot of people making their keyboards so sticky need to take the advice William Shatner gave out in his (in)famous Saturday Night Live skit.

Re:I'm a newbie and I like Debian...

[scarpa]

Well I'm a very green Linux newbie who has been playing with a Debian box at home for about 2 weeks now and I LOVE it.

It was no harder to install than DOS, and I'm finding it extremely easy to use. Key things that I like: GREAT website and documentation, dead-simple to find configuration data, easy package management.

Now, the disclaimer. It's a headless server, and will stay that way. I never *once* considered using Linux on the desktop. I looked at RedHat, Lindows and Knoppix and thought they were all a joke. IMO linux in general has a loooong way to go before being a desktop OS, but is absolutely wonderful as a simple server OS. I already have dhcpd, samba (as a PDC) and apache running on my box and am about to tackle mail. Nothing but port 22 will face the public until I know more of what I'm doing.

Re:What I would have said, if i didn't actually ha

[Rooktoven]

Which Soundcard?

NEWSFLASH

[mao che minh]

Read all about it: Mandrake kept rapidly losing money even though they have less employees then some StarBucks restraunts, were awarded funding by European governments, and got free hordes of cash from sympathizers! Mandrake has pitifully poor marketing and management! Who didn't see this coming?!

Re:NEWSFLASH

[vsprintf]

Mandrake's previous management was a group of PHBs that saddled them with a lot of debt and contractual obligations during the dot.bomb era. Of course, you'd know this if you'd read even half of the previous posts or investigated the subject. They came close to clearing it. What's so bad about Mandrake's marketing?

Re:NEWSFLASH

[vsprintf]

Read all about it: of course I would know that if I gave a rat's ass fat boy.

Okay, you just admitted that you posted something pulled out out of your ass with nothing to back it up.

Anybody with mod points out there care to evaluate the original post?

It's time for the Mandrake community to move on...

[breser]

Before this news broke I published an OpEd piece on my site this morning about this. This breaking only confirms my belief we should make a break for it.

The piece is available for viewing here:
http://ben.reser.org/rants/invisible.cgi?month=01& day=15&year=2003&t=00

my question is...

[yamcha666]

My question is: How did this happen? I know a lot of open source-based companies either go out of business or are in the red for a while. One exception is Red Hat who seems to be doing very well, and IIRC have been in or near the black for some time.

But for future reference for all open source advocates and future linux business people, I am curious to know the hows? the whys? and the what happeneds? that put Mandrake in this position.

In the end though, MandrakeSoft has been a wonderful company to the open source community. I have used their distro several times since v7.2 and I've been happy with it most of the time. I wish MandrakeSoft the best of luck.

Re:my question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you haven't actually looked at Red Hat's financials. They had 1 profitable quarter last year for around $200,000. The other 3 quarters they lost about $50,000,000.

oh good

[Anonymous Coward]

one less distro diluting the gene pool

What about HP?

[geekoid]

HP recently announced that it would include, ceritfy and support mandrake on its new PCs.
I submitted that story to /. but it probably won't be accepted. OTOH if it is accepted, you will probably see it twice!

See ya

[Anonymous Coward]

imagine this said with Andrew Dice Clay's tone of voice:
"lights out baby"

Rather than cut-and-pasting from LWN,

[rsidd]

perhaps submitters could either take the trouble to write things in their own words, or save space on slashdot and simply link to the word-for-word-identical original news item. Or at the very least, credit the source.

Further discussion

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

is happening over at Arstechnica in the Battlefront section: http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=fr m&s=50009562&f=48409524

You may wish to join in and set some of them straight.

I personally don't use Linux on my machines (I prefer BeOS) but I'd hate to see a good *nix company go down.

(Posted as plain text because I prefer it that way)

Re:Further discussion

[geekoid]

"Savage sons of Satan raise their steel towards the sky, the Titan screams with vengence as He sounds the battle cry. "

what is that from?

annd aahhh mandrake rocks, hate to see it go.
HA, now I'm not off topic!

Re:Further discussion

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

The death metal band "Onslaught", from their 1st album "Power From Hell". The tune was called "The Devil's Legion"

Hold donations for now.

[bstadil]

There is a few comments urging for donations at this juncture.

This might be a mistake. If you donate now the money might go into the distribution fund available to the creditors. Please email Mandrake (I did) asking them to set up a separate untouchable account that only becomes available once the appointed Judge has approved the bankrupcy distribution and reorganization plan.

The fund should be earmarked for development as well.

Re:Hold donations for now.

[phrenq]

Is anybody else concerned that this seems like a pretty underhanded way to shaft Mandrake's creditors?

I don't know the specifics here, but when a company files for bankruptcy, it isn't only investors (who are expected to deal with risk) who don't get their money. Contract employees, lessors, etc. are all out of money.

Mandrake is a business that chose to assume debt. It might be legal, but it's immoral to deliberately avoid it when there are other options.

Re:Hold donations for now.

[rinkjustice]

Mandrake is a business that chose to assume debt. It might be legal, but it's immoral to deliberately avoid it when there are other options.

Other options? Like extinction? If a drowning man is clutching at your pant leg as he descends to his watery grave - and you can barely swim as is - what other option is there than to kick him off? There is another option. To drown.

Re:Hold donations for now.

[fucksl4shd0t]

Other options? Like extinction? If a drowning man is clutching at your pant leg as he descends to his watery grave - and you can barely swim as is - what other option is there than to kick him off? There is another option. To drown.

I don't know for sure about Mandrake, but the way the scenario usually works is:

You're a drowning man and a bunch of creditors are standing on the dock stripping you of your valuables and preventing you from coming up. When they finish stripping everything of value, they push you down until you die. If that doesn't work, they strap valueless but heavy things to pull you down.

Re:Hold donations for now.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can give you my account number. I can assure you that Mandrakes creditors will not see the money...

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

.... Oh really !.... you find me a copy of OS X for the intel/AMD based architectures that I can purchase right now... and I'll switch in an instant....Until that time, quit your whining about OS X being better... I mean jezzzss yes it's good... but only available on crap hardware....

MOD THIS UP

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD THIS UP

This post cuts to the chase here and is spot on!

That's too bad.

[MisterFancypants]

I guess selling free software doesn't pay what it used to.

Don't send them money now!

[emarkp]

Okay, the last thing you want to do right now is send them money. If they're filing for bankruptcy, it's too late to help. Better to donate to whatever emerges afterward. If you give them money now, it might just be doled out to their creditors. After the bankruptcy is determined (whether the assets get sold, or whatever), then the company can keep the money you give.

Sad, But True

[nuintari]

I dunno about the French equiv, but very few companies that file for chapter 11 protection in the USa survive for much longer. Its like becomming that guy with the smashed credit record, no one loans you a dime after that, now imagine an entire company with one giant bad credit record.

I had hopes for Loki when they did this, and while I do not use mandrake, I do wish them the very best, because I respect what they do.

Thank you Henry Poole

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work for Mandrake (well, I am aware that any AC could say that, so you'll have to trust me on that). I joined the company in late 99, when we were only a few underpaid but hypermotivated linux freaks.

Then money was raised and Henry Poole and his bunch of money-driven cow-boys were hired. Theses assh*les spent as much money as they could in the shortest amount of time possible (thousands of $ of expenses, huge flats rented in Paris), hell, they even tried to buy a company owned by some of their friends (ever heard of Coursemetrics ?)!

