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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."
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.
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
This is bad news...
Cheers
DVD Ripping, Divx, VCD, SVCD under Linux
Given that Mandrake has been begging for money I don't think this really should surprise anyone.
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...
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.
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.
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.
This is kind of ironic conisdering the recent newsforge article, "Mandrake: Rumors of our imminent demise are just that".
were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
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.
//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.
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
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).
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".
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.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
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).
C. Griffin
"Can I keep his head for a souvenir?" --Max from Sam 'N Max Freelance Police
...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.
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.
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.
The piece is available for viewing here:& day=15&year=2003&t=00
http://ben.reser.org/rants/invisible.cgi?month=01
HP recently announced that it would include, ceritfy and support mandrake on its new PCs. /. but it probably won't be accepted. OTOH if it is accepted, you will probably see it twice!
I submitted that story to
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
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.
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)
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
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.
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.
Help fight continental drift.
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.
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.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
Do you realize just how much anger comes through in your post?
/. 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.
/. 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.
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
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
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.
I don't know about French law's but with the cessation of payments it doesn't necessarily sound that bad.
.. 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.
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
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).
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.
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.
.com still surviving off of advertising. They are most likely destined for failure.
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
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.
- 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: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.
Ciao
----
FB
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.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
Mandrake has done a fabulous job with 9.0 - amazingly good for a
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).
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).
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.
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.
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.
-- Watch the REAL Jon Katz.
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.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
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
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
Thank you for your kind words.
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.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
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.
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.
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.
...and it was rejected, so i posted it to my journal...
Hey moderators! How about getting a clue?!
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.
...interesting if true.
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.
This sig no verb.
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?
Read all about it: of course I would know that if I gave a rat's ass fat boy.
Okay... It's time to explain this to people who are saying Mandrake is going to die, or that it is non-competitive, etc.
.com boom days, they had a bad admin staff who bought into the hype. .com bubble burst leaving them with expensive monthly contracts to pay and no profit returning from.
Follow the logic, pls:
1. Mandrake at this point is potentially profitable. Sales, consultation and other activities are doing well.
2. In the
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
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.
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.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
You got me there...silly me. *sigh*
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
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.
---
IMHO, of course.
May the SOURCE be with you.
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.
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?
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!?!??
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
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.
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?
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
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.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
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".
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
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):
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)
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.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
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.
...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.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
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).
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel