A Community Takeover of Mandrake?

sombragris writes "Ben Reser wrote an interesting opinion about MandrakeSoft's current financial woes. Reser maintains that there's no great value in MandrakeSoft's current business model and that the best course of action for Mandrake Linux would be a community or non-profit takeover of the Mandrake distribution. Sounds definitely interesting..."

Comments

It's one option

[ThoreauHD]

From what I hear, the French version of Bankruptcy pretty much kills the business. Someone correct me if I'm worng, but it bears little resemblance to emergence from bankruptcy that US companies enjoy.

Non-profit does sound like a good idea.

Re:It's one option

[goatasaur]

Is this true?

Because I was thinking of going to Paris, to be on the French Wheel of Fortune.

I might have to reconsider. Getting guillotined for a bad spin of the wheel is not cool.

Re:It's one option

[f97tosc]

Someone correct me if I'm worng, but it bears little resemblance to emergence from bankruptcy that US companies enjoy.

Well, US companies can file under chapter 7 or chapter 11. Under chapter 7, they are closed completely, but under chapter 11 they are allowed to continue to operate while they restructure their business.

Many big and high-profile companies file under chapter 11, but in fact there are many more chapter 7 filings in total.

Tor

Re:It's one option

[ThoreauHD]

Yes, but I was wondering about the French equivalent. Perhaps a french lawyer somewhere who reads slashdot can enlighten us.

Re:It's one option

[spurious cowherd]

according to the actual announcement it looks very much like what we 'murkins would expect from Chapter 11

Re:It's one option

[Mr.Ned]

There was a comment at the Newsforge article which I think said the same thing - French bankruptcy is killer. I'm pretty sure there were several refutations about that, including one at Slashdot:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=50817&cid=50 88 920

Quote:
---
Under French bankruptcy law these penalties [getting out of E-education contracts] would be voided and the remaining company (the company that sells a Linux distribution) would be viable.
---

Things are probably not as bad as they seem.

Re:It's one option

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I was thinking of going to Paris, to be on the French Wheel of Fortune. I might have to reconsider. Getting guillotined for a bad spin of the wheel is not cool.

No problem. French Wheel of Fortune gives you the option of surrendering upon a spin of bankruptcy. Your assets are transferred to a Swiss bank account and held under the name Heinrich von Slauschinger.

Re:It's one option

[dextr0us]

that has to be one of the most lame jokes i've ever heard.

stop trying to karma whore, its not as fun anymore since there aren't point numbers.

[just kidding about the fun part of karma whoring]

Re:It's one option

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

I very much wish that HomeLife (a former division of Sears, still minority owned by Sears at the time of their bankrupcy, but spun off to avoid tarnishing the Sears name) was subject to French Law, if you are correct.

I was robbed of several thousand dollars by unethical salesweasels who knew full well the company was going down the tubes but happily accepted my check for 7 grand in furniature. I got one piece, and a refund for less than half the remaining amount.

Sears, of course, denies all responsibility "Look, we spun them off, see? our hands arent dirty!"

Sears and whatever Homelife rematerializes into will never see a dime of my or my family's cash, and I wouldn't urinate on former employees of the Homelife store near me if they were on fire (and if they jaywalk in front of me they'd better pray to god that I don't recognize them).

the thought that under French law the principals of Homelife would be broken and destitute, and likely never eat anything more interesting than a CHUNKY peanut butter sandwich appeals to me very much. Too bad it won't happen to them. Oh well, there's always the Karma they've gotten themselves.

Mandrakes another case. It's my distro of choice, and I'm a member of the Club as well.

Re:It's one option

[The Analog Kid]

Actually that is a problem since the Swiss bank uses Numbers for accounts no names.

Re:It's one option

[plavigna]

From what I know, MandrakeSoft's filing is very similar to a U.S. Chapter 11. The announcement says:

" This reorganization of liabilities enables MandrakeSoft to continue its current operations, which are showing increases in revenue and significant decreases in expenses. [...]

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."

BTW - Mandrake 9.1 Beta 2 was released today!

Re:It's one option

[Anonymous Coward]

I was hoping that he could guillotine us instead,

Re:It's one option

[stefanvt]

I'm not French but Belgian but it seems to me that the earlier talked about a postponement of payments.

This would seem to make it very close to what we call in Belgium "gerechtelijk akkoord" or judicial agreement under which a company is, during a court determined time (typically 6 months), granted a protection from debtors claiming their debts. During that time they can work on a financial plan to repay their debts.

However, most of the time this is the "foreplay" to bankruptcy.

Re:It's one option

[gl4ss]

..i'mnotalawyerandallthat.. ..but, it was said earlier that they filed for french equivalent of chapter 11.

which leads one to assume that it is in fact, pretty much like the us chapter 11.

if they had gone for something like chap 7, that would have been said to gone bankrupt.. in finland there's something like 'velkasaneeraus', 'debt-makeover' that would sound like what they got mandrake in now. basically i don't think that it's all that much different from us chap 11. it involves working with gov. officials and slashing things to make the business healthy(note that you don't automagically get it.. iirc/afaik/i've'neverbeen'bankrupt)..

Re:It's one option

[saintlupus]

This would seem to make it very close to what we call in Belgium "gerechtelijk akkoord"

Ah, what a beautiful language.

Slashdot requires you to wait 20 seconds between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.

--saint

Re:It's one option

[SubtleNuance]

Easy - make yourself some flyers, a picket sign and stand in front of sears -- TELL EVERYONE WHO'LL LISTEN, that Sears robbed you, explain the situation and people will be outraged.

contact your local AM radio stations, write an article about what happend (and make it more broad in scope about Corporate accountability and Corporate Morality) and submit it including a letter to the editor of your big local paper and independant papers (invite the former to publish the article) -- call/send letters to local churches and social groups explaining what happened (you just want them to know) and in less than 20 days Sears will be fixing you up somehow.

Get your mug on the TV in a "Consumer-Watchdog" spot and your singing.

Non-profit?

[MeanMF]

the best course of action for Mandrake Linux would be a community or non-profit takeover of the Mandrake distribution

It sounds like they're already being run by a non-profit organization...

Re:Non-profit?

[GreyWolf3000]

It sounds like they're already being run by a non-profit organization...

Unfortunately, that's likely the reason Mandrake got into financial problems in the first place. In my opinion they forgot that old maxim, that "free software" means freedom, not price. They offered for free what anyone could download. Had they sold their product commercially, along with the source code in accordance with the GPL, they would have had more paying customers. In this case, distributing the source code would allow hackers more room to tinker, but the binary cd and installation still would be infinately more useful (and necessary).

I don't understand this business about the GPL not being able to be successful; no one else can make money for your work, 90% of the customers don't want the source, and even if they do a binary copy is still important as well. Consider how much harder it would be to 'pirate' a distribution from it's source than from the binaries.

Re:Non-profit?

[I Am The Owl]

In all seriousness, though, perhaps if enough people can scrape the funds together, the "community" can buy out Mandrake and open the source, like they did with Blender. A pity that it would become "hostageware" (for a while, anyway), but such is business. *sigh*

Re:Non-profit?

[MeanMF]

Had they sold their product commercially, along with the source code in accordance with the GPL, they would have had more paying customers. In this case, distributing the source code would allow hackers more room to tinker, but the binary cd and installation still would be infinately more useful (and necessary).

Since they're distributing under the GPL, they can't put any restrictions on what can and can't be redistributed. The GPL says that the source code must be available along with binaries, but it also says that anybody can make the binaries available for free as well. If they want to restrict access to binary versions, they would have to release under something other than the GPL. Given the fuzzy distinction between "aggregating" and "combining" software for distribution, this might be tricky to pull off without risking legal problems.

Re:Non-profit?

[The Creator]

the "community" can buy out Mandrake and open the source

Are you trying to be funny?

Re:Non-profit?

[jbolden]

When Mandrake was selling software they were doing quite well. The software division still turns a good profit. The debts from the e-Learning contracts are what is killing the software.

Re:Non-profit?

[Archie Steel]

Open what source? Aren't all the drak tools GPL'ed?

Re:Non-profit?

[Daengbo]

I guess I'm the only one who thought that was really funny. You and I must share a humor gene.
For those who lack this gene, it is a good point that, should Mdk go under, the software will not die.
Anyway, good post: too bad I refuse to moderate.

Re:Non-profit?

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Exactly! Its not about a problem with the Mandrake distribution, its a problem with hiring Professional Management and then letting the suits drive a stake through your heart. So the question now is whether its worth it to try to pay for playing the MBA way, or if its really feasible to spinoff a non-profit. Looking at PBS/NPR as a model, I'd say the quality is of the highest order and the community exemplary. But could it be done? And how to transition smoothly.

Re:Non-profit?

[jbolden]

I'm still of the opinion that the French court is going to do exactly this. The e-Learning component of Mandrake is completely and probably permanently insolvent. The distribution OTOH is in good shape. There is a viable company there and IMHO the court is just going to seperate the two from one another.

Its such a nobrainer I can't see the court not doing it. Bankrupcy is not necc. the end of the road.

Mandrake's Demise

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Ultimately, it doesn't matter if a "community" takes over Mandrake or if a non-profit organization does. The company has a flawed design. When you associate yourself with what is called "free software", then consumers will be confused and your product will not sell. Let's be honest - if you google on Linux, you get information that says FREE SOFTWARE. Managers can do this much research, and no more, and will be confused about the "free" aspect of Linux. This amounts to a product driven by people who are advocating open source and the free distribution of products.

A manager would much rather spend money and get a lot of Microsoft product than try to understand why Linux is free. I don't care what you want to say, the savings are too great. They become confused by this and don't have any interest in Linux because of the price. Now, until "free software" and "Linux" are entirely separated, Linux won't be mainstream. I know this may sound like an awful thing to say but it is true.

Re:Mandrake's Demise

[Fnkmaster]

Though you resemble a troll in certain respects, I'm inclined to think you have some decent points (in fact, your insight into the mid-level management mindset leads me to believe you either are one yourself or have had an inordinate amount of experience with the most small-minded from that set).

MandrakeSoft has perhaps taken too strong of a position spouting off about Free-this, Free-that. You and I here on Slashdot understand that Linux is about Free Software (or Open Source, depending on which idealogical leaning you have, pro-RMS or anti-RMS). Freedom is important, Freedom is worthwhile. However, Freedom is not the same as Marketing. Selling a product is about Marketing. As I've stated before, I think MandrakeSoft would be much better off if they started charging for ISOs (or rather, making ISOs available only to MandrakeClub members), and starting focusing on marketing to businesses and home users, and spit-shining their product (get their fucking QA people in line for god's sake, and use your brain before you stamp a release as ready-to-go). If somebody in the community wants to put together a FreeDrake ISO with MandrakeSoft RPMS, let em. Hell, they could do that now, and put some spit-shine on the stuff. But they don't. People use Mandrake, and like it. They need to start capitalizing on their popularity among geeks who want a desktop Linux distro that Just Works (newbies and others), and broaden their damned market appeal and start selling some shit. If they don't, somebody else will. And my fear is that it will be Lindows or somebody equally smarmy. Ugh.

Re:Mandrake's Demise

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, until "free software" and "Linux" are entirely separated, Linux won't be mainstream. I know this may sound like an awful thing to say but it is true.

what sort of semantic mumbo jumbo is this? how can a statement that talks about the future be "true"?

Re:Mandrake's Demise

[Chris Canfield]

It's amazing how much companies will spend for products that have low resource, rock solid, and free alternatives that are often times superior to the paid version. Jabber VS SecureIM, for example, or Zone Alarm VS BlackICE, Crimson Editor, Chokkin & Pettan, Putty, Pegasus Mail, YAPS... There is a perception of quality issue when trying to evaluate a product that doesn't cost anything. Managers are used to $100 widgets being better than $50 widgets. Free widgets are always junk. The software world is a very different place, and (fortunately) many of the very best things are free. Furthermore, a manager's time is worth, in theory, more than they are paid. So that $300 savings they made by using GuildFTP as their organization's internal FTP server is offset by the 4 hours it took to find and test all of the available freeware FTP servers.

Linux's selling point should be that it is Open, not that it is free. $200 is how much that manager will pay the user of that computer before lunch.

Re:Mandrake's Demise

[Anonymous Coward]

no, I can't agree with you that he some points.
his arguement is trolldung wrapped up in FUD.

Re:Mandrake's Demise

[Wolfrider]

--Perhaps Mandrakesoft's best hope is to merge with Red Hat. After all, that's what their codebase started out on.

--As for the Mandrake *distribution* - which is a separate issue, I support the Community NPO takeover idea.

Re:Mandrake's Demise

[civilizedINTENSITY]

"The company has a flawed design. When you associate yourself with what is called "free software", then consumers will be confused and your product will not sell."

Except Mandrake does sell. Mandrake sells well. If it were just a matter of selling boxs Mandrake was already, and is still profitable now. So the "free software" model isn't even at issue. But thanks for caring enough to post.

Re:Mandrake's Demise

[leandrod]

> Linux is about Free Software (or Open Source, depending on which idealogical leaning you have, pro-RMS or anti-RMS).

Cannot we decide on an issue without referring it to people who sport it or not? Specially as you refer to RMS, and he does make a point of talking about the issues, not about personal issues apart from the need for one to be principled.

Re:Mandrake's Demise

[Anonymous Coward]

MDK are giving too much away for free, and charging too much for whats left. Im a MDK user who hasnt joined the mandrakeclub. I looked into it, and realised that Id be paying more for Linux than I did for Windows. Windows works out (for me, approx) at 40euros/year, MDK are charging 60euros/year. The other thing that stops me joining, is that I cant actually see any benefit to joining, Ive got the distro for free, I can urpmi all the updates I need. I dont feel a need for StarOffice, voting for rpms doesnt exactly float my boat either. Heres what I will/wont pay for: Free - The basic distro (ISOs, Cover DVDs, whatever) Free - downloads for critical updates, stable packages, and 'obscure packages' (xine plugins, regina, media players, etc) Free - info on supported hardware. Pay for - downloads of games, cool tools, etc. (Tuxracer, pretty fonts, bleeding edge versions of KDE/Moz/Gimp) Pay for - Access to community support. Pay for - Official support.