When they were told to go try to f*cking another company, it was too late : a few months later, the company had to start cutting the expenses to survive, but more important, most of us were disgusted by their conduct, and a lot of people just "lost faith", and started working less.

I know it's not ONLY Poole's fault, but if the company dies, he will be the main responsible to me. In that respect, his overall contribution to free sofware is awful.

Re:Thank you Henry Poole

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked there as well. And what i remember was when the american team came into Mandrake, Mandrake got funded by some of the strongest and brightest investors France had to offer. Meaning if they hadn't come in Mandrake wouldn't of been able to spend the monies you speak about. Also, at that time those key investors sat on the Board. The Board agreed to everything that was being done by those "cow-boys". In other words, it was their money they were spending. Funny enough when the Americans left the money came to an abrupt halt.

Also have you looked where Redhat is making their money? Training! offline and online.

In other words get your facts straight and pull your head out.

Definition of bankruptcy

[cp5i6]

I don't know about French law's but with the cessation of payments it doesn't necessarily sound that bad.

Judging by the readings I think alot of people have a misunderstanding of what bankruptcy really means.

Bankruptcy is not necessarily a bad thing. Alot of times a company will go bankrupted because it made alot of stupid payments, it's staff is overbloated or a bunch of various different reasons.

When a company files for chapter 11 (in the states) That specifically states they are free from all previous date for a protected time period. (ie they dont have to pay for any debts they accumulated) During this time period a company will then restructure it's business, ie. change of CEO, switch over of board of directors so on so forth to hopefully bring the company out of bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy is actually just a protection from the creditors coming in and "cleaning house" ie selling all assets of the firm and completely dissolving the company (that's a bad thing). So it's very well possible that if Mandrake sticks in a better business model that they can pull out of their bankruptcy (however I'm not too fluent with french bankruptcy laws).

For those of you who think .. well bankruptcy is great.. I should just decalre bankruptcy and have all my debts forgiven.. yes well that works to an extent. Companies need to borrow money to operate (unless you're microsoft who is one of the ONLY companies in the world that never runs on debt or Bonds for those of you more financially inclined) if you declare bankruptcy you're bond rating goes below a Triple B rating (moody's rating agency) which puts it below investment grade. (Junk Bonds) That means you'd have to pay a MUCH higher interest on the money you borrow.

Simply stated you need to make sure you have a damn good business plan to pull out of bankruptcy which usually entails cutting alot of "fat" from the company.

Somtimes you have a realyl good business plan in place after bankruptcy and you're very close to pulling out but the deadline approached and yer still not quite there. A company can then file for a chapter 22 or a second bankruptcy. You can even go for a third bankruptcy.. but that doesn't happen too often.


Here's an interesting fact tho... in all of US history I believe there has only been 1 successful company coming out of chapter 11 and I think that's Texaco Chevron. (a little tidbit for those of you who care about stupid facts).

Re:Definition of bankruptcy

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that the success is much better than that. Chrysler comes to mind. I am sure that there are many more.

Re:Definition of bankruptcy

[cp5i6]

Chrysler has never filed for bankruptcy. They were close. But they never had.

Re:Definition of bankruptcy

["Zow"]

in all of US history I believe there has only been 1 successful company coming out of chapter 11 and I think that's Texaco Chevron.

I know Covad declared Chapter 11 -- I'm not sure they're through it yet, but I know they're doing better than ever, and if they haven't successfully finished it yet, they should in the near future. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples too -- Texaco-Chevron might just be the biggest.

-"Zow"

You heard it at Linux World, first

[_|()|\|]

Maybe Joe will get one right, this year:

Mandrake will merge with another firm looking for a way to stay alive. Users can help keep the company afloat for only so long. Maybe it will cut expenses by joining United Linux. Maybe it will get together with its Latin language sister firm Connectiva. Or maybe Microsoft will step forward with a smile to offer the struggling distribution much needed cash in order to get in the game.

While I wouldn't miss Mandrake too much, I think it has had a positive influence on other distros, and it certainly gave KDE an early boost.

Chance of Survival

[NeoMoose]

This is the version of Ch. 11 bankruptcy and it does stand a chance of coming back. Unfortunately, not many companies come back from any bankruptcy filing.

Really this news is trying to sound optimistic, but let's be honest... Mandrake doesn't have any real good sources of income. They are like a .com still surviving off of advertising. They are most likely destined for failure.

This comes to me as very unfortunate news, my Linux distribution of choice is Mandrake. I like how it improves on Redhat. It's really too bad that it is in danger of ceasing to exist. Especially considering that it's possible failure will leave a gargantuan opening for open-source software's opponents to throw down as evidence for how open-source software can not succeed, despite how untrue that statement is.

Re:Chance of Survival

[NeoMoose]

Forgot to mention this, but from what I understand, French Bankruptcy laws are much stricter than the ones in the USA. We let companies off the hook much more easily.

Open-source require different business logic

[bockman]

With closed-source software, you go like this

• Have a nice idea that you think is useful
• Develop the software, spending loads of money
• Sell the software until the money is back.
• start profit

With open-source software you have to go like this:

• Find people/company that need to solve a problem and are willing to pay for it (or to co-work on it)
• Look if someone had the same problem and did already some open-sourced work on it.
• Solve the problem, investing only as little money/effort as needed. As a side-effect you have now some newly developed software (not much, and only as good as needed).
• Release the software as open-source. You can do that because your software is not an 'investment': it already payed itself by solving the problem.In this way, you don't have to maintain the software alone.
• See your little software grow and get better as other find it useful and contribute to it.
• Start selling support for the software. Don't mount large-scale operations, but start local.
• As your(and now others') software gets popular, enlarge the support area. If possible, stay away from the corporation model. A co-operations of coordinated small/medium companies (franchising-like) might be a better idea.

Of course, it only works if your idea and your software are good, and recognized as such by others.

MandrakeSoft, maybe, did not stick to this logic. In the hurry to bring Linux to the masses, they invested too much. But, not developing closed-source software, they cannot recover what they invested.

Re:Open-source require different business logic

[Anonymous Coward]

• ???
• Bankruptcy!

Non!? C'est ne vrai pas!

[Apostata]

Though this will undoubtedly provide much entertainment for the Linux elitists in our crowd in the short term, I cannot help but wonder what the long-term effects will be.

There are so many people out there who cut their teeth on Mandy, some who have become like the aforementioned zealots, but many like myself who still respect and support Mandrake the distro, and Mandrake the company. It's important that we separate those two things: the distro has always been user-friendly and remarkably scalable, whereas the company has been less stable than a beta-release.

Still, it would be a shame to see it go.

Why not eliminate free (as in beer) ISOs?

[Fnkmaster]

Given how widely used and well liked Mandrake is, I wonder if they would be better eliminating free (as in beer/herpes/cost) ISOs as several other distros have done before them. I am a paying member of MandrakeClub, because I use Mandrake 9.0 and generally find it to be a great Desktop Linux. Urpmi is awesome, finally addressing the biggest weaknesses of RPM vs. DEB/apt-get - at least it's a lightyear better than where RPM was a few years ago. The Mandrake install is pretty smooth even for a newbie. And Mandrake gives you pretty much everything you need for a power user (well, I still take some issue with some of their default RPM choices, but they are correcting these issues as we speak).