Donations

[Klerck]

Well, may as well not let all those donations go to waste and put the people who donated (the people who cared) in charge of something. Maybe the people who really care about Mandrake can turn it around?

Debian

[arikb]

There is already a 'community' based distro. If Mandrake is to go down, maybe it's best to combine the effort put into Mandrake into Debian?

I can see the fights over the GNU/Mandrake/Debian (or is it GNU/Debian/Mandrake) name.

Re:Debian

[Chris Canfield]

While I agree that Debian and Mandrake would be an interesting marriage, I hardly think it is an appropriate one. How many years of testing does Debian do before they will put a package into Stable? And Mandrake? Mandrake is an ultra-easy to use distro. Debian is an ultra-easy to administer distro. While I would like to see a lot more bleed between the distros, I seriously doubt the two would survive the honeymoon. Still, an affair might bear fruit.

Re:Debian

[ThoreauHD]

I'd go for that with the desktop freindly branch of Debian with the GPL'd Mandrake toolsets/control panel and the option for more recent packages. That would be pretty slick.

Re:Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, good point.

Rather than create a newborn all volunteer Linux distro; rather than duplicating all that development effort - why not join up with a robust and mature all volunteer Linux distro?

Debian.

Debian is trying to develop a top notch desktop. See this webpage.

Why can't Mandrake volunteers join forces with Debian. Imagine combining Mandrake's well designed desktop and GUI ease of use, with Debian's renowned stability and technical excellence!

Combine the best of both distros, and create a true Uber-Distro to rule all other distros. Savvy slashdotters could make a mint shorting Red Hat stock ;-)

Re:Debian

[TheWanderingHermit]

I don't mean to be rude, and I'm not trying to troll, but I've wrestled with Debian installs before. I am running a business and, due to time constraints, I finally just installed Mandrake, since I could get it up and running and didn't have to muck around with creating extra links for my DVD player, and other junk.

After my experience with Debian and the Debian installer, I would say expecting Debian admins/maintainers/programmers to produce a producet easy enough to install to be considered desktop is kind of like expecting RMS to make a discreet statement, Bill Gates to start promoting OSS, or Britany Spears to record a tolerable album.

It just ain't gonna happen. It's the nature of the scorpion story. (If you don't remember the story about the nature of a scorpion, go back and watch the Trek Voyager 2 parter that introduced 7 of 9.)

Re:Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummmm....dude? We're talking about software here, right?

Re:Debian

[MBCook]

I completely agree with this. Even without a merge, it would be very nice to see Mandrake people go over to develop Debain. Debian is great, but Mandrake is very user friendly and easy to use. A distro with the quality and stability of Debian along with the UI knowhow of Mandrake (making graphical front ends for stuff, arranging menus, making GUI programs to do all sorts of system administration, etc) would be great. I haven't used Mandrake in a while but I have to say I've missed their "control panels" type things more than a few times.

Re:Debian

[dolson]

It wouldn't hurt to try, at least for some things.

Mandrake's installer is pretty good, but a few improvements can be made.

Also, the config tools (the ones that work) are great.

However, I don't think that it would happen, given that it hasn't happened yet, and Mandrake's tools are all released under the GPL.

Re:Debian

[ThogScully]

How many years of testing does Debian do before they will put a package into Stable? And Mandrake?

While I agree that this seems like Debian is hardly appropriate for the desktop, keep in mind you don't need to run stable to use a Debian system. Unstable is more than stable enough for most desktop purposes and testing is even more solid.

The benefits Mandrake's input into Debian would be made in unstable and would benefit people like me who use unstable on the desktop. Eventually, they'd make it into stable years down the road, but the people on the desktop would still have the benefit of the then unstable release for the then modern linux software.

It's not fair to take away from Debian on the desktop just because only Unstable has the most recent software.

-N

Re:Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

I finally just installed Mandrake, since I could get it up and running and didn't have to muck around with creating extra links for my DVD player, and other junk.

That's odd since there is no open source DVD player for Linux. Certainly not an "official" one blessed by the DVD association gods. You can hack together support if you want to download a lot of illegal codecs and fsck around getting it to work, but it's certainly not easy for new users. Anyway, I use Debian on my desktop at work and it works fine. Of course, my requirements are not that bad. Mozilla, OpenSSH, pine, etc. That's about it.

Re:Debian

[TheWanderingHermit]

Actually, if you're not messing w/ CSS, it isn't a problem.

I'm using this in video production, but the Debian didn't even create a mount point for the darn thing -- or even treat it as a 2nd CD-ROM.

While it doesn't take much to make these links, in my case I'm setting up boxes to use for production. I'm not using my boxes to create utilities and make programs that help me write programs. I'm using my computers as tools to get work done. While I hear Debian is easy to maintain, the fact that it's such a pain to install has kept me (and a few other people I know who want to use Linux in their businesses) from bothering it. Quite frankly, if you're business is anything other than programming or sys admin work, Debian is such a pain to install it's not cost effective to waste time learning all it requires to get it up and running.

Re:Debian

[Guppy06]

"I can see the fights over the GNU/Mandrake/Debian (or is it GNU/Debian/Mandrake) name."

As if that would be the only fight. Do you realize how many LUG members will literally burst into flames if Debian hooked up with Mandrake?

"Debian is the one, true dist... er, wait... Avoid Mandrake like the plague! Download Debi... er... um... Windows Me? ARGH! NOTHING MAKES SENSE ANY MORE!"

My God, think of the carnage! It will make the GNOME/KDE flamewars look like... I don't know... vi/emacs...

Re:Debian

[jocknerd]

But you are missing the point. You only have to install Debian once. After that you are done. No more installations. Only upgrades that work correctly. I hear so many people that upgrade from Mandrake 8.0 to 8.1 to 8.2 to 9.0 to 9.1. I think thats more wasted time than taking the time to do a Debian install.

Re:Debian

[jbolden]

I gather you are a Debian user. The cultures of the distros are really dis-similar. Lets start:

1) Mandrake started as a Redhat + KDE. In many ways Mandrake is the "home" distribution for KDE. Conversely Debian and Redhat are the core supporters of Gnome.

2) Mandrake was one of the first to compile to Pentium; Debian still compiles to 386. Mandrake would naturally after the 2.6 kernel (which is going to require a recompile) probably set up Pentium III required optomized for the Pentium 4.

3) Mandrake tends to be feature rich QA poor. Debian is almost exactly the opposite.

4) Mandrake is RPM based debian is APT based. Though Mandrake isn't religious about this. However one of the key tools unique to Mandrake is an application control center which would be worthless with RPM.

5) Mandrake has never concerned itself with producing a similar feel on multiple platforms. The PPC version of Mandrake was designed for PPC users and had features not present in the x86 version that would be important for PPC customers (Wine sort of thing for MacOS, netatalk installed be default...). Debian conversely wants the distribution to be very close on all platforms. While not quite as extreme as NetBSD they certainly don't see the PPC version of Debian as a seperate but related product from the x86 version of Debian. In general they won't include software that doesn't work on multiple platforms.

Probably the best thing would be for Debian Desktop to just grab the Mandrake Wizards and use them. Perhaps they might want to consider Mandrake's automatic security level scripts. That's the only contributions I can see Mandrake making to Debian that they would want. In the other direction I think RedHat not Debian remains the best place for Mandrake to get support.

Re:Debian

[John Hasler]

I'm not sure what tools you are talking about, but the usual reason why cool automatic hardware detection and configuration tools don't get added to the Debian installer is that they are x86-only. This does not prevent them from being packaged, however. There is a kudzu package, for example.

The problem with many GUI config tools is that they do not respect manual changes to config files.

Re:Debian

[TheWanderingHermit]

Oh, I get that point.

You are missing my point.

Before I was even a teenager, I was putting together working Heathkit radios (and other kits). I learned to program in high school, back in the 1970's, on a PDP 11. I used to program in Assembler (often hand coded) on an Apple //e in the 1980s for a hobby. I had my first program sale (an Assembler program) to a magazine before I graduated from college in the mid 1980's.

While I'm sure someone will come in as a troll and think they can be clever by twisting what I say, my point is I have a background of working with technical material -- a background of over 30 years of it.

I tried a test install of Debian on my video workstation. I needed to get the system up and running, get X working, be able to use my USB ramdrive, firewire IO for DV import, get the video IO on my ATI Radeon AIW working, get a CD-RW working, get my DVD player (also the 2nd CD-ROM) working to play NON-CSS DVDs.

After a week, I still could not get X to work with my Radeon card. Even on the Debian mailing list, nobody knew what to do. Not being used to Debian, I hesitated to change from stable to unstable or testing, but I finally did it. The newer version of X worked.

While that, in the long run, was a simple fix, it's just one of the symptoms of what I see as an overall Debian problem. It takes so long for programs to be integrated in the stable branch, hardware that has been out for over 18 months is still unsupported!

As to the CD-RW and DVD, it's true all it takes is links, but there's a problem there, and I'm going to sound quite snotty in saying this (and probably get modded to troll immediately for speaking the truth). I've worked with many programmers, techies, non-techies, and the whole range. The Debian community has a BIG problem of being closed minded. In any distro discussion, there's always got to be a few Debian people who pop up and say, "Hey! Debian is the best." Look at this discussion -- it's happened here.

The problem is, at least in my experience, Debian-ites are so busy being right, they are not interested in listening to other opinions. Whenever I say the install (and post install setup) is impossible unless you're a programmer, I always hear, "But you only have to install it once!" I have never, ever, seen any case, in person, or online, where someone said, Debian has a problem with this, and that's why I don't use it and a Debian person replied, "Hmmmm, you're right. Maybe we should look into it." It's always, "But that's not really a problem. Just do it the way that works for us."

My point: I am doing a LOT of programming and I don't consider myself a professional programmer. I'm just doing what I need to do to run my business. I'm working long hours. I don't have time to fart around with adding links to get my CD-RW working. I don't have time to do a lot of post-install work. I need to put in a CD, go through the prompts, and get the box up and running so I can use it for production. If Debian were the only Linux distro out, I'd use WinXP instead. I know that a lot of Debian-ites and programmers will respond to that with something like, "Let him use WinXP..." followed by comments about incompetents that can't or shouldn't be allowed to use Linux. That attitude is doing more to keep Linux tucked away in server rooms and in a tiny corner of the market than anything M$ could ever do.

I've included more than I planned, but the point is, for those of us who have other things to do and a limited time to spend putting our boxes together so we can actually use them to produce services or products, we can't mess around with trial and error setups or researching problems because 18 month old hardware is not well supported wit ha distro. We need to install and get it working. When we have the time, then we can explore and learn.

The computer, to many of us, is nothing more than a tool. A good craftsman, in any field, needs good and reliable tools, but they also have to be able to focus on their work, not on fixing or setting up their tools.

If/When Debian can fit my needs, and can do it without me having to go through and re-adjust everything AFTER an install, I'll be more than happy to use it (the idea of keeping a system up to date w/ a 1 line nightly cron job is VERY appealing), until then, in its present form, Debian is by programmers and for programmers. Unfortunately, this group of people seems incapable of understand there is more than one way to do anything and that their way may work for them, but may not work at all for others.

Re:Debian

[Bodhammer]

I have used early slackware and used RedHat from 5.1 - 8.0.

A couple of weeks ago I needed a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) server to test Tutos and a co-worker talked me into trying Debian because I was having problems with the Apache/PHP in RH 8.0. The first install was a bit of a hassle and then I found this article" The Very Verbose Debian 3.0 Installation Walkthrough and all is right with the world.

The box was easily 30% faster than RedHat 8, Tutos actually worked and the install was less than a gig. I have been slowly adding the additional toys I need (you know, traceroute - stuff like that...) and I have yet to reboot.

The Debian team could certainly use some help with the installer (Tasksel is evil!) but I like the "purity" of the installation I got. No, I'm not running the latest kernel but damn is the box fast...

I would love to see a distro with the stability and discipline of Debian with the graphical installer, hardware config, and desktops in Mandrake and RedHat. I will never go back to RedHat so I will just settle for the stability and discipline of Debian no matter what happens.

Re:Debian

[Chris Canfield]

I ran testing for a long time with much success as a standard desktop, and know several business who rely upon stable for their desktops. Together, Debian would benifit from Mandrake's install tools, and Mandrake would benifit greatly from apt-get. X would have to be stripped for server installs, but X doesn't start automatically now anyway.

The problem, though, is trying to avoid growing into an XP: the server/Desktop OS that is a marriage of convienience rather than love. Debian is great because the developers are hardcore netjunkies serving the interests of admins everywhere. Mandrake is great because of a devotion to producing the easiest, simplest, purest linux desktop experience. If you marry those two, you get something that isn't particularly focused on either important target, though you risk destroying two of the best distros available. Better to have frequent interludes of cross pollination than a full code-synch.

-C

Re:Debian

[dolson]

Certainly you are correct. I don't think they ought to take ALL of Mandrake's stuff, but the sheer fact that it even is GPLd would give them a starting point to work from, wouldn't it?

And GUI tools that don't respect the manual changes suck royally.

Anyhow, I'm not a developer, and I've not even got my Debian CDs yet, so I was really only throwing out an idea that fit with the threads. *shrugs*

Re:Debian

[vandy1]

Don't do tasksel, just grab the bare minimum using dselect, or just say go go go when u see dselect, and then apt-get aptitude and finish it off :). I use aptitude and it's *streets* ahead of tasksel *and* dselect :).

My $0.02

Michael

Re:Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

Calling your newest version "unstable" is just as bad as calling open software "free software".
Such badly chosen names require a lot of explanation after initial misunderstanding and confusion. Stop using them.

Re:Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

> I'm not sure what tools you are talking about, but the usual reason why cool automatic hardware detection and configuration tools don't get added to the Debian installer is that they are x86-only.

That is even worse than I always believed...
Man, what a stupid group of folks...

Re:Debian

[CoughDropAddict]

1) Mandrake started as a Redhat + KDE. In many ways Mandrake is the "home" distribution for KDE. Conversely Debian and Redhat are the core supporters of Gnome.

Huh? Debian is a "supporter" of Gnome just as much as it is a "supporter" of KDE or a "supporter" of GNU fileutils. In all cases, if there is a Debian developer who produces packages that conform to Debian policy (and are legal to distribute), it goes in.

People tried to portray Debian as anti-KDE since it refused to ship KDE before Qt was GPL, but any accusations of anti-KDEism were empiracally disproven when Debian started shipping KDE the moment Qt was GPL.

Re:Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

"unstable" doesn't refer to the stability of the software, but to the stability of the package dependancies. In the stable version package dependancies are locked in, and only updates that don't interfere with other packages can happen (most of the time just security updates, although every once in a while a feature gets added).

I agree it's confusing though. But apparently it makes sense to the debian developer crowd.

Anyway, I've run testing with large parts of the system upgraded to unstable on my desktop, and I never had stability problems.

Re:Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think debian would be willing to consider an outside installer. Not only because of the cross-platform stuff, but also because they're developing their own installer (called debian-installer, surprisingly) which interacts with the debconf post-install configuration system. It seems that their new installer is going to kick ass (although since I'm not a debian developer I don't know for sure ofcourse).

Re:Debian

[stevey]

Perhaps they might want to consider Mandrake's automatic security level scripts. That's the only contributions I can see Mandrake making to Debian that they would want.

There's been discussion about that very recently - I'm hoping to do just that sometime soon.

Re:Debian

[swillden]

Unstable is more than stable enough for most desktop purposes and testing is even more solid.

I wouldn't recommend unstable for most people (even though it's what I run). Packages generally migrate from unstable to testing in a few weeks, so testing doesn't lag much, and unstable has the disadvantage that, every now and then, "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade" will hose your system for a couple of days, unless you know how to troubleshoot the problems.

Unstable consists pretty much entirely of stable, released software, but the packaging *is* unstable, and sometimes it bites you. The egregious problems get filtered out and don't go into testing and the working stuff gets to testing quickly. The Debian community recognizes that "testing" is actually the Debian desktop distro, and there is a movement to provide more support for testing on those grounds. "unstable" is, and will remain, the choice for people who want to troubleshoot and report bugs.

Re:Debian

[jbolden]

Come on. Unboycotting a desktop is far short of supporting it equally with Gnome. I don't think they've empiracally proved anything. Gnome is the default desktop. Debian itself has made major contributions to Gnome.

Mandrake is fundamentally a KDE based system; Mandrake's own tools (i.e. the ones they wrote) link directly to KDE tools. This means KDE is effectively mandatory on Mandrake. Oh and BTW Mandrake also ships a very complete Gnome including notes on using gdm in place of kdm for the Mandrake specific features. That doesn't mean the Mandrake supports Gnome equally.

So what are you debating? That the two communities don't have a difference in attitude in this regard? Remember the proposal is not for sharing but rather for Mandrake to disband directly into Debian.

Re:Debian

[CoughDropAddict]

Gnome is the default desktop.

On the contrary, here is the description of the "Desktop" task in Debian, which is the closest you could come to talking about Debian's "default desktop:"

This task provides basic "desktop" software, including a variety
of session managers, file managers and web browsers. It incorporates
both the GNOME and KDE desktops, and provides a display manager
which lets the user choose between the two.

Debian itself has made major contributions to Gnome.

I think you're looking at this the wrong way. It's not as if there was a meeting where Debian's head honchos decided that Debian would invest effort into improving Gnome. It just so happened that some of Debian's developers were independently interested in Gnome, so they worked on it. The same happens with KDE.

There is definitely an active base of KDE users and developers in Debian. The debian-kde list is getting more traffic recently than the debian-gtk-gnome list.

Mandrake is fundamentally a KDE based system

I won't argue with this, especially since I am not very familiar with Mandrake.

So what are you debating? That the two communities don't have a difference in attitude in this regard? Remember the proposal is not for sharing but rather for Mandrake to disband directly into Debian.

I was not meaning to comment, directly or indirectly, on the proposal itself, only on this point that I, as a Debian developer, do not find accurate.

Re:Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say that if the good sides of both distros were combined, you wold have a killer os.

Think about it. Take debian, update the packages (KDE3, etc..) add a mandrake type installer, and then slap on some configuration utilities. If it were stable like debian, and feature-packed like mandrake, plus had apt-get-ability, I don't see why evey home user wouldn't flock to it! I know I would.

Re:Debian

[jbolden]

Jeff: Gnome is the default desktop.

Cough: On the contrary, here is the description of the "Desktop" task in Debian, which is the closest you could come to talking about Debian's "default desktop:" [quote deleted]

Here is a direct quote from Debian User's Guide Section on desktops, "The default graphical interface for Debian is gnome (gnu Network Object Model Environment). This chapter describes the features of gnome. However, you may also install kde (The K Desktop Environment) from the Extras CD. The two desktops have similar features and functionality...." The rest of the chapter uses Gnome icons; Gnome concepts and Gnome apps. Nothing wrong with it; but: a default desktop, good documentation for one not the other... I don't think calling it the default is unreasonable.

I think you're looking at this the wrong way. It's not as if there was a meeting where Debian's head honchos decided that Debian would invest effort into improving Gnome. It just so happened that some of Debian's developers were independently interested in Gnome, so they worked on it. The same happens with KDE.

Actually that's exactly what happened (though at the time KDE was not free software). The "head honchos" were very worried about KDE/QT and actively formed another project. Even RMS agrees that's what happened. I think the paper trail is unequivical on this issue from Debian's announcement on Oct-8-1998 (Debian would cease distribution), Joseph Carter's announcement on Jan-19-2000 (cut off of negotiations regarding license issues), the fameous RMS editorial.

Again quoting RMS Sep-5-2000 (after QT released under GPL), "But GNOME is here, and is not going to disappear. GNOME and KDE will remain two rival desktops, unless some day they can be merged in some way. Until then, the GNU Project is going to support its own team vigorously. Go get 'em, gnomes!"

There is definitely an active base of KDE users and developers in Debian. The debian-kde list [debian.org] is getting more traffic recently than the debian-gtk-gnome list [debian.org].

No argument. But I think the same thing could probably be said and perhaps be even more true with regards to WindowMaker for example (i.e. GNUStep...). At the time of the Debian boycott there quite a few KDE debian users and KDE always released .deb versions of their desktop and these were popular downloads. However I'm going to stand by my statement. In looking at the quotes the statements became more clear cut:

Debian is the official distribution of the FSF
Gnome is the default desktop for Debian
Gnome is official an FSF founded project

Remember your original statement

Huh? Debian is a "supporter" of Gnome just as much as it is a "supporter" of KDE or a "supporter" of GNU fileutils. In all cases, if there is a Debian developer who produces packages that conform to Debian policy (and are legal to distribute), it goes in.

People tried to portray Debian as anti-KDE since it refused to ship KDE before Qt was GPL, but any accusations of anti-KDEism were empiracally disproven when Debian started shipping KDE the moment Qt was GPL.

My original response wasn't as stong as this one because this time I did research. I simply don't think there are two levels in a distribution "in and out". There are multiple levels about how core something will be. Perhaps to pick an example which isn't political for you; FreeBSD has made a large effort to move vital scripts from being in Perl to being shell so that Perl is not an almost mandatory component of their system.

FSF founded Gnome and it actively led a boycott against KDE. Messages from only a few months ago have RMS using we (FSF/Gnome/Debian) with respect to Gnome a term he has never used for KDE. In other words I don't think "going in" is the end of the line.

Re:Debian

[CoughDropAddict]

Here is a direct quote from Debian User's Guide Section on desktops [debian.org], "The default graphical interface for Debian is gnome (gnu Network Object Model Environment). This chapter describes the features of gnome.

Progeny wrote that manual, not Debian. Another direct quote, from the abstract: This "User's Guide" is nothing but a reformatted "Progeny User's Guide". Contents are adjusted for the standard Debian system. Calling Gnome the default desktop is something that should have been changed, but apparently wasn't.

I really think the majority of Debian developers and users would agree with me that Gnome is no more of a default desktop than KDE.

Debian is the official distribution of the FSF

You would win this entire argument if this were true, but it isn't. The FSF ceased sponsorship and broke all official ties with Debian in 1996.

Gnome is the default desktop for Debian

See above, I still dispute this.

Gnome is official an FSF founded project.

This much is clear, and if the FSF did have an official distribution (which they don't) Gnome would almost certainly be the default desktop.

FSF founded Gnome and it actively led a boycott against KDE.

The FSF and Debian had completely different reasons for "boycotting" (as you put it) KDE.

The FSF has a known agenda of all-out war with non-free software. The founding of gnome was an attempt to win a battle against non-free software (Qt/KDE) by forming an opposing army (Gnome). I have no doubt that RMS said all the things you quoted him as saying (though I would have appreciated links to be able to actually read these).

There are plenty of free software zealots who are Debian developers and users, but as a body Debian is much more neutral and pragmatic on these issues. Debian's reason for refusing to distribute KDE was very pragmatic and unpolitical: the consensus among the people who argued on debian-legal was that it was simply illegal to distribute binaries of GPL'd programs linked to Qt. The second Qt became GPL'd Debian started distributing KDE, true to its word.

Yeah, let the community have it

[RailGunner]

Hopefully, the community can take over the Mandrake Distro. Mandrake has the reputation of being once of the easiest distros to get up and running, and with KDE 3 it's definately something that could appeal to Mom & Pop AOL'er.

It would be a shame for Mandrake to go the way of the dodo, so I personally hope that members of the community step up and support it.

Personally, I use Mandrake 9. Previously, I was running Red Hat 7.3, and since I didn't like what Red Hat did to KDE (which I prefer to GNOME, though GNOME is definately not without its merits), I decided to give Mandrake a try - and I've been running it since. Other Linux distros would do well to take a look at Mandrake and see how easy they make it to install and set up a Linux box. While not for everybody*, the drakconf utilities can be extremely useful.

*Perl script wizards need not apply!

Re:Yeah, let the community have it

[Anonymous Coward]

A troll is a (generally) lengthy post that attempts to illicit a particular knee-jerk reaction from the readers. In this case, the original parent wanted to get moderated up, so he made a well-formatted, clean looking post that completely lacks any on-topic commentary. It was a ridiculous post and it's author knows it.

If I call him on the carpet for it, "troll" is not an appropriate moderation; if anything it should be "redundant," since the original parent is so obviously a troll that no accusation is needed. However, clearly several moderators have been fooled (rather, caught not actually bothering to reading the content before they moderate), so there is no room for a "redundancy" claim.

Re:Yeah, let the community have it

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft w!nD3rZ rox0rs#!$%^&(* d|_|d3z!!!

Good thing my post was short, or I would have met your definition of a troll.

Re:Yeah, let the community have it

[Anonymous Coward]

Read it carefully, and you'll notice there isn't one single comment that actually means anything.

Just like every other slashdot comment I've ever seen.

Let Mandrake Die

[slasher999]

After using Mandrake for a few releases (6.1 - 9.0) I can honestly say the world won't - or shouldn't - miss it. It maybe nice for the Linux newbie, but even they deserve better quality that Mandrake shipped with. Out of all of those distros, I had 3D support that worked in one - 7.2 I believe. Fonts were always a complete mess. Package names were changed from their defaults (ie RedHat names) for no apparent reseaon. Bleeding edge in some ways, but a little too much bleeding and not enough edge most of the time.

Re:Let Mandrake Die

[joestar]

I think you can keep this kind of s*** into your head. I had mostly *not any issue* with Mandrake since I started to use it (5.2) and I'm very happy with Mandrake 9.0 while Red Hat 8.0 freezes all the time on the same machines.

Re:Let Mandrake Die

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, more arguments that are pointless.

"mandrek r freeze on my masheen so it is teh sux!"

"redhat is r teh sux it freezez!!!"

"win2k crashed omg lmao it is suxor!"

Meanwhile, there's legions of users of each of the above who have absolutely no problems - most likely because a) they didn't buy cheap hardware, and b) they can read installation instructions.

Re:Let Mandrake Die

[Redglare]

Do you consider yourself to be an typical Mandrake user? Maybe it would be a good thing to let it die. What the hell, let's guillotine the damned thing.

Re:Let Mandrake Die

[Amich]

While I am no slouch when it comes to Linux, Mandrake is the only distribution I will use. I refuse to spend hours of my time editing config files which I can simply click Mandrake Control Center and have everything working in 5 minutes. Out of at least a dozen systems I've installed Mandrake 9 to, in each case, after install, the system was 100% usable, all hardware autodetected, autoconfigred, etc. Saved me tons of time. Why anyone would WANT to piddle with config file when they don't have to is beyond me - and if config file editing is your thing, what's keeping you from doing that in Mandrake?

3d issues? I've never had a problem with 3d in Mandrake. I download the Nvidia RPMs and go. On my ATI system, the dirvers were automatically installed. I've never had a problem running games such as UT2003, RTCW, or Counter-Strike (through WineX).

If Mandrake dies, I will be faced with a tough choice. I had problems with RedHat (plus I'm a KDE nut),SUSE refused to work properly with my video card (an nVidia card), and I don't think I'd like Lindows or Xandros (though I'd try them if Mandrake died). I would probably end up going to Windows, something that I swore I would never do.

So, all of you wanting Mandrake dead - just remember that if Mandrake dies, a LOT of people (their employees as well as their users) will be left out in the cold.

-Jim
"Amich"

Re:Let Mandrake Die

[Anonymous Coward]

do you suck dick?

Re:Let Mandrake Die

[cornice]

On the other hand the features that I found useful were handled perfectly by Mandrake.

It does a lot of things (desktop and server related) really well. For example it was the first distro that out of the box worked with my video card, scsi card, sound card, ReiserFS partition and FreeSWan connection. Right now I'm using Gentoo just because it's easier for me to administer but I still think Mandrake deserves a lot more credit than it's given.

Re:Let Mandrake Die

[vsprintf]

I know that me-too responses are frowned upon, but, in this case: Me too, good post.

*MandrakeSoft* launched the MDK Foundation idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

I read that in a recent interview of Mandrake Linux founder Gaël Duval at Ofb.biz:
Interview:
For the future, we are thinking about a "Mandrake Foundation" which would be a non-profit organization that focuses on developing the Mandrake Linux distribution exclusively. It would be financed partly by Club memberships and/or donations and/or by a "Street performer"-like system, and partly by companies that make money with Mandrake products, including MandrakeSoft. We think this approach would be much clearer for everyone to understand, and would also provide a more secure future for the Mandrake Linux distribution. It would also help MandrakeSoft become a more successful and profitable company by cutting most of its development costs.