Mandrake has done a fabulous job with 9.0 - amazingly good for a .0 release. The biggest weaknesses as I see it are that they still don't seem to release that if you are selling and marketing a desktop Linux distro, you MUST ship decent fonts and good anti-aliasing support built in. I had to download the Texstar RPMs to get Xft support working well and get my distro looking pretty. They are a company - they ought to license some damned decent TrueType fonts and ship em out of the box. Red Hat has a much better looking default desktop install, and it's not newbie-compliant to require two to three hours of tweaking a fresh install to get a decent looking desktop (the fact that their tool to import Windows fonts breaks ruggedly if you try to import from an NTFS filesystem - i.e. 80% of Win2k and WinXP installations is also unacceptable in a release-quality piece of software).

I feel like if they just went not even an extra mile, but an extra 100 yards they'd have a fabulous distro. I've finally migrated back to using Mandrake much of the time, which I abandoned a few years ago (for my day-to-day desktop work) for Windows 2000 since desktop usability was just not there yet, and because I needed Outlook and Word on a daily basis for work. Thank god OpenOffice.org has solved the Word issue for me, and Ximian mostly addresses the Outlook issue (though thankfully I no longer need the Outlook calendaring features that everybody at my old company fucking loved).

Re:Why not eliminate free (as in beer) ISOs?

[VistaBoy]

I agree that it is an excellent distro and version, but I am having trouble with it. My copy of Wine won't play any sound in Half-Life, except for really really screechy, bad sound. I want to get out of Windows, but I can't have my beloved Half-Life, and I'm pretty sure that WCIII would do the same.

Re:Why not eliminate free (as in beer) ISOs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am partly responsible for mdks wine. So I wonder what is the problem? WCIII plays perfectly for me. It is probably a configuration issue, or the specific version of wine. Try the wine rpm on mandrakeclub, it is much better.

Re:Why not eliminate free (as in beer) ISOs?

[bogie]

"I feel like if they just went not even an extra mile, but an extra 100 yards they'd have a fabulous distro"

That's the way its always been with Mandrake. In fact people have been saying that for years. Mandrake equals mostly good ease of use and buggy releases. If your waiting for the Mandrake release that doesn't ship with showstopper bugs, you'll be waiting forever. I always have a box around running Mandrake in addition to my main Redhat Box, but I've come to accept that their they will never get their QA down.

Regarding eliminating free ISO's, I'd say that would just push more people towards Redhat. Consider the way they have mismanaged their money it will be several years before anyone with any smarts considers dumping more money into Mandrake. After all why would you invest in a company that might be going out business again leaving you without support and updates?

Re:Why not eliminate free (as in beer) ISOs?

[Fnkmaster]

The thing is that RedHat is focused as a business primarily on the server market. Yes, they are the overall most popular or at least most well-known Linux distro. They just haven't spent their time or energy primarily on making a friendly, easy-to-use desktop distro. And that's fine. But that's why I don't want to use Redhat itself.

Mandrake has always been a sort of Redhat-for-the-desktop and if they can't do it right, then hopefully somebody else will. Don't worry, I'm not holding my breath waiting for Mandrake to figure out how to manage their QA process, I'm really hoping more that somebody else will come around that does what Mandrake should be doing, and can make a viable business out of it so they don't have to be begware.

Re:Why not eliminate free (as in beer) ISOs?

[overgrown geek]

the iSO's are great because we can get them straight away.

I live in Australia and even though i only have 56KB modem :( but i still love em, it would take a while 4 CD's to get sent to australia but that would take a fair while and don't even think about waiting until local retailers over here get them.

think of others before you say that.

by the way yes i donate money to mandrake, and I think i would have paid mandrake enough money to buy windows XP PRO for myself!

Re:Why not eliminate free (as in beer) ISOs?

[Fnkmaster]

But that's exactly my point. You should be able to download them, Mandrake should set up mirrors for MandrakeClub members. Since you've donated money to Mandrake, you should be able to download the ISOs. I'm just pointing out that the freeloaders are the problem. It's possible to stop freeloading without making the software any less Free.

Welcome to the Real World and the Free Market.

[jensend]

This is not some sort of mind-numbing disaster. This is just basic economic reality. When you take a valuable and limited resource (investors' money, employees' time) and produce something which the free market finds less valuable than what you started with, Adam Smith's "invisible hand" strikes. This is one of the benefits of a free market- it discourages losing enterprises and thus helps to ensure economic health. Other distros are doing just fine commercially (RedHat, SuSE, Slackware) or are nonprofit organizations (Debian). With RedHat targeting the desktop with recent releases and the releases of Lycoris, Xandros, and Lindows, Mandrake has failed to give people a compelling reason to use it.

If you want to see Linux on the desktop survive and have some cash you want to use for that purpose, don't throw it onto a sinking ship. Invest in a company which holds some promise. Or you could donate to XFree, Gnome, or KDE, all of which are nonprofits (though only Gnome is currently recognized by the IRS as a nonprofit).

Re: Joe User highly overrated (for now)

[CommandNotFound]

This is a pretty big name distro, at least in the eyes of Joe Buying Software Off The Shelf.

I never like to see a company with a decent product go under, but frankly, Joe User and Aunt Tillie will just have to wait about 8-10 years to get Linux on their home PC, although they will likely be surrounded by Linux in embedded units. And that's OK: that's not where the real opportunity for Linux lies. Large businesses are the real consumers of Linux, and they weren't even looking at Mandrake (hence the bankruptcy).

Joe User will buy a home PC to match his work system, not the other way around. Make sure he has a Linux box at work and in a few years he'll want one at home to stay compatible in case he "has to take some work home one day". The Quickbooks-oriented small business market is as tough to crack as the consumer market.

It doesn't matter anyway; while the naysayers say "see! I told you so!" and the cheerleaders wring their hands and wonder if the sky is falling, Free/Open Source Software will continue to march along at its own pace, blissfully unaware of the uproar surrounding it.

Mandrake doesn't have a "product"

[vondo]

Let me start out by saying that I've used Mandrake for years, I still do. Nothing I've seen comes close in terms of ease of install and automatically detecting and setting up my desktop hardware.

But, unless they fundamentally change the way they do business, I don't think they can survive. Their primary products seem to be a boxed distro that you can download for free and MandrakeClub, which as far as I can tell is paying $60 a year to feel good about yourself. The subscription adds nothing of real value, at least to me. I don't really want the free but commericial software they have there (and if I do, I can download it elsewhere). I don't care to "vote" on which RPMs get packaged up next, etc.

Here's what I want from a linux disto: The ability to use the OS. To not have to tinker with it. To not have to spend a week updating it just because I want to run a more up-to-date version of some program (GNUCash 1.6 comes to mind.) To not have to update the OS every year because the company drops support (and some here bitch at MS for dropping Win-95 support!).

Simply put, I think Mandrake would be better off concentrating on making less versions of their OS, supporting them better, and helping people move forward without updating the whole system. They could easily charge for access to their servers, etc. a. la. the Red Hat Network.

With Red Hat's recent decision to only support their Linux distros for 12 months, I think the market is ripe for something with real support for the end user at a reasonable cost. Move away from the hacker market who DOES like to reinstall every few months chasing the latest and greatest.

Re:Mandrake doesn't have a "product"

[Anonymous Coward]

well, you could have voted for gnucash on the club. And perhaps somebody would have created an rpm for you.

I am very happy with the new version of wine I found there.

also, AFAIK, mandrake was planning to move to a 12 month release cycle as well. IF the club can generate enough money to pay everybody.

Re:Mandrake doesn't have a "product"

[mlefranc]

MandrakeClub, which as far as I can tell is paying $60 a year to feel good about yourself

The $60 also helps you to download the next release.