Who...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is Ben Reser and how the hell did he get on Slashdot? I mean, he spelled it SlashDot and uses Random capitalization in his Sentences.

Community Mandrake

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, maybe then it would become stable enough that it could be used for every-day tasks instead of just the Free Software Community's answer to Windows Millenium Edition's legendary (lack of) uptime, and overall flakyness. Good Riddance Mandrake.

Re:My Sex Life: An Update

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, your girlfriend still swallows my cum though.

The problem, as I see it...

[Squidgee]

is that, while this would push Mandrake into rapid developement, it would most likely lose sight of its user-friendly goals, and move toward the road of Slack or Debian (Both extremely good, but complicated).

IMHO, if Mandrake is to become as user-friendly as it hopes, Mandrake needs a contingint of professional coders/GUI designers. If it becomes non-profit, Mandrake will only be coded by hackers.

Not to look down on hackers; I'm one myself, but I'm making a serious effort to move my programs toward user-friendliness and performance. But hackers will not make a user-friendly OS with a good GUI; they will make a hugely powerful OS with a ugly, horribly unintuitive interface, and complete user-hostility. Mind you, this isn't a bad thing; for things like servers, no problem. But Mandrake is aimed for the desktop, and that will just not do.

I'd hate to see Mandrake go, as it had a great goal. But I fear if it goes this route, it will fade into the sunset, a lot like Slack sadly has.

Re:The problem, as I see it...

[Cro Magnon]

First, Slackware has NOT faded into the sunset! It's still going strong, with Pat V working on Slack 9. However, I agree that Mandrake's strength is ease-of-use, and there's no point in scrapping that. We already HAVE Slackware & Debian for power-users. Mandrake's niche is the desktop.

Re:The problem, as I see it...

[kevina]

If it becomes non-profit, Mandrake will only be coded by hackers.

A non-profit origination is allowed to hire people and sell products. It is just not allowed to make a "profit" as I understand it.

Could someone who runs a non-profit orignization tell me what exactly a non-profit origination is and is-not allowed to do.

Re:The problem, as I see it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not really sure why Slackware has such a reputation for being difficult or geared more towards power users. Is knowing how to partition your hard drive and using your keyboard to select menu options during the install really that difficult?

Re:The problem, as I see it...

[timmyf2371]

I don't run a non-profit, but have undertaken consulting work for various non-profits in the past.

Some non-profits are like Debian - a community effort with volunteers, however I have worked with a few who do have a normal board structure: Chief Executive, Managing Director, a full board, and also other admin staff. As far as I understand, the only stipulation is that a non-profit org can't make a profit and reinvest all its "profits" into other avenues.

Tim

Re:The problem, as I see it...

[IamTheRealMike]

But hackers will not make a user-friendly OS with a good GUI; they will make a hugely powerful OS with a ugly, horribly unintuitive interface, and complete user-hostility.

Nah, I don't believe that. I think it's one of these slashdot myths that somehow get started then the weight of people repeating it convinces everybody it's true, like "MacOS is open source" or "Windows crashes lots". Now mind you, it does have a kernel of truth, up until about a year or so ago nobody in the community really thought about usability, but the issues have been brought up time and time again, and now it's up there in peoples minds - alongside "how do we make this app secure" is "how do we make it easy to use?".

You only need to look at what people are doing in Gnome and peripheral projects like Gaim and XChat that are studying their usability closely, bringing themselves into conformance with the guidelines and so on. Over at my project, we think about usability because it's an issue, so we design it in from the start. It's just a case of getting the message across.

Anyway, considering that a lot of the hackers employed by companies like Mandrake, Redhat and SuSE were once volunteers, I don't see how getting paid magically transforms you into a usability guru.

C'mon mod this up

[Anonymous Coward]

Have a sense of humor Johnny Straightman

Mandrake: Sell Your Assets to Apple

[Amsterdam Vallon]

Now that Apple has entered the area of Unix computing, they would make an excellent customer to buy out all of Mandrake's capital such as software, hardware, office furnishings, etc.

Apple could take Mandrake's slick new graphical installer, Konqueror Web browser, and other great pieces of software made by the French developers and really make their OS X product shine.

I think this sounds pretty feasible, and could at least serve as a nice parting gift to the Mandrake creators as they enter unemployment.

It's sad things have come to this, but at least get out while you can. I admire the Mandrake folks and think they changed the Linux world, community, and followers forever.

Computing will never be the same, and we have Mandrake to thank. It's just a shame things didn't end up better.

Re:Mandrake: Sell Your Assets to Apple

[rastachops]

I doubt Apple would really want any of Mandrake's software or hardware... and the graphical installer is hardly "slick", ok maybe compared to text installs but its hardly revolutionary.

Re:Mandrake: Sell Your Assets to Apple

[Squidgee]

Actually, Apple has already taken Konq: see Safari, Apple's version of Konq.

As previously stated, their install is hardly slick. Mac OS X's is much nicer (Trust me, I've seen em both).

In reality, Apple needs nothing from Mandrake; they have the more mature/stable FreeBSD and Mach, their own X11 server, and their own OpenSource browser. Apple had actually asked Linus if he wanted to allow Linux to jump in bed with Mac OS X; he declined, and they ended up with the technically superiour FreeBSD.

Apple is, literally, the next Mandrake; here's hoping they don't die off, too.

Re:Mandrake: Sell Your Assets to Apple

[SN74S181]

I don't think Apple has entered the area of Unix computing so much as they poured millions of dollars down a number of high profile sinkholes (Taligent, Pink, whatever the rest of those cute codename projects they had back in the early nineties that completely failed....) and finally gave up and threw a GUI layer on top of NextOS because that's the best they could do.

Re:Mandrake: Sell Your Assets to Apple

[big.ears]

Why would Apple spend money to buy software they could get for free, or crusty hardware they wouldn't ever use? Or, desks that they would have to ship halfway around the world?

Why is it every time a computer company is in trouble, someone roots for another company they like to buy it out? I've seen it here so many times it makes me sad. Here are the ones I remember off the top of my head:

"Why doesn't Apple buy Mandrake?"
"Why doesn't Apple buy SGI?"
"Why doesn't IBM buy Eazel?"
"Why doesn't IBM buy Loki?"
"AOL should buy Red Hat."
"HP should buy Compaq."

Uhhhmm...forget that last one. But get over it. Companies don't acquire unprofitable debt-ridden companies unless the payoff is worthwhile.

Re:Mandrake: Sell Your Assets to Apple

[salimma]

Interesting, yes.. they already employ quite a few ex-Eazel and ex-Mozilla programmers, after all.

Two examples to choose from ...

[Taco Cowboy]

You sez:

"Non-profit does sound like a good idea."

We happen to have two examples to choose from -

1. www.debian.org

2. www.stampede.org

The former is working rather smoothly, albeit a little bit too bureacratic.

The latter .... Well, it's in a worse shape than Mandrake.

I hope that whoever "takeover" the Mandrake operation will make it even stronger than Debian.

Re:Two examples to choose from ...

[Mr. Firewall]

I hope that whoever "takeover" the Mandrake operation will make it even stronger than Debian.

I just hope it isn't Micro$oft (shudder). Remember how magnanimous they were about "helping" Corel in their time of trouble?

Capitalism at work

[Sibshops]

In a capatilastic economy, only the two top companies survive, with one company appealing to the majority and one to the minority.

I am not really sure what mandrake does fundamentally different than Redhat. Both are easy to install, appeal to the new user, and have lots of packages.

Correct me if i am wrong but, mandrake realized that it stopped offering anything new when it has to resort to including the bleeding edge packages in its releases, with obvious problems such as not being able to detect a usb keyboard on install. Plus, when mandrake releases a new beta version every couple of weeks, it shows that the company is looking for media attention, not the attention of a excellent product.

I think unless mandrake shifts its target market (newbies are now everyone's target) they won't survive.

A possible alternative market for mandrake could be laptops. Mandrake already has strenght in hardware detection. If only mandrake could recognize my winmodem,read my battery, and allow the computer to go to low-power modes. I'd be set. The laptop market is fundamentally different than redhat's market which is workstations/servers. Mandrake already appeals to the community with the Mandrake Club. So it wouldn't be a large shift to target laptops.

Re:Capitalism at work

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandrake were a KDE'ised version of Redhat's Gnome. When Gnome sucked, Mandrake was popular. Since Redhat 8, Gnome has looked pretty good.

Re:CRAZY SUGGESTION!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfft, that'd be dumb. What's next, replacing screen doors on submarines with glass?

The best way to take over mandrake

[HanzoSan]

Buy their stock.

Subscribe to the Mandrake Club.

By doing these two things Mandrake will remain operational, but they will be forced to obey you because if they dont you'll just unsubcribe or sell your shares, not to mention you can sue them.

I want Mandrake to be a private company because this allows them certain freedoms. I'd rather support a private company which can benifit from the features of capitalism, one reason is because we all can earn money by owning their stock while no one earns any money by just having them be a non profit.

second if we do it like this, we can buy other companies if we ever get enough power. All we'd have to do is pressure Mandrake.

We dont need another community Linux, we have Debian, Slackware, Ark Linux. We need a commercial Linux for the desktop thats supported by the community.

Re:The best way to take over mandrake

[Stonent1]

Hanzosan, you just posted this exact comment just a few postings up. here

Re:The best way to take over mandrake

[HanzoSan]

Not exactly the same word for word, just the same ideas and opinions.

Each comment gives different details but the main idea I'm pushing is, we should just support Mandrake, they exist, they have employees, and currently we have the power.

It would be better for us as a community to run a for profit company, it would also prove that its a viablee business model.

We can let Mandrake die, but Lindows will just take its place, I'd prefer Mandrake compete with Lindows than to give Lindows a monopoly.

Mandrake is only dying because it ran out of money, not because of a flawed business model, it sucks to see a company which could be profiting which isnt.

Re:The best way to take over mandrake

[Anonymous Coward]

> Buy their stock

Hmm... unless Mandrake is selling shares that they own, or doing a follow-on offering, the only people that would benefit from buying their stock would be the existing shareholders (presumably the CEOs and officers that put the business in the position it is in if their stocks weren't widely purchased.

Now, if you meant, buy their warrants, well, that would help Mandrake's creditors if they have already filed for protection. I believe in the French courts (and US Courts) they would be placed into receivership and disbursements would go to creditors before going to fund the existing operation.

In any case, buying their stock probably wouldn't help them much.

Re:The best way to take over mandrake

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy their stock,then donate money to protect your investment?0r,maybe i misunderstood.

Big Deal

[darthaya]

We have debian anyway.

Why should they give it away?

[Performer Guy]

There is value in the Mandrake distribution, installation and name. Are the investors in Mandrake supposed to just give that value away after losing their money?

A better option!

[HanzoSan]

Subscribe to the Mandrake Club.

Lets face it, we will be paying the same amount of money regardless of if Mandrake is a for profit or not.

Buy Stock, by owning stock if Mandrake is a for profit company and they ever do well, we all will get rich and be paid, so theres more incentive to do this than to just donate to a non profit which will never really make money back.

By owning Mandrake as a company, we will have the power of shareholders, we will be able to control a commercial entity.

We have no commercial linux which supports the community and we have enough debians and slackwares, newbies would understand supporting a company more so than trying to do the non profit thing.

The best ideal situation for us would be to control a successful company in the industry. The only way to do this is to subscribe to Mandrake or buy stock.

Subscribing gives you the same power as buying stock just without the $$ making benifits.

Buying stock is just like donating money only you have a good chance of making your money back 3-4 years from now when the Desktop Linux market actually exists.

Non Profit is an idea of last resort, but its certainly not a good idea. A non profit will have not even a quarter of the $$ support of a commercial entity.

Re:A better option!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you really are an idiot.

Re:A better option!

[Anonymous Coward]

Buying stock is just like donating money

Yeah but not donating money to Mandrake. You're donating it to some stockbrokers, and whatever seller you got the stock from through the broker. Join mandrakeclub instead.

Re:A better option!

[the_2nd_coming]

good idea...lets give mandrake money for a service that offers NOTHING.

Take that

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mind if I take your sister over and plug her in?

Essentially they will become a non profit

[HanzoSan]

Basically they will be a community linux no matter what, and will be a non profit no matter what.

So it comes down to, what would you rather control, a commercial Linux that could actually make some money for us all, or would you rather own a non profit.

I'd rather be subscribed to a commercial linux myself.

The new business plan...

[jpt.d]

1. File for bankruptcy protection
2. ???
3. Profit!!

Re:The new business plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

4. Goto step 1

Uh huh..

[Anonymous Coward]

How fucking rude can you people be, exactly? All they needed was a FRACTION of the amount of users downloading the ISO's to join up for their club and they could have gotten through it. Did you do it? No. Now you're all talking about how to split them up between yourselves. Assholes.

Yeah, maybe their business model did suck, but if you really wanted to support them you would have done so. Thank you for allowing another good company to die because you were too cheap to stop it.

Re:Uh huh..

[dolson]

That's right, guilt people into paying for free software!

News flash: most people don't really care about Linux or what company survives, but only want what's best for them. By yelling at people and calling them names because they don't pay for something doesn't mean that they will start paying now. No, they will move on to a different distro.

People these days grow up believing that you shouldn't pay for things, especially software, music, and movies. The RIAA, MPAA, or whoever yelling at everyone to pay for it didn't stop people from warezing music and movies, did it? Mandrake has repeatedly asked for financial help from it's users, and where did it get them? Bankruptcy. Yes, you are right, their business model may have sucked, and yes, people aer assholes because they are cheap and want to demolish a company that gave them Mandrake. But your cry is basically going to fall on deaf ears.

People don't care these days, and the companies like Mandrake are going to suffer, and unless someone comes up with some sort of business plan that works around that, then there will be many more companies that follow suit.

Maybe, just maybe, all this time, SuSE has had the right idea.

Re:Uh huh..

[HanzoSan]

Yeah no one buys anything, thats exactly why the movie industry produced record revenues this year.

I think thats also why Eminem and Britney Spears are at the top of the charts.