Re:Mandrake doesn't have a "product"

[vondo]

I've never had a problem downloading their releases, especially if you wait a week or so after its announced. (See my comment about not wanting to update all the time.)

Re:Mandrake doesn't have a "product"

[vondo]

I didn't make my point very clearly.

What I wanted was a new version of GNUCash for an older (9 months or so) distribution. GNUCash was a particular problem since something like 10 other packages needed upgrades too. The problem with Mandrake and with other distros too is that the day a new distribution comes out, users of the older ones are treated like red-headed step children. You get security updates, but that's it. You can try Cooker RPMs, but they have all kinds of false dependencies built into them. (You don't really need version 2.8.6.4 of foo, version 2.8 will do, but cooker says you do.)

So, what I want to see if 12 month release cycles, 3-4 years of support for a distribution, and at least 2 years of that where you have the option of upgrading major packages to the latest and greatest versions. (Just like with Windows.)

One reason I don't want to upgrade everything is that basic things that I am completely happy with get broken from one release to the next.

My point is, I would be willing to pay for this, but I'm not going to shell out $60/year to be part of a "club" that doesn't guarantee me anything.

Re:Mandrake doesn't have a "product"

[tshak]

The ability to use the OS. To not have to tinker with it. To not have to spend a week updating it just because I want to run a more up-to-date version of some program

I'm sorry, I don't mean to troll, but it's called OS X Jaguar. Okay, it doesn't run on x86 (yet?), but it's far superior to even Mandrake. I do agree with you that Mandrake should pull their free versions, and that the GPL should be rewritten so that someone can't buy your software and legally redistribute/resell it without paying you for it - because that's basically giving it away for free.

Mandrake just aimed too high...

[xmnemonic]

MandrakeSoft was too ambitious. Too many products aiming to satisfy too many user types (home user, business user, network admin, power user, gamer etc.), some for which linux is simply not suitable. If you try to please everyone, you please no one, and Linux-Mandrake's products are not the best in any niche- linux is too complex for the business user without perfect compatibility with MS Office, too complex for the home user who doesn't want to peruse arcane text files or go through hell to install applications or drivers to enable a device or feature, and too bloated for a network admin or hard core linux user. Admittedly not all of these are inherent to the Mandrake distribution of linux and are from the nature of linux itself; regardless of the source though these flaws exist and have weight.

MandrakeSoft needs to specialize and trim the fat from their products and from the product line. Until they have sufficient capital to sustain their various developments, I doubt they'll be successful.

R.I.P. Mandrake

[mcguyver]

This is ridiculous. Some people rank Mandrake up there with saving the Spotted Owl. It is ok for a company with a bad business model to meet its maker. I run Mandrake on my primary linux box and hate to see the company go down the tubes but this economny is bad enough as it is - the last thing we need is to support more failing companies. If we do anything then we should stop sending charity to Mandrake and give it to the employees that are going to be out of a job. With any luck they will learn from this experience and put their time into something that produces more fruit.

Excellent...

[n8willis]

Maybe if they restructure and come out of bankruptcy they can afford to add a fourth color to their distro artwork.

Nah... what am I saying? Dark purple, light purple and yellow should be enough for anybody.

Re:Excellent...

[bryanbrunton]

Mandrake's resistance to updating the artistic style of their distro always made me believe that Mandrake's artistic director was Gael Duval's sister.

They actually have updated their look and feel somewhat in their 9.0 release: got rid of their corporate mascot, the drunken crossed-eye penguin, dropped most of the worst icons I have ever seen in a commercial product. However, its still not completely professional.

It comes down to this: Mandrake has never been operated in a professional manner.

For too many years its been just a bunch of hackers somewhere in downtown Paris. The lack of professionalism continues with the Mandrake Store. I've read a few horror stories of interacting with Mandrake Store just on this Slashdot post. You can't just throw a few hackers at a problem like putting up a professionally run online store and expect it to magically work out.

hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Sell FREE software
2. ???
3. Bankrupt!!!

Avoid the creditors

[estoll]

Whatever it takes to avoid the creditors...

Mandrake is *dead*

[Penguinoflight]

Just when Freebsd is about to make a big hit, mandrake dies. Serves you GUI freaks right!

Well, they're probably not dead, but it would be funny if they were.

Re: Joe User highly overrated (for now)

[Maeryk]

Joe User will buy a home PC to match his work system, not the other way around. Make sure he has a Linux box at work and in a few years he'll want one at home to stay compatible in case he "has to take some work home one day". The Quickbooks-oriented small business market is as tough to crack as the consumer market.

And school. Dont forget school. Higher up in this discussion, someone said "How do you think Apple got where they are and made money?" I answer: By giving schools Apples. And forcing schools to use ONLY apples in order to get those free ones. And making incentives to allow the student to take home the apple after they are done. ONce that happens, you usually have a fan for life. (The rabid apple fan notwithstanding, who loves apples like harley guys love harleys, cause its an obsession thing, not a logic thing.)

Once you get that niche, you have a market built in. Damn few students have the money to get out of school with a shiny new apple and trash it to buy some clunky PC. Especially not now, with the ads that are running to make Apple look so uber-swank. (Yeah.. I want it in candy colors, to go with my candy colored Beetle chick-magnet, dude!)

Maeryk

Re:What I would have said, if i didn't actually ha

[TheWanderingHermit]

Thank you for your kind words.

XFree86 4.2.1 for Woody

[kondrag]

Did you update Woody to XFree86 v4.2.1? Try adding one of these to your /etc/apt/sources.list file (taken from http://www.apt-get.org):

# (Verified) Xfree 4.2 for Woody (Added 2002-11-28, last checked 2003-1-15)
deb http://people.debian.org/~blade/woody/i386/ ./

# (Verified) XFree86 4.2.1 backport (Added 2002-11-28, last checked 2003-1-15)
deb http://people.fsn.hu/~pasztor/debian woody xfree

Survival of the fittest

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi all. First, I am using a different distribution (paid for) and all I can say is that with open source companies, there are no established business models. And even then, what works for one, might not work for the other. But if you really look, most "established" distributions are getting a little long in the tooth. Then on the other hand you have newcomers, such as Knoppix, Yoper, heck even Lycoris, who come up with interesting things. Yes, they are building on the "shoulders of giants", but that's how it's supposed to be. Take something and improve it. Nobody is stopping you to put your own distro together. THAT is the beauty of open source and the GPL.
So, while I am sorry to see Mandrake (or any other linux company) suffer, they need to figure out themselves what they can do.

It's probably not the end for Mandrake...

[Eric Damron]

A lot of people are proclaiming the death of Mandrake. Let us be clear as to the meaning of Mandrake's bankruptcy action. If the article is correct, Mandrake will continue to operate. It WILL NOT die. The article didn't mention any downside to this legal action so maybe a reader who is familiar with French law can comment further.

As far as all of the posts that fall into the "good riddance" category. It is difficult for me to express my displeasure adequately without the help of hand gestures. Just because Mandrake is not be your favorite distribution of Linux it is still Linux and is contributing to the Linux community. Are you??

Mandrake is not a company with a poor business plan, they are a company that use to have a poor business plan. It is not the first time nor will it be the last that bad management has decided to hire consultants rather than trust the expertise of their in-house people.

The greatest downside that I see is the stigma of bankruptcy. However, this should wear off fairly quickly as Mandrake continues to put out a good product and starts turning a profit.

Re:Here is your chance! GET A CLUE

[Afrosheen]

Mandrake knows how to run a business, it's the damn old CEO they had that was appointed by the SHAREHOLDERS that steered the company into Debtville. How many Mandrake posts do you need to read before this sinks into your thick skull?

At this point in time they have a new CEO who hopefully can bring some much-needed capital to the table. If he can get a shot of cash, or this Chapter 11 works out the right way, they can save their ass from the frying pan and get back on track.

After Enron and all the other debacles we've witnessed, everyone is well aware of how a CEO and the shareholders can kill a company. The engineers, Gael Duval, and all the other Mandrake folks have been doing a good job all along.

Free GPL Source != Free (beer) OS downloads

[Wokan]

Being required to release the source under the GPL doesn't mean they have to provide precompiled binaries or ISO images, yet Mandrake does both.

The distro will live on.

[Anonymous Coward]

All you trolls can bite my ass.

Mandrake make a great distro. It's easy to install. It just works.

The company might have been hijacked by MBA-toting muppets (les kermits?) who cooked up a "strategy" to provide e-learning products - one that would last just long enough for same MBA-toting kermits to cash in their stock options and move on. That's kakked up the company, but the distro kicks ass!

And it's open source! Doh! We still have it! It's alive!

Having said that the last thing I want to see is yet another bloody linux distro (dorkLinux, this is a distro what I made), but if Mandrake don't survive (and I really really hope they do) we still can build on what they did.

Good luck MandrakeSoft!

phew, I feel better now...

Julian.

Re:The distro will live on.

[Fizzol]

>It's easy to install. It just works.

Unless you have a MS wireless mouse, then it just dosen't work.

Geeks turned armchair MBAs...

[aquarian]

A common target of ridicule here on Slashdot is the MBA with little or no techcical knowledge trying to run a tech company. But the armchair MBAs in this discussion, trying to second-guess Mandrake's business operations, are pretty ridiculous themselves. It's like listening to a bunch of twelve year old paperboys criticizing the business strategies of the New York Times.

Dunt dunt dunt...

[Anonymous Coward]

another one bites the dusts!

glad i got prosuite 9 already

[univeralifepadre]

of course i ordered prosuite 9 from mandrakestore in october, and it just arrived (slightly crumpled) on my desk this past monday, the 13th.

Re:glad i got prosuite 9 already

[Anonymous Coward]

You should learn how to spell "prostitute", damn it. Sorry to hear that it's crumpled, better luck next time.

Mandrake Club Newsletter...

[samdu]

I just got my MC newsletter and one of the topics was how well they are doing:

"An avalanche of new members!
==
Over the past month, MandrakeClub's membership level has swelled to over
20,000 members due to the recent membership drive, and due to the fact
that we are giving away one month trial membership to all MandrakeStore
customers.

Combined with newly introduced "alumni" membership, this will assure that
everyone who cares about Mandrake Linux stays in contact with
MandrakeClub."

So with 20,000 new subscribers (granted, there's no mention of how many free memberships they gave away) I wonder how this happened?

Someone should mod this up.

[twilight30]

Personal history out of the way first:
* Started with RH 5.1
* Mandrake 7 - 8.0
* Debian unstable (woody) two years ago on home machine
* Used SuSE for work (8.0 -- they wanted commercial support)
* Now on Debian at work (yay)

The primary problem with mdk and rh is not the rpm architecture, it's in 'fit and finish' issues. Mdk in particular always seemed a bit less sturdy to me, and a little closer in attitude to Windows -- it looked fairly easy, but anything more complicated than the most basic of problems got you in a heap of doo. Now granted, I use a distro that is 180 degrees opposite to this -- there *is* no fit and finish issue with Debian -- but it either works, or it doesn't, and I'm usually able to figure out why.

Policy (in terms of mechanics, not politics) is all-important, and I just like that with Debian. Similarly SuSE during the year I used it was a very solid, sturdy distro, with none of the hidden agonies I noticed with Mandrake and Red Hat. I do wish Mandrake all luck possible, because I feel it's important to have a newbie-focused distro. At the same time I would hope that they get some of those f&f issues looked at, and resolved.

Re:Someone should mod this up.

[MrResistor]

Policy (in terms of mechanics, not politics) is all-important, and I just like that with Debian. Similarly SuSE during the year I used it was a very solid, sturdy distro, with none of the hidden agonies I noticed with Mandrake and Red Hat.

You may be on to something there.

To be honest, I have found one hidden agony with SuSE: wheel mice. Why in the name of all that is holy YaST can't put a simple ZAxisMapping line in XF86Config I will never know. However, that being the only headache I've had with it is saying something. Still though, it's so simple...

MOD PARENT UP (n/t)

[Anonymous Coward]

no text

Re:I'm a newbie and I like Debian...

[TheWanderingHermit]

You may be a Linux newbie, but if you're setting up a PDC (or even know what it means), you're very familiar with computers, hardware, and networking. (I'm basing that not just on you setting up a PDC, but on the rest of what you're doing as well).

You obviously know your way around computers. Perhaps I should have specified that many people I've heard asking about a distro for newbies are not that technically oriented anyway. They just want an alternative to the monopoly or are curious.

Just go away...

[Anonymous Coward]

just go away and be done with it. these pleas for $$$ from users are pathetic. any idiot could figure out that wasn't going to work.

sad news ...

[Vilim]

This is sad news. Mandrake was my first introduction to Linux, I actually bought the boxed version of Mandrake Standard 8.1. Since then I have graduated to more in depth distros (read Slackware and Debian) , but Mandrake will always hold a special place in my heart.

I submitted this early this morning...

[fudgefactor7]

...and it was rejected, so i posted it to my journal...

Hey moderators! How about getting a clue?!

Re:I submitted this early this morning...

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

And The Register had this yesterday. Someone probably submitted from that. The submission process never was guarantee to be fair. Life somehow goes on.

I couldn't agree more

[quasi_steller]

Mandrake is quick and painless for inexperienced users and, in my experience, autoconfigures more hardware than any other distribution. Nor would I say it's just for newbies -- the experienced desktop user shouldn't have to manually configure anything unless the defaults don't suit him or her. Ever. It's just plain asinine to suggest that there is some kind of moral virtue in using unprofessionally packaged software.

This is one thing that I could never understand about some linux users. I personaly don't have the time to go around "reinventing" the weel by configuring my system to some common setup. I have programs, papers, and other assignments for all of my classes, so why would I want to spend several days working hard at getting my system configured just so I can get to work?

Mandrake was my first experence with a UNIX(tm)-like operating system. I now work comfortably on the Sun systems at my school, and really enjoy programming in the UNIX(tm) enviroment. I don't care to manually configure my own system and hope I never have to. There is no real benifit to manual configuration that cannot be manually modified on a automatic system such as Mandrake.

One more...

[Anonymous Coward]

... GPLed company bites the dust, as expected. The GPL is designed to kill the market, and it looks like it was designed very well.

Mandrake's Business Model makes no sense

[rudy_wayne]

Mandrake is one of the better Linux distributions for the non-Geek, but their business model makes no sense. (This applies to all Linux distributions, but I'll use Mandrake as an example since that's what the story is about). What exactly do they sell? What is their business?

You get a CD full of programs (Linux Kernel, KDE, Gnome, Mozilla, etc., etc., etc.) -- 99.9% of which Mandrake didn't create!