Face it, people do pay for stuff when its valueable. The only reason people pay these folks is because they are fans and they want to see new versions produced.

I went to see Lord of the Rings Two Towers, I will go see the Matrix 2, not because I cant watch it for free, but because I want to see it in the high quality theater, and I want to the Matrix 3, 4 and so on to be released.

Re:Uh huh..

[Anonymous Coward]

"good company"? If they were "good" they wouldnt have had to keep begging some "community" for money. Note SLACKWARE is still running strong.

Mandrake (as a verb) Debian

[glubbs]

Why not take all (or at least *some*) of Mandrake's desktop advancements and try to bring it into debian? It's already structured as a community-based OS, and it could really use a little (but not nearly as much, let's keep our wits about us) gui advancement. Well? Have at it...

Re:Mandrake (as a verb) Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we Debian users DONT NEED them?

Re:Mandrake (as a verb) Debian

[Cro Magnon]

Because we Debian users DONT NEED them?

The above AC's comment is EXACTLY why not. Not because Debian doesn't NEED Mandrake, but because too many Debian users/developers have no interest in "ease-of-use". Or, more accuratly, they define "ease-of-use" different from "normal" people.

Re:My Sex Life: An Update

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're a smoker, your semen will take on a very bitter taste, as well diets with a lot of protein. Cut down on whatever applies.

I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[HanzoSan]

The community will support Mandrake via the MandrakeClub, and via stock.

I'd rather them stay for profit because people are more likely to pay for something when its a legit business than they will "donate" to non profits.

Debian? hahahahaha Debian is not for newbies.

Slackware? Hahahahahaha.

Stampede.org?

No, I'm thinking of a for profit company which survives off of its memberships but still offers free software, like AOL.

AOL gets you to subscribe then they give you all these software. I believe Mandrake can have a good business model, currently the market just isnt mature enough for them to make decent money.. Lindows is doing the same thing with their Lindows insiders and I dont see anyone complaining about Lindows business model. Now I admit Lindows does have more money than Mandrake, but Mandrake has 20,000 subscribers, this is a decent amount of money.

We have the chance here to save Mandrake or watch it die. If it dies it will never be compareable to Lindows, so once its dead everyone will move to Lycoris and Lindows and support them.

Death should not be an option, we should all subscribe to the club under the silver membership right now, anyone who has ever used Mandrake and who wants to see Mandrake release 9.1, Anyone who wants Linux to be successful on the Desktop, stop talking and do something about it.

IF people are greedy or lazy, well then Mandrake will be just like Debian and Slackware and hardcore Linux users will take over operations and make it worthless to the common joe sixpack.

We will have another worthless community distro, which is exactly what newbies HATE about linux, they HATE the debian zealots running around trying to make everyone run debian.

Re:I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[Anonymous Coward]

Your complete lack of understanding of basic economics is astounding.

Re:I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[leonbev]

"The Community" would be stupid to purchase Mandrake stock right now.

When a company goes into bankruptcy, the stockholders often end up losing most of what they invested. Creditors and bond holders get first dibs at any remaining assets of the company, and companies under a high debt load (like Mandrake, read their balance sheet) often have nothing left for their shareholders if they are unable to emerge from bankruptcy and face liquidation.

Re:I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[u38cg]

We will have another worthless community distro, which is exactly what newbies HATE about linux, they HATE the debian zealots running around trying to make everyone run debian.

I don't agree. I am a relative newbie to Linux. I got it because it was a hell of a lot cheaper, and because I wanted to learn about *nix, so maybe I'm not the typical kind of newbie you're talking about. What I found frustrating at first was the fragmentation; there's no one place to go when it all goes wrong.

I think what is most urgently needed on Linux is a decent update system, which can be made to work on a large scale. Something which updates everything automagically, can get from any location, and so on. Debian's apt-get comes the closest; but we need it to work perfectly from the GUI. When it can't find a needed library, it goes out and looks for it. When a library needs updating, it gets updated. These are things I do not want to know about! My dear old mother *certainly* doesn't want to know about them.

Oh yeah, and installation. That sucks too. FWIW, I don't believe graphical installers are necessary or even desirable; ncurses is fine and dandy. Just make it consistent and sensible (ie not like Debian, which is a pig). And try and have up-to-date drivers available. Nothing is more likely to tarnish a persons perception of Linux when he can't even get a graphical screen up.

Re:I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[piranha(jpl)]

I fail to see how a fork of Mandrake managed by a non-profit would degrade its ease of use, and have a more zealous and selfish user base. That makes no sense.

Focusing on "hardcore Linux users will take over operations and make it worthless to the common joe sixpack", your point seems to be that volunteers have no idea how to engineer an easy-to-use operating system *and* are zealous bastards to boot. That makes no sense. Look at KDE and GNOME (both under non-profits). Those volunteers seem to be doing a reasonable job writing easy-to-use interfaces.

Am I replying to a troll? Somebody, please moderate accordingly.

Re:I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[vandy1]

Look at Synaptic in Debian... or Mandrake Update in Mandrake. I think that handles the update... however, you're right about installers, but I think Mandrake's installer is fine, if we make an ncurses version of that, we'd have a reasonable text-mode installer too (which we can port to deb, or anything else :) ).

Just a thought.

Michael

Re:I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[eskayp]

Gotta agree with u38cg re fragmentation of help resources. This noob has been all over the web with Mdk 8.0, 8.1 and 8.2. Overall, I much prefer Mandrake's version of Linux over the Win'98 that left me in the lurch. However Linux would be much friendlier to newbies if there were a comprehensive "one safe source" for help. There are a myriad of good and well intentioned sites on the web, none of which cover ALL the bases. With the multitude of distros out there a comprehensive help system may be difficult to implement. Perhaps with the "Linux Standard Base" certification we could have a Linux Standard Help system also.

Re:I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[HanzoSan]

Actually im working on a p2p update system thats better than apt-get. Who knows if it will ever be completed

I'm still waiting for Gnutella2 specs.

Re:I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[HanzoSan]

name one easy to use non profit linux thats designed for newbies. Just one

By the way, KDE and Gnome arent distos they are applications. Big difference here. Not to mention most KDE and Gnome developers are paid developers.

Re:I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[znalg]

Synaptic solves many problems.... a nearly perfect GUI for APT. You are right!

Re:I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[Anonymous Coward]

name one easy to use non profit linux thats designed for newbies. Just one

Linex, the government-sponsored linux from Extremadura, Spain. If I understand correctly it's basically a newbie-ized Debian.

Linex is not exactly a nonprofit as in an ngo or grassroots community project, so your point is well taken. However, now that so much work has been done it's easier to make a newbie-friendly distro than it was, for example, at the time when Stampede was trying to get off the ground.

Re:I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[civilizedINTENSITY]

"Lindows is doing the same thing with their Lindows insiders and I dont see anyone complaining about Lindows business model. "

Actually it would seem that many people are upset with Lindows: Lindows' Heavy Hand Leads to Summit Dropouts. Their GPL violations raise questions. Their disregard for the community raises questions. I might not think Lindows is a bloodsucking parasite, but its absolute ludicrus to suggest you don't see anyone complaining about Lindows business model.

Re:I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[skimpydog]

Very interesting... ...craZy. ..wow.. I even like mandrake. I don't install anything with it, but the kernel is stable... and it has a nice install. For me to hear that they are having problems, well go figure, the economy is crap. Hard decisions... Skimp.

Re:I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[piranha(jpl)]

name one easy to use non profit linux thats designed for newbies. Just one

Just because it doesn't currently exist doesn't mean it can't. Can you give me an explanation why it couldn't?

By the way, KDE and Gnome arent distos they are applications. Big difference here.

No, they're desktop environments, big difference. The comparison was used to illustrate that non-commercial hackers aren't inherently out of touch with good user interface design.

Not to mention most KDE and Gnome developers are paid developers.

If you read the article, you'd know the author was suggesting a non-profit organization funded by the community. There would be some paid developers. Just like KDE (and maybe GNOME--not sure if they're actually funded).

Re:I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[mickesenna]

I don't agree on that Linux installation sucks. I have Mandrake 9.0 and the installation is just as smooth as Windows or even smoother. And after the installation you find out that every other os you have installed is still working. A frustating thing about installing Windows, nothing else works afterwards.
I think the Mandrake Update system is ok. At least for me

Re:I'd rather Mandrake stay for profit

[Keith_Beef]

Sigh!

The one stop shop for help is called comp.os.linux.*

Joe sixpack needs new libraries about as often as he recompiles his kernel...

All this P2P or Automagic Updating is fine if you've got broadband, and can get your libraries in double-quick speed. But for a great many of us, even for me, dial-up modems make frequent downloads inacceptable. Go explain to your Aunt Mabel that she needs to download six megabytes of new libraries because the thirty kilobyte application you donwloaded yesterday won't work without them...

Do you buy new tyres for your car, then look for the rims afterwards? Then worry about the wings and arches? And the torque? Extra strain on the gearbox? It annoys me to have to use these analogies (or are they metaphors, I forget), but some people seem to switch off their brains when they start to play at Linux.

Takeover by Evian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Water's everywhere. It even falls on you from the sky at random. And Evian still manages to sell it.

Surely they are the right people to sell you software that's also sitting on an FTP host.

Make that three...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.gentoo.org

I think they're doing just fine.

Mandrakes Business plan is GOOD

[HanzoSan]

Lindows is using the same business plan. Thats get subscribers and sell the services.

However, Mandrake screwed up in their budget early on, and ran out of money. IF Mandrake dies all the Mandrake users will be forced to use Lindows or Lycoris.

Honestly, I think Mandrake has the perfect business plan for a Desktop Linux, Mandrake just needs investor support, if a company were willing to give Mandrake 5 million dollars of investment Mandrake would be profitable in a matter of months..

Re:Mandrakes Business plan is GOOD

[AxelTorvalds]

However, Mandrake screwed up in their budget early on, and ran out of money. IF Mandrake dies all the Mandrake users will be forced to use Lindows or Lycoris.

Why is that? The more likely reality of it is most of them will use Redhat, or a UnitedLinux product.

It's also entirely possible that there will be a community lead effort similar to debian. They already have an insane amount of RPM contributions and such.

Re:Mandrakes Business plan is GOOD

[fucksl4shd0t]

It's also entirely possible that there will be a community lead effort similar to debian. They already have an insane amount of RPM contributions and such.

IMHO, iif (and I say if) Mandrake dies, then the best thing to do is take their fancy control panel and graphical installer and shove them up debian's ass. Since that's really the only thing that differentiates Mandrake from Debian, then take the good stuff and give it to Debian. Then all the packagers can go learn how to make debian packages and so forth. Rather than having another volunteer distribution. I'm all for choice, but what about the idiocy of duplicating work?

Re:Mandrakes Business plan is GOOD

[Wolfrider]

>> Mandrake just needs investor support, if a company were willing to give Mandrake 5 million dollars of investment Mandrake would be profitable in a matter of months..

--Well, that's what happened with SuSE, and from what I've seen of their 8.x distro they've lost my subscription. (I was a pretty good fan of 7.3, too.) I'm switching to Knoppix/Debian.

(I used to use Mandrake, but that was b4 SuSE.)

Re:Mandrakes Business plan is GOOD

[Martigan80]

I can't see them turning out a profit. Since they released their stock, they have been burning money with not too much to show for it. Every release they had some new scheme to try to get more money, albeit the Members club, flat out donation begging, or a last cry for money. Granted that the economy all over the world is hurting, but it still depends on how you spend the money.
I think the turning point came when they still wanted to use StarOffice with their distro. As we all now it became a "pay-for" app at roughly $60! So all the silver members (people who paid $60 for that membership) were excluded from downloading StarOffice, they had to upgrade their membership. That is what totally stopped me, why did they no switch to Open Office?
Second, they are not known for great stability or a streamlined install. They always seemed to be a working Beta than a Full Release by the lack of this performance.
Any how I hope the programmers fir the distro can find good jobs else were. I don't care for the distro, but the programmers that put it together obviously have some more to contribute to the community, just hope it is in their schedule.

Re:Mandrakes Business plan is GOOD

[HanzoSan]

Debian has a text based installer with very very old files, its never up to date.

Why even compare the two.

Not to mention mandrake uses rpm.

Re:Mandrakes Business plan is GOOD

[HanzoSan]

Mandrake did not "burn" money, look at their revenue increases and their costs of running the company decrease.

Mandrake can be profitable, the mandrake club "IS" their revenue stream and source of income. Its a community OS, not a corperate OS, if you want corporate control of linux go support redhat.

Re:Mandrakes Business plan is GOOD

[packeteer]

Personally i do agree that we need to support Mandrake right now but i dont think they really need it that bad. I know this situation is enough to get me to finally join mandrake club after leeching ISO's and lovin' em. Buying stock is not the best idea becuase it can cause you to get screwed out of money you should normally expect a return on. The mandrake club is the best because you know that your money is gone and you know what your getting for it.

The key that most people aren't realizing is that MandrakeSoft didn't lose money off selling the OS. In fact they are making good money off the OS and club memberships. They lost money on their e-learning business. This unbalanced their bank account and all they need is what they are doing. They are going through a restructuring bankruptcy. Once they have cut out some of the bad investments they made they will be right back. They aren't going anywhere, they are just trying to get back to making money.

Re:Mandrakes Business plan is GOOD

[Max von H.]

Apt and Synaptic have been ported to Mandrake, and work really well. As a little debian user (through Libranet and Knoppix), I love apt-get and also love Mandrake for its great community support.

You can find apt and synaptic for Mandrake 9.0 here thanks to Texstar.

I'd hate to see Mandrake die, I believe it's the best all-round distro around, easy to install yet powerful, a great learning tool.

Cheer,
max

Re:Mandrakes Business plan is GOOD

[vsprintf]

I think the turning point came when they still wanted to use StarOffice with their distro. As we all now it became a "pay-for" app at roughly $60! So all the silver members (people who paid $60 for that membership) were excluded from downloading StarOffice, they had to upgrade their membership. That is what totally stopped me, why did they no switch to Open Office?

Um, I think you meant *non-silver* members. Star Office is not free, and Mandrake is relaying that reality to the members. I don't understand your point about switching to Open Office - it's included free with the distro. I use it all the time.