In other words, Mandrake's entire business model revolves around putting together a collection of software written by other people, creating a nifty install program, and then trying to sell it.

Not only does this NOT sound like a business that people would want to invest in, but more importantly, their bankruptcy calls into question their business sense.

How much does it cost them to obtain the software they distribute? (not much, it's mostly free)

How many people does it take to write an install program and design a CD package? (not many)

How can you have thousands (tens of thousands?) of subscribers, paying $xx per year, and go bankrupt?

Mandrake is just another manifestation of the dot-bomb mentality -- trying to make money out of nothing and employing way too many people to do it.

Re:Mandrake's Business Model makes no sense

[devleopard]

I agree with you, but what sets Mandrake apart are the programs that they *did* write (install, *drake, etc) - they are the reason you use Mandrake, over say, RedHat or Slack. Nothing wrong with this - everyone uses some distro - I'd say that less than 0.1% of the hardest of the hardcore Linux advocates on Slashdot have built their Linux install from scratch (of course, if you look at sites like LinuxFromScratch.org, even they use the "bootstrap" approach, requiring a distro)

Re:Non!? C'est ne vrai pas!

[legojenn]

Wow! I get to be the language police but in another language. Try Ce n'est pas vrai!

As a Debian user...

[imevil]

I have been advising Mandrake for a long time now. I hope they survive. I tried Mandrake on a lot of configurations (mostly people asking to install linux on their machine) and it is one of the most user-friendly distribution.

A reminder on Ch. 11 bankruptcy

[dacarr]

To remind people, this is not necessarily the end of MandrakeSoft. United still flies, Worldcom still transmits, and there is even the occasional K-Mart and Toys-R-Us floating around in retail-land.

Considering an earlier comment, this is probably the best idea they've come up with to get out of the contracts with companies who themselves no longer necessarily exist.

NEWSFLASH

[mao che minh]

Read all about it: of course I would know that if I gave a rat's ass fat boy.

You don't eat if you give it away (duh)

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't eat if you give it away (duh). Some people learn, eventually. Some stay suckers for life.

An actual explanation!

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay... It's time to explain this to people who are saying Mandrake is going to die, or that it is non-competitive, etc.

Follow the logic, pls:
1. Mandrake at this point is potentially profitable. Sales, consultation and other activities are doing well.
2. In the .com boom days, they had a bad admin staff who bought into the hype.
3. Aforementioned staff got them into a lot of bad contracts in the name of accessing new markets. Very classic case of corporate over-extension.
4. The .com bubble burst leaving them with expensive monthly contracts to pay and no profit returning from.
5. Mandrake at this point has made cut-backs, re-organisations, etc. That make all other parts profitable; except that these contracts weigh them down.
6. The contracts have expensive fees to break them, but Mandrake needs to get rid of them in the long term, otherwise they will never be able to use their current profitability.
7. Contracts are broken, demanding huge sums of cash, right now to pay off the fees. Hence the request for support before Christmas.
8. Options are: a) Raise cash, pay off debt. OR b) File for chapter 11, etc. which effectively gets rid of the liabilities. Not fun to do, but a) didn't quite work, so this is the other option.
9. Once the debt is dropped, Mandrake essentially is left with their current operations when they come out of that protection. At this point, they can turn a happy profit, because their day to day business actually is profitable.

The End.

It's simply a neat tactic to remove debt and improve the situation of the company, which now looks more healthy than ever. It's a good thing; a very good thing!

Don't worry... There will be a 9.1 and 10 and so on... Everaldo is already getting set up to work on the new artwork for 10, in fact.

Re:Non!? C'est ne vrai pas!

[Apostata]

You got me there...silly me. *sigh*

Okay, here's my two cents...

[Whatthehellever]

I've been a Mandrake user exclusively for two years. I love thier distribution.

I'm saddened to hear that they filed for the French version of Chapter 11, which I understand means certain death for them.

However, if they're smart, they'll move back to their US offices and continue from there. If they die off completely, it'll be a smack in the face to Linux, even though the problems were caused by bad management.

I'm aprehensive to use a new distro, Mandrake has been my life-blood for many years.

Luckily, Debian, Suse, and Gentoo exist for me to evaluate as a Mandrake replacement. (I won't go the Red Hat route, they've become the Microsoft of the Linux world-- It's their way or the highway.)

The best part of Linux is that there's choice. I shed a tear for Mandrake. I'll miss it.

bad for the new users

[grundie]

This will be bad for the Linux community, especially the new users. I'll admit Mandrake had its quirks and its testing could have benn better, e.g. the dodgy supermount in Mandrake 9.

What set Mandrake apart was that it made getting in to Linux easy for new Linux users. I have installed Mandrake on several peoples PC and they have since abandoned Windows completely. Could you do the same ewith Debian or Slackware? I know SuSE and RedHat are claimed to be easy for newbies, but RedHat is too corporate for some and SuSE is just too big for someone wanting to check out Linux on a 2 gig partition.

Mandrake gave the world an easy to use, compact version of Linux, which must have gained the Linux community a fair few converts.

I wish MandrakeSoft luck and I hope they pull through.

Another Dot-Bomb slapped in the face by reality

[t0ny]

my oh my, this "my business needs to make money" concept just got lost somewhere during the 90s; I dont know how, thats what one would imagine was being taught in business schools (or via common sense). Oh well, I said before this company would be on www.fuckedcompany.com before, and now I have been proven correct. Red Hat, you're next!

MandrakeSoft

[Kriekbot]

(Just read this article over at c|net) Hope MandrakeSoft gets back on thier feet.

Sorry but I just can't resist

[NDPTAL85]

Whats this? A company that sells FREE SOFTWARE cannot make enough money to stay in business? I don't know why they can't! Aren't there just millions and millions of people who'd rather pay for software instead of downloading it for free like they've always been able to!?!??

HAHAHAHA!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm so happy to know this... this news made my day...

An example to not follow on own you can make a very bad business giving to the open source and free software community a very bad reputation. Lets see this as a house cleaning.

Please rectify this situation

[JoeBuck]

The article should be updated ASAP, to credit LWN for the story, and possibly to attack the anonymous coward for submitting it without credit to the source.

Stupid Questions

[nlinecomputers]

Why just because it is GPL'd is there some kind of compulsion to put the total sum of a distro company's labor on line for all to download?

Yes the GPL requires you to provide SOURCE code. It doesn't require you to provide the package already "assembled" as a distro.

There isn't anything in Mandrake that you can't download as individual programs. What makes this version of Linux become Mandrake is the effort they went to make this distro. So why give it away free? SuSE doesn't. Why do most distros do this? Isn't that shooting themselves in the wallet?

Why is "free as in Beer" a desirable goal for a company trying to sell software?

How many people have downloaded Mandrake and could have paid something to them but didn't. I confess I am one of them. Why? I am a cheap assed bastard.

But OTOH Mandrake and alot of other distros could charge but don't why the heck don't they?

Re:Stupid Questions

[devleopard]

Mandrake's mistake is that they let you download it. Their only chance is to go with Lindows' model - no free download. There's nothing in the GPL that mandates free downloads - only distribution of the source code with the bits.

No the problem is...

[SerpentMage]

The problem is the entire management. Look at the following http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/about/executiv es
.

What do they talk about? They first mention how "intelligent" they are and then talk about what they did. THAT IS WHAT IS WRONG WITH MANDRAKE...

I could say, "I studied at one of the best engineering schools in North America" (I actually did) as well. But the reality is that, this gets me nowhere (as it should) because it is actions that convince! Because while education at a good school helps, there are oodles of self taught programmers that are just as good or better than the "best schools".

Re:No the problem is...

[jfp51]

I agree with you 100% I believe it has to do with the fascination with which school you attended that is prelavent in France. Basically, where you go to school determines your whole career! There are elite universities called Grandes Ecoles that produce great theoreticians, but piss poor implementors. One of the guys, Francois Bacilhon there has written three thesii (SP?)! Great, but how does that qualify him to run a business. Plus he comes from one of the most prestigious universities in France. The only guy that knew what he was doing was the creator, Gael Duval, who never went to one of those big schools.

IANAL, but I don't think that's correct ...

[shellbeach]

Charge for the source (see above), but no more than you charged for the binary. That means that if you charge $50 for the binary, you may charge up to $50 more for the source, for a grand total of $100. Charging more for the source would not be considered giving free access to the source (free as in speech, again)

As far as I can gather, from www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html, this is incorrect. The GPL states that - as far as distributing source code goes - you may do one of the following (quoted from above):

• a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
  

• b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
  

• c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

In other words, you must either accompany binaries with source code at no extra charge, or offer to provide source code at only the cost it takes to send it to someone (i.e. the price of a blank CD, the price of postage). So you cannot charge an extra $50 or whatever for access to the source code - you can charge all you like for the binaries and only give out the code with those binaries, but you cannot charge any extra for the code (excepting the costs of physically distibuting it, as mentioned above)

Re:IANAL, but I don't think that's correct ...

[Keith_Beef]

The "cost of physically performing source distribution" surely includes:

• physical medium (DVD-Rom, CD-Rom, Exabyte, etc.),
• the electricity consumed by the equipment used to make the copy,
• a portion of the cost of the equipment used to make the copy,
• possibly the labour and associated costs (in the event of a commercial distribution, somebody is being payed a wage for doing the copying).

Re:IANAL, but I don't think that's correct ...

[shellbeach]

Yes, obviously, to the first one (which I mentioned in my original post), possibly the fourth, but I think the second and especially the third would be considered anal!

Look, I know no more about the GPL than what I can glean through reading it, but it seemed to me as though the spirit of the license was that - while you could distribute binaries and charge what you wanted for them - you had to give access to the source code to anyone possessing those binaries, and not charge a fee for doing it. The "cost of physically performing source distribution" seems to be there so that the author doesn't find him or herself out-of-pocket because they've been altruistic enough to release their software under the GPL. This doesn't mean being able to charge the same amount again for a copy of the source as you did for the binaries, which is what the poster I replied to suggested.

(interesting, though, that you can initially restrict access to the source code to those individuals who have bought your binaries - although you cannot prevent these individuals from then distributing both binaries and source freely ... which was the question that started this whole offtopic thread :)

Red Hat also really lucked out, too.

[MtViewGuy]

Look at RedHat. They took the same product, spent large amounts of capital developing a product, and sold not only that product, built on freely available technology, but support services and add-ons that people want to buy.

I think what really saved Red Hat was the very fact they were among the first to develop an installation process for Linux that better emphasized ease of use--and also because a lot of hardware OEM's liked Red Hat Linux, this distribution has pretty much become the de facto reference standard for Linux at least in North America. Right now, when anyone with some computer knowledge mention what's the most familiar distro of Linux they'll invariably say Red Hat.

Germans are better engineers than the French

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree.I used Mandrake from V.5.1 to 6.2 and then I came back to SuSE.

I see the headline now...

[tspilman]

Company who's product can optionally be freely downloaded runs out of money. Analysts and \. viewers in shock.

Mandrake's business model is actually working

[leonbrooks]

...the problem they have is starting with a handicap, namely their previous American-style DotCom management team. If they survive to June without additional damage, they'll survive practically forever.

Yahoo is a bit confused about the purpose of /.

[holysin]

From yahoo's coverage of the story "Fans and critics of MandrakeSoft traded barbs on Slashdot, the software enthusiasts' online news site. " LOL

My Fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

Three K-Marts here in MS have gone bankrupt, in part because I don't have the money to spend there. Nice stores, too. Same for Mandrake. I'd like to get a new setup, and order a Mandrake cd but I don't have the money for that, either. Best thing about Mandrake was that utility that allowed you to get the windows fonts from your windows partition, and use them on Mandrake. Web pages looked a lot better after using this item, than they look on Redhat. Do you suppose there is a Horriblechristmas.com as reported in today's WSJ? If there isn't, then there needs to be.

Not as bad as some might think

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a Seattle software outfit called Microsoft, also makes damn good operating systems, costs about the same as Mandrake's, but pretty easy to install. I am surprised Microsoft hasn't been mentioned as viable alternative to new users.

ATTENTION: Above is a GOATSE link

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent is a goatse.cx link. DON'T CLICK!
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Disclaimer: Links to unreliable and highly uninformative sources of information can be considered equivalent to goatse.cx links.

The Ultimate "Free" Model

[Anonymous Coward]

You people who say that free software can't compete are simply wrong. One of the oldest examples of a "free" product is the King James (English) version of the Bible. There is no copyright on that manuscript; literally anyone can produce a copy.

There are dozens of other examples, old works from years gone by which are now in the public domain. People make MONEY on these things.

How?

It's simple: by providing them in a form that satisfies the buyer. I rarely download ISO images because I'm on a slow internet connection; I buy CDs. Likewise, I'm not interested in downloading an e-text version of a Dickens novel; I'd rather buy a nice convenient book.

I agree that Mandrake (and ALL commercial Linux vendors) should stop making complete ISOs available for download. The GPL only requires that the *source* be made available. This, combined with Mandrake's excellent *drake tools, would make it quite desirable for the end user.

But the idea of selling a "free" product is perfectly sound. Want one final example? The next time you pay $1.00 for a bottle of water, tell yourself: "you know, I could have downloaded this from the faucet for nothing!"

Va te faire enculer le cave

[Anonymous Coward]

Va te faire enculer

How To Help Mandrakesoft

[Jrod5000 at RPI]

1) buy bankrupt linux company
2) ??
3) profit!!

Wrong. fact: Official link to MandrakeSoft

[egghat]

see for yourself.

Mandrake files for bankruptcy..

Sad to see this happening to Mandrake as well as seeing the article modded highest on Slashdot is plain wrong ...

Bye egghat.

Re:Wrong. fact: Official link to MandrakeSoft

[jbolden]

I'm not sure how anything there contradicts the rummors. They filed French Bankrupcy, they are continuing operations and are seeking relief from creditors; assuming those creditors are the e-Education people then this actually agrees with everything I wrote).

The problem: ISOs available earlier than the box

[egghat]

OK, you can download the ISO for free. Fine. Fair.

You can buy the box, but weeks (!) after the ISOs are ready.

So the time the box gets available, I (or some friend with broadband connection) has downloaded it already. Why the heck should I buy the box (unless I want to support Mandrake)? I don't need a manual. I don't need the CDs.

Mandrake has to change this.

Full ISOs are fine, but I would give them to Club members exclusivly at least for 4 to 6 weeks.

Then the box has some weeks to get into the stores and then you can add a free download for everyone.

Remember that a normal club membership (bronze level) isn't more expensive than one box one time a year. So at least for me it's a bargain.

Bye egghat.

(silver level MandrakeClub member).