Second, they are not known for great stability or a streamlined install. They always seemed to be a working Beta than a Full Release by the lack of this performance.

Are you sure you've used Mandrake? They are known for producing a stable product and especially for easy installation. That's why it's so good for n00bs or lazy people like me. There's an old saw about never installing a X.0 product, but Mandrake 9.0 installed without a hitch (and it was a full install, not just an upgrade). It set up ethernet, Samba, and the rest that was needed for the LAN and Internet connections without help. And it is still far more stable than the Win2K I use at work. (I always turn that machine off for the weekend. I figure if it happens to make it a whole week without a reboot, I'm just pushing my luck anyway.)

We have the chance to buy Mandrake right now

[HanzoSan]

Buy their stock, subcribe to the club, if we become the number 1 source of their income we own them.

They should

[WetCat]

Make getting their ISOs harder.
Somehow parolling them or putting to easily slashdotted servers or... ( a lot of options).
I downloaded Mandrake ISOs most of the time, while in December I finally bought Mandrake 9
Power Pack off the shelf. If it would be a little harder to get those ISOs - it would be more options for me to convince my management to buy packaged Mandrake.

French gave up yet again? I'm not surprised.

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, they ARE French. French, la lingua franca de pussys.

In Soviet Russia...

[-1bynextweek]

distribution takes over community!!!

the question is

[asv108]

Would the community be able to release a good consumer oriented distro? Community efforts have led to the release of great software, but there is a tendency to focus on solutions for the people writing the software, which is only natural. How would usability, graphics, and interface design folks be integrated in to a development team for Mandrake?

Most of the OSS projects that are polished enough for the average joe are products that were either started as closed sourced and opened up or are managed by a OSS company. Mozilla and Staroffice are good examples of closed -> open. Ximian's products are good examples of OSS managed by a company.

What is a good example of a community application that was developed entirely by a community and has the polish and interface of a major closed soured project and is targeted towards the average clueless user? I guess Gnome and KDE could be good examples but what other apps are out there besides window environments? There is lots of great OSS software out there but not many community projects have a professional look and are targeted towards non-techies.

Re:the question is

[GauteL]

Frankly I think it all comes down to focus. While it is true that most community run software does not focus on "consumers" I do not think there is anything inheritly impossible about community run software focusing on ease-of-use.

Mandrake has only had one eye focused on ease-of-use with reasonable success, the other one has been focused on trying to become as professional as Red Hat with very little success. The goals of Mandrake as a business may very well conflict with the idea of ease-of-use, since Mandrake believes (possibly correct, but I do not know) they have to go after the server/professional market to make money.

This have made Mandrake a "jack of all trades" like all the other distributions instead of a very polished specialized desktop distribution. A poor mans Red Hat if you like.

If a community run Mandrake distribution give up this notion it might even improve on Mandrakes level of ease-of-use.

Re:the question is

[civilizedINTENSITY]

This is a good question. I think its posed in a manner I'd choose to restate. "polished enough for the average joe" and "not many community projects have a professional look" suggest that the average joe is a professional. The professionals I know who use Linux are interested in TeX/LaTeX, not Word. A perfect example (from my point of view) of a professional application would be Emacs. Another would be Octave. Yet these wouldn't make your grade, I suspect. So disregarding what I consider an inherent bias in the wording of your question, there is still enough meat to require some chewing. With a somewhat modified definition of "professional", under what organizational structure are the good applications being written?

Re:Takeover by Evian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Evian spelled backwards describes their customers.

I am quite serious, sir.

[I Am The Owl]

Software Freedom is nothing to laugh about. I fully believe that the community should open the source to Mandrake Linux.

Re:I am quite serious, sir.

[The Creator]

Dammit man you should play POKER for a living :)

Re:I am quite serious, sir.

[fucksl4shd0t]

Dammit man you should play POKER for a living :)

No shit, dude. If that idiot played poker, I'd clean the floor with him. community buys out mandrake and forces them to open the source....

Whoever heard of such an absurd idea as buying out a free software company and forcing them to publish source? Does he want it in a computer-readable format, too? Really? Or does he intend to type it in by hand off some old 8-pin dot matrix printout?

Re:I am quite serious, sir.

[vandy1]

Isn't Mandrake's source *already* open? For instance, here's DrakX, their installer:

DrakX is Open Source (GPL) and Open Development :)

What are you on, and can I have some? :)

Michael

Setting our sights lower?

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1998, we wanted to take over the world. In 2003, we want to take over our own failing companies. That's sad.

If Mandrake's not profitable, let it die. I for one don't use linux to keep some company alive. I use it because it's the most natural way I have to use my computer.

The community already * has* Mandrake!

[aquarian]

It's open source, isn't it? At least as far as I can tell -- the only things that aren't free/OSS are the third party apps included with the pay-for product. The basic distribution, and the neat Mandrake installer and admin tools that make Mandrake Mandrake are all free/OSS. Correct me if I'm wrong...

Maybe the problem is "Mandrake is for newbies"

[vadim_t]

I started with SuSE. Kind of liked it. Then moved to Mandrake, and got several people to try it too. But I got annoyed with RPM and some other issues. And then finally moved to Debian, and this is what I've been using so far, with the only exception of LEAF (LRP based) on the firewall.

All the 4 people I convinced to get Debian really liked apt-get and the general stability. And maybe that's the problem. It's that the experts don't want to use the distribution that's "for newbies" and that's not as nice to administrate as Debian. And their friends and other people then follow, because they learned enough, want to try something new, or because they depend on the expert who'll have an easier time helping people who use the same distribution.

That last point could be pretty important, IMO. I'm pretty sure that if I switched to say, Gentoo, and didn't have Debian anymore those friends would switch to it later as well.

Re:Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you get your drugs ... and can I have some?

Why not make a new company?

[The Creator]

Mandrake was doing fine until they brought in new management, that increased spending by 400%. Why don't the developers(ie. the pre new managemeng people) jump ship and start a new company that develops and sells Mandrake linux?

It whould be perfect for the following reasons.

The market is saturated with "community"-distros. That is distros by hackers for hackers. As we know hackers make hacker tools, ie. non newbie friendly stuff. What we need is a commersial entity that knows that the center of product quality is the customer. And the customer in this case is the newbie.

Re:Why not make a new company?

[vsprintf]

The people in Mandrake did toss out the "new management". Now, they are back to doing just Linux distros. And Mandrake is "newbie" friendly, as always.

sad

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I speak for quite a lot of people when I say: :(

Mandrake Linux was one of the best chances at the "average user" desktop linux OS we've seen. They've done a lot for linux on the desktop.

Maybe change the business model

[dlrapp]

Since Redmond is doing such a good job of preventing the Dells, HPs, Gateways from bundling Linux: Maybe Mandrake should partner with a start-up computer maker to sell and support a really good "(Mandrake) Linux on the Desktop" machine and be the first one on the block. Look what a little head start did for M$>

any closed-source stuff in there?

[bcrowell]

I agree. Mandrake is the only Linux distribution I was ever able to get to install. It shouldn't go to waste.

Is there any closed-source stuff in the distribution? Is the installer open-source? Mandrake Control Center?

If it's all open-source, then what's the big deal? Just fork it. It would be nice, but not vital, if the user community could cough up enough money to keep, say, one former Mandrake coder employed full time. But there are other distributions that work on an all-volunteer basis.

But if there's important closed-source stuff in there, then I don't see how it can happen. The parent company and all the creditors will presumably want to monetarize all Mandrake's assets, not give them away for free.

Sad news

[Anonymous Coward]

I hated to hear this news, although it didn't completely suprise me. I was a journalist in the Linux field for several years, and I saw the the Mandrake people really were trying very hard and had their hearts in the right place.

But the bottom line is that free software will never be a strong business model, in and of itself. Sure, companies like IBM can pour cash into Linux, because they use it to leverage hardware sales and consulting and support contracts. But a company whose only product is the free software and paid support for it is doomed to either go out of business or settle for only a modest profit.

Give the name to the community? Or the code?

[AxelTorvalds]

I like Mandrake a lot. My path went SLS to Slackware to Redhat to Mandrake with 2 Debian machines thrown in. I'm a kernel hacker and an embedded programmer and have been on UNIX since the mid-1980's. I've also got a few of degrees, including an advanced one. I'm not Alan Cox or Linus but I'm not exacly a newbie either. Technically, until 8.2, Mandrake was on par with anything. I've yet to hear a substantiated argument that it's not, just hearsay from people who couldn't get their sound to work or install fonts and probably, IMO, couldn't properly adminstrate any version of Linux or UNIX. Please follow up if you want to refute this point. I'm only bringing it up because I'm sick of the bashing going on, go bash UnitedLinux or those pricks at Lindows.

Out of the box, it comes more secure than I tend to believe Redhat or SuSE does; particularly with the high and paranoid options. It's easy to set up and they have a ton of contrib packages, I rarely find them lacking an RPM for anything, which is very important for RPM based distributions, nothing can screw them up faster than willy-nilly compiling and installation of packages from source that the RPM database can't manage. I like that packages are there when you want them.

Now there are some stylistic things, but I can't find anything to complain about with Mandrake that I couldn't complain about in all non-BSD platforms. It's also just style, if you're admining all day then you're probably not writing code or being productive. I don't know maybe I'm not "IT department" enough to be able to bitch about admining a box. I throw Linux on a box and write code. I guess if you don't like graphics for some reason or really dislike GUIs then you probably wouldn't be happy with Mandrake. Big deal. Again, follow up with some specifics if you'd like to refute this.

Now in the 8.2 days I personally think they lost a bit of their edge, primarily because they've been running like a bat out of hell from financial problems and because Redhat is looking hard at the desktop and produced a killer app with blue curve. Nothing that can't be fixed but definitely not the same quality we were used to. Also there has been a lot more input and submissions from the user community at large. 9.0 is a bit better and you can easily see them getting back to form as they get used to the new operation style. It already looks like a community driven distribution. So what do you mean Ben? Do you want to fork? Go for it, like you've said, their code is GPL, I might go with you. Are you asking for someone to rise to the occasion and start driving project "Freedrake"? Or are you throwing salt in the wounds? I don't want them to go away exactly but I'm not sure what you're advocating here.

These are desktop linux users not corperates

[HanzoSan]

Desktop users dont use Redhat or United Linux, they want something for the desktop,not for hosting servers.

Re:These are desktop linux users not corperates

[Anonymous Coward]

my RH desktop (only, no public services) just read your comment and disappeared in a cloud of metaphysics.

Re:These are desktop linux users not corperates

[Xerithane]

Desktop users dont use Redhat or United Linux, they want something for the desktop,not for hosting servers.

Uhm no. Desktop users do use Red Hat, and Red Hat isn't a server distribution. It is a desktop distribution. It's install is very easy, just as easy as Mandrake.

I use Mandrake, and I'm a software developer. I like an operating system that works. Red Hat works, Mandrake works, Debian works. These are all operating systems that are, in fact, easy to install.

Re:These are desktop linux users not corperates

[HanzoSan]

Ok Mr. Software developer you sure do represent the casual user.

Now go compile some software or something.

Re:These are desktop linux users not corperates

[Xerithane]

Ok Mr. Software developer you sure do represent the casual user.

What about my girlfriend who uses KDE? How does Lindows support Japanese input? Is it as easy as it is in Red Hat or Mandrake? Especially if she buys it from WalMart?

I'm not that different than a casual user, because when I'm not programming, I am that casual user. I check my email, browse the web, use AIM. It doesn't matter to me what system I use as long as it works. I do not want to mess around with any form of system maintenance when I need to work, or when I just want to relax and read the news.

My servers are for customization and optimization, a desktop computer is supposed to work. Red Hat does that very well.

Re:These are desktop linux users not corperates

[packeteer]

Im sorry but oyu aren't that casual user even when you check your email, browse the web, or use AIM. As someone who understands linux your use of the OS will be much different than someone who doesn't. Personally i like oyu understand the system but wheni try to show people around linux they use it in much different ways. Linux is still at a point where it wonk just always work. It wont usually crash such as windows but it also requirs more knowledge just to get it to run. It seems to me to be very easy to jsut check email under linux and at first i assumed anyone could do it untill i saw people try. They have difficulty and it made me realize no matter what i wont see a computer just like any casual user.

Re:These are desktop linux users not corperates

[Xerithane]

Personally i like oyu understand the system but wheni try to show people around linux they use it in much different ways.

My girlfriend, a massage therapist. She clicks on the icons and it works. The only thing I had to explain to her is shift+space is the kanji key.

It seems to me to be very easy to jsut check email under linux and at first i assumed anyone could do it untill i saw people try. They have difficulty and it made me realize no matter what i wont see a computer just like any casual user.

Install KDE. Click "K" button. Networking -> Mail -> Choose One. There is no "Try" here, Linux is suitable for the desktop just fine now, but it's not idiot proof and idiots break their computers all the time.

Re:These are desktop linux users not corperates

[Cruciform]

I installed it for my girlfriend as well. But finding decent drivers for peripherals is still a pain in the ass.

As it stands now, a casual user can get by with Windows as they can simply go to the manufacturers site and grab a Windows driver on their own. If I asked her to grab the tarball and install it, she wouldn't know where to start.

Otherwise though, she liked Redhat with the new Bluecurve theme on top of Gnome.

Re:These are desktop linux users not corperates

[Xerithane]

I installed it for my girlfriend as well. But finding decent drivers for peripherals is still a pain in the ass.

Which ones? I have a Sony CLIE, digital camera, all sorts of things that work flawlessly. The hardest thing I have to get running was the CLIE which required editing the devfsd conf to chmod the permissions and add myself to the group. Anyone with rudimentary knowledge should be able to do that.

As it stands now, a casual user can get by with Windows as they can simply go to the manufacturers site and grab a Windows driver on their own. If I asked her to grab the tarball and install it, she wouldn't know where to start.


Now it's RPMS. Or debs. Or whatever. On my desktop machines, it's RPM based because I want it not only standardized, but a target install that requires little intervention on my part. I'm a bit more strict on my workstation, but for other systems (something that isn't going to have software developed on it) most rpm's work better than any windows installer I've come across. Of course I don't use windows all that often.. most games require you to choose not to install a bunch of stupid things, or click next a few times for no apparent reason other than to display a few panes of path information or system information that less than 5% of the population can understand, either by choice or by knowledge.

Linux is just as ready for the desktop as Windows is, the problem is it's different. If someone starts with Linux they'll be just fine using it than Windows or Mac OSX. It's upgrading and, as you said, unsupported peripheral devices that have issues. A ton of devices are supported at this time however, at least most of the common ones.

Re:These are desktop linux users not corperates

[Cruciform]

An Epson C62 printer, and a logitech webcam. Getting the webcam running was a snap. Finding software that was of any use to her wasn't so easy.

I hit linuxprinting.org for the printer drivers and everything detected ok, but it would neither print from OpenOffice or Gimp.

There were other things I installed for her as well, and sometimes the RPMs didn't work. So I'd grab the tarball and make it from that and it would work fine. Easy for me, but not for the average windows user.

Linux is ready for the desktop, it's just not ready for the user. The average Windows user clicks on stuff until they figure it out. They don't want to read a man page. During the Y2K panic, the contracting company I worked with had us back up and upgrade about 5000 machines during 98 and 99. Most of those people didn't even know where they save their documents to.

The bright side for Linux is not only is the OS evolving, the users are too. As the older, set-in-their-way computer-ignorant workers move out of the workplace and the younger tech-savvy users fill in, it's only going to get better. There'll still be some thick-as-a-brick users, but not as many as there are now :)

This sounds all wrong!

[Ashcrow]

From what I understood, they got into this mess because of the hired help they brought in to manage their buisness and before that they were profitable.

It doesn't sound like a major problem for MandrakeSoft, just returning to their old buisness ways without the MBA suits ... after all, upping spending 400% is rarely ever good unless you have allready made cost back.

Capon

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Mohammed, I'm going to assume that you don't have Down's Syndrome and instead merely have some sort of brain cramp. To answer your question, a statement about the future can easily be true or false. For instance, tomorrow I will take a dump. This is a statement about the future that cannot be evaluated in the strict Boolean sense of the word until tomorrow but through intelligent predictions, we can say it is true or false. You are the one who is getting into semantic mumbo jumbo. Perhaps I should have said, "I know this may sound like an awful thing to say but I believe it to be true and only time will tell." Would your pea-sized brain have been better able to get around that statement you fucking cumdumpster? Why don't you stop being an AIDS patient for about two seconds and use your brain to recall that you are a jackass. Once you come to this realization you may feel like it would be better if you kept your stupidity to yourself in your parent's basement you douchebag. Christ, I hate you already and I don't even know for a fact that you're a virgin. Here's a statement about the future - you will never touch a living human female. Suck on that dickwad.

So basicly this is a hijacking.

[nlinecomputers]

From what I read in Ben's article he is basicly advocating that the community hijack Mandrake. I assume that "Mandrake" is trademarked so they would have to call it something else but it could be done. I not sure why it has to be nonprofit or community based. Its GPL'd is in not? No rule saying you can't rename it something else and become a startup again.

Mandrake is a fork off of Red hat is it not?

I like Mandrake and use if for basic samba file servers and my own desktop. I would be more suportive of a new handler would keep trying to make it user friendly AND upgrade the security of it.

Re:So basicly this is a hijacking.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about "moonshine" for the new name?

Good luck Mandrake

[StarTux]

Hope they remain what they are, but in a better financial shape.

Even though I am not a direct customer of theirs (just the wrong flavour for me) as anyone else using Linux you will be an indirect customer. Of course same goes for other distro's.

StarTux

worst comparison ever.

[Yankovic]

From 1998/1999 Fiscal Year to the 1999/2000 Fiscal Year they had a 424% increase in revenues. From 1999/2000 to 2000/2001 they had an 18% increase. And from 2000/2001 to 2001/2002 they've reported a 31% increase.

Consider for a moment Microsoft Corporation. Between 1998 and 1999 they had a 29% increase in revenues. 1999-2000 16% increase. 2000-2001 10% increase. 2001-2002 12% increase.

Mandrake went from 500k to 3.5M in 2 years... Microsoft went from $6 B to $8 B. The two are so vastly different even hearing this comparison makes me want to cry. It's like saying last week my parents paid me $5 for cleaning the garage and this week they paid me $15 for cleaning the attic and painting a fence. I have a revenue growth rate of 300%! I should be valued 30x more than MS who has only a 10% increase y/y!

WTF??

[JW Troll]

the best course of action for Mandrake Linux would be a community or non-profit takeover of the Mandrake distribution

I think that the problem is that Mandrake is already non-profit. I don't hold much hope they'll rise from the ashes.

Why bother with Chapter 11?

[jACL]

I mean, the main assets are GPL. Aside from the value of existing contracts, goodwill of the Mandrake name, and maybe some boxen, the company could just do this:

1. Go out of business,
2. Apologise to schmucks holding bag,
3. Start new Mandrake business and pick up where they left off...

It would probably be cheaper than 4 million euros!

Adding to you glorious post.

[Idou]

Thank you for posting this. And to add to your point, Mandrake has always been open. People could have started up Openmandrake anytime in the past. Why didn't they? Because there was some kind of value added in paying developers to code that did not exist in the free developer environment (mainly, easy hardware detection and easy to use interfaces). I mean, Debian is proof of what a distro becomes when nobody is paying the developers (I mean this is a positive way. Debian is pure technology, but this is not attractive to some users).

I think Mandrakeclub addresses this issue, and we will soon see a 9.1 version coming from a profitable, but very humble Mandrakesoft this spring. They will still be paying off debts for the next year or so, but they will, hopefully, have returned to a simpler time when life was just about getting an easy distro available to the public.

That is why I am a Silver member for the next 584 days and will probably renew way before that period is up. Call me stupid, but what do I have to loose? I am still paying MUCH less than I would have for MS, and I am helping others have an excellent distro for free. And for someone who will never get his name written down in history books, this will be as close as I can ever get to having an effect on the world.

Anyway,thanks again for the great post.

I think mandrakeclub is really the way to go

[Idou]

Being able to decide where the distro goes is actually a really significant service. Also, being able to request rpms is really great too

(I requesteed a starcon 2 rpm, and it only took a week! starcon 2! starcon 2!)

But I do agree that they should be more careful if they are going to sell plastic wrap. In fact, I think they should do the opposite: Stop selling package wrapped distros and focus on creating services and specific products like that firewall product they created. I always thought Open Source was about selling services, not software. They are trying to do both, and it is kind of cancelling out each other.

Anyway, I hope ch. 11 (or the French equavalent) will force them to make these hard decisions and focus on one strategy. I personally hope they return to those humble times when they were profitable and put out an awsome single cd distro.

I'll be making my opinion known over at the Mandrakeclub site if anyone needs me . . .

Don't blame me, my English wasn't this bad before I started coming to slashdot.

In Soviet Russia

[eclectro]

the non-profit group takes over you!...Oh..wait...

Bravo

[Chris Canfield]

The problem with people coding tools for themselves is that they know too well how the code works - they are at the defining end of the learning curve. I remember being a tester on a project, and rattling off the name of a sub-sub-sub-sub menu to a producer along with a procedure that any of the other testers would have understood. His blank stare made me wonder if I was so experienced with the product that I had lost any idea of how people actually used it.

-C

Re:Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude - take a breath - anoxia is a killer...

Wait a F* minute.

[EdlinUser]

I remember a few versions ago deno of MandreakeForum
said: If you're in a hurry to get a copy go to CheapBytes.
The people at MandrakeSoft have embraced the Gift Economy. If you like what they have given you--it's time to give back.

Re:Wait a F* minute.

[Fnkmaster]

I already _AM_ a member of the Mandrake Club and have purchased Mandrake Linux 7.2 (I think that was the version), 8.0, and 8.2 in shrinkwrap versions. In short, I'm a huge supporter. But it is their embrace of the "gift economy" that has led them to being broke and having to file for Chapter 11 - that and their silly pursuit of some really irrelevant business opportunities (e-Education).

Re:Wait a F* minute.

[vsprintf]

If you've been following the whole mess, you know it's the e-Learning thing and hiring PHBs to lead them through the dot.bomb bubble that hosed them. The PHBs got bucks. Mandrake got bills. The PHBs got fired (probably with golden parachutes). The companies that the PHBs made stupid deals with still want bucks for useless products. Mandrake's Linux offerings have been profitable, i.e., the income has exceeded the expenses. Their pusuit of other "irrelevant" products disappeared with the relocation of the PHBs (hopefully back to hell).

I'd like to see their numbers

[tutal]

I'm sorry, but it seems as if Mandrake the last few years has basically been begging for consumer support. While this is a much different approach to say, advertising, it makes me wonder how they are running their business. Don't get me wrong, I love their distro, but I wonder if they have had competant business men/women running the company. Anyone know where some of their financial records are??

Answer to: Why is Slackware hard

[r3jjs]

Slackware is hard, in my opinion, for the following reasons.

1) Getting X to work. X didn't just come up running. After I spent DAYS tinkering with the config file, reading every newsgroup and every web page I could I was fusterated beyound words.

In a fit of desparation I ended up booting Knoppix and copying ITS XF86Config-4 file over.

2) Sound support. Similiar issues. The machine had run Mandrake before which used the ALSA drivers. Had major trouble getting sound to work and wasn't sure where to even start. (Found the right chmod for /dev/mixer and /dev/dsp. Midi is still a loss. As is Timidity.)

3) Network modules loaded in /etc/rc.d/rc.netdevice? Was banging my head against the wall for HOURS trying to get the card to work because I kept putting and "eth0=" line in my modules.conf file. Silly me.

Mind you, now that I've done all of that, I'm happy with Slackware and will continue to stick with it. I find its "by the book" approach refreshingly rewarding.

Though if I ever change video cards in this machine I'll be reaching for Knoppix again.

~Looking over at his web cam, shuddering at what it will take to make that work. No distro he has used had a "find new hardware" option that worked well.~

Re:Answer to: Why is Slackware hard

[woogieoogieboogie]

All of this is a benefit because?

Seriously, if it takes a moderately computer literate person several hours to configure X on the system, then either the software is broken, or the documentation is poorly written.

Because something takes hours to figure out doesn't mean it is difficult. It just means the documentation is poorly written. IMHO Slackware embodies everything that is wrong with Linux and highlights everything which will cause Linux to fail as a desktop OS. Slackware is the AMISH of Linux.

Re:Answer to: Why is Slackware hard

[Cro Magnon]

The documentation IS poorly written, but that's not unique to Slackware, or for that matter, to Linux. I see crappy documentation everywhere, and I wish those tech-wizards would one day learn to document for people who DON'T already know everything! That said, Slackware is fine for its niche (as are the Amish). But we also need a distro that we could hand to my GF/mom and say "Enjoy". And that's not Slackware.

Re:Answer to: Why is Slackware hard

[woogieoogieboogie]

I agree that much of the documentation for OSS is poorly written. But on the otherhand, an intutive interface would make the need for documentaion less important. IMHO Slackware is flawed because it does not address either the need for good documentaion or the need for a good intuitive interface.

I am kinda getting that impression about many slashdot users. Doing something the difficult way is never a sign of intelligence. Why spend hours configuring X when there are utilities which will do this for you in several seconds? Computers are supposed to be tools to increase productivity. Any software which decreases productivity is flawed by design.

If it wasn't for the arrogance of much of the Linux base, linux would have a much greater penetration into the corporate market as well as the home users desktop. A point and click install interface is not just for the newbies, highly experienced users benefit from the increased usability because they knwo that usuability and ease of use does not mean that power has to be sacrificed.

I personally use Mandrake because it is easy. I lost that desire to screw around and tweak operating systems a long time ago and the thrill of installing linux kinda goes away after several dozen installs.

Re:Debian/Mandrake

[sireasoning]

The simplest mutually beneficial aspect of a Debian/Mandrake blend would be to focus Debian (and its stability) for servers (taking advantage of Mandrake's wonderful server tools), while focusing Mandrake on desktops. Mandrake could strip alot of its server software from its iso's (but they could be uploaded through urpmi or apt), while Debian could strip away alot of the unnecessary desktop related features. What may come of this are two highly focused but slimmed down distros, each with a solid community backing them.

Any Mandrake user could install items from Debian's server and vice versa since they would have standardized the basic layout (hopefully more standardized than the LSB).

Mandrake, take a lesson from Ximian.

[cornice]

First let me say that I'm a big Mandrake fan. I have used it for years and I buy official CDs and I am a Mandrake Club member.

That said, I never like the whole street performer concept. The reason is that it will never provide more than a minimal existance. People will give as long as they feel it's a worthy cause. As soon as people see any form of real financial succes the giving will all but stop. It's just human nature. So I think Mandrake needs to quit pretending that it's enlightened financial model is going to work. I think Mandrake needs to offer more services for a fee. For example US mirrors of Mandrake suck. I can rarely get a connection and when I can the files are outdated. I would be willing to pay well for a descent update service. I want to issue a command, get some feedback about what's going to be installed and proceed. Signed files would be nice too. I'm a big fan of open source but companies need to be smarter about how they are going to make money in an open source market. For some it's not hard but you can't model yourself after closed source companies and you can't expect windfall profits from what is really a non-profit business model. Maybe Mandrake going non-profit is a good idea. I think that's the best idea so far as long as enough money can be raised to support it's excellent programmers and designers.

security updates?

[jonathanbearak]

that would be my #1 concern

(separate /home partition is a Good Thing)

You see i thought he was kidding.

[The Creator]

And holding up one helluva pokerface.(hence the poker comment)

Opening up the sources of open source software...

Mandrake's problem

[Unregistered]

It's not the best for corporations. AFAIK, Red Hat has some really good tools that drake lacks. Mandrake is good for the home user, but the home user won't pay once he figures out you can dl the isos. Also at least in compusa mandrake has no shelf space. It's all Red Hat. However i do hope they pull through since they do provide the best distro in the home user nich.

Re:*MandrakeSoft* launched the MDK Foundation idea

[RTMFD]

Aren't street "performers" often the ones you see dumpster-diving for table scraps?

If it truely offers nothing, why did you use it?

[HanzoSan]

Its funny you say it offers notihng yet you used Linux Mandrake in order to have that opinion in the first place.