Re: Joe User highly overrated (for now)

[Keith_Beef]

Apple makes computers for people who don't want to have to know how computers work.

You buy an Apple. You take it home, switch it on, it works. Six months later, you want to add add something more to it. You buy the hardware, you plug it in, switch it on, it works.

You buy a Windows PC. You take it home, spend anything between ten minutes (me) and two hours (someone I know) fitting together all the bits and pieces. You switch it on, wait, and it works. OK, so it crashes about twice a day, but it was cheaper than a Mac, so you're happy(ish).
Six months later, you want to add a new piece of hardware. You go to the store, talk to someone who asks you questions like "are you running Windows 95, 98, ME, MS, NT, 2000, XP or FU?". Then says, "In any case, if the drivers for your version aren't in the box, you can get them from the Internet" so you buy the kit (still thinking "This is half what the same thing for a Mac would cost") and go home.
Now, you spend anything between twenty minutes (me) and three hours (lots of people I know) opening up a badly designed case and fitting the bit of hardware. And then anything between 30 minutes and a week trying to install drivers.
Then you find that the drivers you just installed break other things, and give you pop-up warnings about being unsigned or uncertified, or whatever... It never stops being irritating.

What do you want?

Windows PC:

• in money terms, it's cheap,
• it works (acceptably),
• it's not "confusing", it's a "learning opportunity".

What do you want?

Apple Mac:

• in money terms, it's more expensive,
• it works (right out of the box!),
• it's can be a "learning opportunity" if you want it to be.

For somebody who buys a computer as a tool to do a job, rather than as an end in itself, an Apple Mac is in many cases the clear winner. Especially in DTP (historically, Macs were the boom of DTP at SoHo prices) and the arts (colour management, especially), you can't get good results from a Windows PC, even now. At best, you'll get "good enough for a low-value newsletter".

...

If you want to know, I manage to install hardware quicker than most of my friends and family because:

1. I have all the right tools (Torx and Pozi screwdrivers etc.),
2. I've done it hundreds of times.

and I manage to install drivers quicker than most of my friends and family because:

1. I have all the right tools (Gnu/Linux etc.),
2. I've done it hundreds of times.

Re: Joe User highly overrated (for now)

[kannibal_klown]

While I applaud yoiur enthusiasm, you're still old-school. Back in the old days, yes, Windoze PCs crashed like umpteen times a day and were a PAIN IN THE ASS.

Now-a-days, PCs are pretty rock-solid. My PC NEVER crashes, and I do some heavy work on it: SW Dev, Database Dev, Statistics, numbe -crunching, and games, all the while only rebooting one-a-week.

DOn't get me wrong, my next purchase will be a PowerBook. But PCs aren't that bad anymore, assuming you get quality parts or a whole-thing from a good manufacturer.

Companies *DO* emerge from Chapter 11.... ntl:

[BuhSnarf]

NTL: has just announced that it's emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S.

http://www.nthellworld.com/article/?action=show&id =326

The big telco and cable provider (they supply my phone, cable connection and digital cable service ;)) company hit the bottom after spending billions recruting new customers and basically being cheap to use.

They now have the most broadband subscribers in the UK and have just emerged from Chapter 11.

It does happen.

A vulture's point of view

[Anonymous Coward]

Pathetic 'Business Models'?, Mandrake Linux in bankruptcy? Keep an eye on the Xandros.com $11M disaster (Linux Global Partners), they are next in death row.

Truly sad

[lvdrproject]

Don't suppose i have anything shockingly new to add to the discussion, but i think this is truly a sad moment for Linux. Mandrake was great for people that want their computers to work a lot like Windows/Mac but actually want a LINUX distribution, and not some shit KDE-and-WINE hack. I've tried two or three distributions, and Mandrake was the one that worked the best for me. It's hardware management utilities and it's Windows-friendliness were two of the greatest features to hit Linux in a long time. Granted, most Linux aces can put together a similar system to their liking with any distribution out there, but i'm not a Linux ace, and neither are most of the people i know that want to "get into" Linux. All the people i know want something that's easy, but something that's still Linux. Not Lycoris, not Lindows, not Xandros, not Gentoo. "Linux that works", i guess.

Anyway, while this may not be the end of the Mandrake distribution, it's sad that MandrakeSoft is even touching the B word. I truly hope whatever is going on over there gets worked out. Mandrake really has (present tense, hopefully) a chance to become the big link between n00bs and hax0rs.

knopix is a joke???

[coredumpman]

Are you kidding?? OK.. I know this has nothing to do with mandrake (which btw I love too), (this is a new thread) but knoppix has shoved gimp/open office/kde developer/KDE 3.0/and a whole wack of other goodies onto a CD that doesn't need a HD to boot off of and only 96 megs of ram to work with.. that is NO HD.. and only 96 megs of ram... hmmmmmm.. yeah knoppix is a joke. Knoppix was doing everything for me that with no HD that a bloated Mandrake software 9.0 can do.. Anyways I have used mandrkae ever since version 6.0, and I bought version 6.0, and even then mandrake was a good distro... (about has hard to install back then as slackware is now) and that was over 3 years ago... not bad... :)

Your sig

[mkweise]

A English lesson in a sig? Gee, our education system must be in even worse shape than I thought.

Mandrake should...

[Perdition]

let go. Hand the whole batch of code scot-free to some bundle of schmoes in a garage (preferably in America) who really want the distro to be something. They could even rename it Lycoris II, to be cute.

New management is no better

[mirnav]

We have been in talks with MandrakeSoft for a couple of months now, for a possible investment into the company.

We recently pulled away because while the current management can very well be geniuses in their fields, they are CLUELESS about management and PATHETICALLY CLUELESS about finance.

I cannot give specific examples, but suffice it to say that their marketing documents with which they sought investors to their recent (incomplete) capital increase was hilarious, and did not even have Balance Sheet projections. Their Income Statement projections are wrong - they say most of the USD 5 mn intended capital increase will go to hiring people, but salaries do NOT increase in the projections, for crying out loud!

I spoke many times to that "new CEO" you have high hopes about. He is clueless about how to make money with this company (sorry but that is the goal of an investment like the one we were contemplating). He does not have a business plan.

We actually suggested we could buy off the company from them - be majority shareholders, decide on a business plan, execute it. They refused.

There own fault

[cdn-programmer]

I'm a supporter of Mandrake. But this fiasco is because they ended up saddled with incompetant managment that blew the wad. This is in the Mandrake website. The problem is that there is limited accountability when the management of the company embarks on an idiotic business plan... later when the company loses its collective shirts and has to file for bankruptcy it is those who try to clean up the mess who suffer along with their customers. Remember the comments about the rats leaving the sinking ship?

Well - I purchased Mandrake and installed it in a system and it looks really great. This was an 8.1 system mind you and I have not found out how to apply the security patches or upgrades. This is a REALLY big problem of course.

So - I have Mandrake on one of my systems and I have decided to not use it. Instead I did a debian install on my main system and the reason I did this is because of the Debian Package managment system and the ease of upgrades and patches.

Personally, while I like Mandrake and I hope there continues to be a place for them in the Linux community, I do not expect that I shall be using their distro in the forseeable future. I shall not be using RedHat either and again the reason is upgradability.

MOD PARENT UP

[Omnifarious]

The subject says it all. This is the most cogent, level headed post I've seen in this entire discussion so far.

Last Post!

[alpg]

"I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of
that is -- `Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put
more simply -- `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it
might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not
otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be
otherwise.'"
-- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland"

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