Offers nothing? The service is the Linux Mandrake ISO, if you want to see Linux Mandrake 9.1, Subscribe, if you think Linux Mandrake sucks, well keep your money and pay for something else which is of greater value.

Mandrake was the best chance at running at Windows

[dWhisper]

Mandrake was the perfect desktop solution to compete with Windows, at least for most business users. It had good out-of-box hardware support and a variety of applications. It never made it into the hardcore users segments, but was never really meant to.

It's sad that they may go under because people aren't willing to give them the investment chances that were blown on all sorts of computer companies which amounted to nothing. I'd love to see this go full community, because someone will eventually see the potential

Re:It's one option (going OT)

[cymen]

Sears and whatever Homelife rematerializes into will never see a dime of my or my family's cash, and I wouldn't urinate on former employees of the Homelife store near me if they were on fire (and if they jaywalk in front of me they'd better pray to god that I don't recognize them).

So if a company you work for does something immoral you believe that everyone else has the right to treat you as subhuman?

Sort of like...

[inode_buddha]

what happened with the Blender?

I don't know if this sort of thing would even be possible in the US; it seems to work "over there", though.

Does anyone actually read anymore

[woogieoogieboogie]

Equivilent of US chapter 11

Mandrake is not going out of business, they are seeking protection from their creditors and will reorganize their business model. Bankruptcy allows a good business to overcome a mistake which would normally destroy the company. Selling enhancements to a free product is a good business model and one which can be highly profitable. The core of Mandrake is solid, it is the other avenues Mandrakesoft took to increase revenues which have faltered.

Looking at Mandrakesoft's investors, Vivendi is a major investor in the company and has deep pockets. Why do you think a relatively obscure French company can get highly visible and valuable shelf space at US stores like CompUSA.

I find the "Mandrake is for newbies" comments on Slashdot worse FUD than anything Microsoft puts out. Mandrake is a Linux distro and can be as easy or as difficult as on wants to make it. Nobody has to use or even install the the usability features of Mandrake and experienced users can do an expert text based install and create EXACTLY the system they want. This is not to mention that ease of use != newbie. Many highly experienced users prefer the simplicity which Mandrake offers knwoing that underneath it is Linux and can be adminstered either through the convenient supplied interface or via the command line ro by directly editing the configuration files.. Once you have gotten past the NEWBIE stage of impressing yourself with Linux, you realize it is just another OS spending hours configuring a machine is a waste fo time since that time could be spent actually doing something productive with the system.

Re:Does anyone actually read anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting that vivendi is a major investor. But thinking they have deep pockets is actually very very wrong. They used to have them, but now they are almost bancrupt, thought they have been able to sell off some parts of their conglomerate. Look at their own website for their credit ratings. Their bonds are actually rated as junk.

http://finance.vivendiuniversal.com/finance/mark et /creditratings.cfm

They are not in a position to buy much (thought still they try to snap up Cegetel completely, ha), and
I don't think they care much for mandrake right now.

Re:Does anyone actually read anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're suggesting we should just use something dumbed-down like Windows, and so never end up being able to do anything productive due to all the viruses, reboots, bugs, lack of powerful tools, security holes and plain sluggishness ...

A summary of posts following any Mandrake story

[Afrosheen]

1. Screw Mandrake, I've never used it.
2. I love it, let's keep it alive. Can I sell my liver to donate cash?
3. Debian, gonk gak Slackware.
4. Goatse.cx
5. Bla bla bla pontification of free software, soapbox sermon on business and management tactics, waste of space.
6. Why should I support free software? I don't use it. Wait..I do run linux but...nevermind. Debian.
7. Mandrake is for noobs, I'd never be caught dead with it on my computer. Gentoo arg ack ports system.
8. In Soviet Russia, Mandrakes attack people.
9. Some nonsense from a non-native english speaker that leaves everyone scratching their head.

Well that about sums it up. Keep this in mind next time you see a mandrake announcement and save yourself the time of reading the redundant posts on it.

Slackware "business model".

[rasjani]

If things go really really bad (can they get worse?), i bet there's developers who are more than willing to adopt mandrake distribution and continue where the company left off. And, add same kind of businessmodel as Slackware (atleast, used to have) has. Devels are independent and if necessery, 3rd party company takes care of the cd production ?

Viable business

[grungeman]

Taking over a business that is not viable in the market makes only sense if you can turn it into a viable business. If you cannot achieve this, you will end up with a lot of money lost and all you will achieve is postponing the death of the company a bit.

Maybe the community should rather give the money to some businesses that have already proven that they are viable, such as SuSE or Redhat, and strengthen their position.

I'll keep this "I told you so" short

[Rogerborg]

I compared donating to Mandrake with welfare handouts; without a plan to get them off welfare (which they never had) it would be a never ending process. Gosh, and I was right.

I said that Mandrake was doomed as a commercial venture, and that it would end up being the responsibility of the devout to keep it going, one way or another. Wow, and I was right.

Please listen to me this time. Let it die. I know you love it, but it's dead. Let it rest in peace. Find a viable distro, give your love and energy to them. We need fewer distros, not more.

Proprietary drivers?

[curious.corn]

Ok, I'll bite the bullet here...
What makes Apple os X slick & cool? After all it's a ppc port of a BSD kernel and apps... it's drivers, it's having the hardware you bought working at it's best without fiddling with it to desperation. So Mandrake, or any distro, could sign NDAs and get the source to those damn drivers (3d accel) and patens (freetype, legally) and release dual licensed boxes. That is, sell the box with GPL only components and access the FTPs with the license number to get the extra you pay for.
Ok, you can do that already for free (beer) but having them work clean and out of the box is what the consumer target would want and pay for.
I would certainly pay for encrypted XFree sessions, alphablended HW accelerated KDE/GNOME themes and not the current hacks that turn performance to ground (very clever... but still hacks).
Infact Desktop Linux efforts are stifled by XFree and it's lack of focus on these key issues (to be fair, they don't have the resources to keep up with the pretending users). Get some X hackers, pay them, build a value-added X; don't embrace & extend a là M$ but place the option for high performance at a price.
Afraid of breaking up the standards and the opennes? Ok, give back the code if you like, but at least lead the innovation and pretend the $$ to get it done!

business models

[kipple]

I think that this is definitively something that cannot be done under a different business model, such as those used by profit-only companies (obviously) selling closed-source software.

Is this another example of the robustness of the open-source companies strength?

but everyone knows...

[BrokenHalo]

of course, that a merkin is "counterfeit hair for women's privy parts" (I know you didn't spell it like that, but couldn't resist... :-} - OED if you don't believe me...

Re:but everyone knows...

[feendster]

That sir is very funny!

Re:If it truely offers nothing, why did you use it

[the_2nd_coming]

its funny, I can get the mandrake iso fro free from the frigen website....so again....I get NOTHING!

Problem: Nobody will give them a penny NOW

[egghat]

I wouldn't join the club (if I hadn't done this before ...), cause I fear that I simply throw my money out off the window.
I wouldn't buy a distro box from them cause the next version (9.1) is in beta now.

But I want to help Mandrake. But I don't want my money to go to some creditor (although he will see this differently ...),

I WANT MANDRAKE TO CONTINUE THEIR FABULOUS DISTRO!

So what does Mandrake need?

We need someone to setup a banking account, where one can deposit money and say: If Mandrake succeeds, I'll buy a Mandrake club membership from this money or buy the box or buy some software from them or simply donate (which of course is stupid, because the club membership means that 100% of your money directly goes to the company you want to support).

( I think it's not enough to sign some petition, you'll have to money where your mouth is to convince a new investor and/or the old creditors. Putting your money where your mouth is, is the source of all problems for Mandrake: zillions of people who tell how good Mandrake is but only a few thousand willing to support them via the MandrakeClub).

If Mandrake fails to continue their distro, you'll get your money back and spend the rest of your life whining on Slashdot what a great distro Mandrake was ...

Bye egghat.

Re:Mandrakes Business plan is NOT good

[egghat]

How can anyone call the business plan of company that just filed for bankruptcy protection good?

They must have done something wrong. For example spending more money than they were earning.

Mandrake made some serious mistakes. Their e-learning business was a mess. But even with their distribution they made the big mistake of giving their ISOs to everyone for free even before one could buy their box.
They should have allowed access to their ISOs to clubmembers only (at minimum until the box is available in the shops).

If you are interested what I would do to support Mandrake now read my other article in this thread.

Bye egghat

The community hasn't supported Mandrake until now

[egghat]

why the heck should this change?!?

Don't get me wrong, I love Mandrake. But Mandrake has failed because they made some (rather big) mistakes and the community made the big mistake of freeloading their ISOs and not joining the club.

I'm somewhat sceptical that this will change.

We need some way to set up a way to support Mandrake. See my other posting for my ideas about this.

Bye egghat.

Do not compare to Microsoft

[leandrod]

> Microsoft is a profitable company

It is not!.

Anyway, MS is in the proprietary customer lock-in, and MandrakeSoft is not. Better to compare to Red Hat, LibraNet and others. And do not guide yourself by the Linux name only: even SuSE is also in the proprietary lock-in game, even if a much milder version of it than MS.

Re:If it truely offers nothing, why did you use it

[vsprintf]

If you already have the ISOs, then you have something. If you help out, you may continue to get those "free" ISOs. Otherwise, you'll likely "get NOTHING". Think it through - I know it hurts.

no money in linux.

[Suppafly]

As great as a distro as mandrake is for new users, it has limited commercial viability as its nearly impossible to upgrade or add software to a mandrake install. People generally leave mandrake once their linux skills have grown somewhat.

Plus its really hard to make any money by marketing linux, better companies than mandrake have found that out. I wish the employees of mandrake best of luck, but I can't forsee mandrake coming up with a viable enough business plan to stay afloat in the commerical sector.

Re:Mandrakes Business plan is NOT good

[vsprintf]

They should have allowed access to their ISOs to clubmembers only (at minimum until the box is available in the shops).

Yeah, I've had similar thoughts, but are the mirrors (which are donating bandwidth for nothing as far as I know) going to go along with an exclusionary access scheme? There are a few now that appear okay with it or are unaware of the practice. What happens if many more people join the club? Convert more mirrors? The freeloaders will purge the memory of their ftp clients and forget the last few sites where they got the ISOs, right? Just looking for insight here as to how it could work.

Re:Mandrakes Business plan is NOT good

[egghat]

I don't think this is a real problem. They have MandrakeClub exclusive servers for commercial software (like StarOffice for silver members only) already.

Of course Mandrake has to pay the bandwidth for their exclusive servers. But bandwidth is not that expensive any more. At least it is not too expensive to build a "pay for download" service on it.

Bye egghat.

Re:Mandrakes Business plan is NOT good

[vsprintf]

I don't think this is a real problem. They have MandrakeClub exclusive servers for commercial software (like StarOffice for silver members only) already.

Okay, there's a separate server where silver level members can download Star Office. Is it available for downloading the ISOs? There's over a GB difference between the two.

Re:Give the name to the community? Or the code?

[vsprintf]

Well said. Damn well said, and a good point about 8.2 (too).

FSF

[jbolden]

Good refutation regarding the FSF, that changes things. I was using FSF quotes pretty liberally. Its easy to find very anti-KDE statements by the FSF (and as I mentioned today the we vs. them issues which continue in conversation). OTOH its not see easy with regard to Debian proper. I guess then that one can make a pretty good case for Gnome being the official desktop of the FSF but not for Debian and I'll accept that.

However if you are a Debian developer you should definitely push for that chapter of the manual to be changed. The words I quoted should go and that is an easy change. Less easy would be to rewrite the whole chapter (though if it is out of date that might not be such a big problem). Certainly you agree that Debain has a reputation for being anti-KDE just happening to use Gnome as the example in the guide....

I guess the other thing that might be helpful is an official statement from Debian regarding Gnome/KDE/Windowmaker... After the close association with FSF, donating money to Gnome just including KDE isn't enough. A public statement of neutrality would do wonders.

Also as far as the RMS comments are there any in particular you'd like links for? There are still relatively fresh in my mind so I shouldn't have trouble hunting them down.

You forgot...

[Anonymous Coward]

10. This summary
11. #10 ...

Re:If it truely offers nothing, why did you use it

[the_2nd_coming]

again....I will be giving mandrake money for what?

something I was already getting and CAN get without paying?

*FREE* Software

[pkphilip]

I think it is rather unfortunate that Linux or GPLed Software as a whole has been referred to as FREE software. Because to the common man - FREE means Free as in Free Beer, or Free as in cheap.

It might have been better to choose a word that more accurately describes free as in freedom. I know Liberated Software or even Freedom Software sounds corny, but I think it conveys the idea better. The GPL community should perhaps consider a branding exercise to get the concept across.

But then again, I have always wondered if the common man's perception of Free as in Beer hasn't been the largest contributor to making GPLed software so popular.

Re:If it truely offers nothing, why did you use it

[harrylackapants]

Guess what. You get it for free while it lasts. It is a simple equation: Mandrake has costs -> Users download "for free" instead of paying -> Mandrake goes bankrupt and closes doors -> You aren't getting jackshit for free anymore cause there is no one left to provide it. So you are welcome to enjoy maybe your last Mandrake linux. Member of Mandrake Club and proud of it!

Re:If it truely offers nothing, why did you use it

[Dave_bsr]

Let's say that every day on the way to work, there's a guy on your walk that plays blues and jazz. He has a hat out, some people drop in money, but you don't, because he's doing it for free already, and you paying isn't going to make him play any better. So by paying, you get nothing. But you continue to enjoy his music.

A year goes by. He gets a little skinnier, almost sickly looking. He puts out a sign, "Playing Jazz for food money..."

Another year. He doesn't look so good, but the music is just as sweet. Again...You don't pay, you're getting music for free so why bother, your paying will get you nothing.

A week goes by. Your daily walk to work is a little less musical. You miss the funky tunes that the man was playing. Your day is a little less bright.

You ask around, and find out that the man died alone, of hunger. No more music for you or anyone else. Why? because you couldn't spare a dime because you didn't get that you were giving so that you could be given to. The GPL doesn't make Mandrake release all their code or ISOs on the internet - only to those they distribute to. They don't have to, but they do it because they really like this freedom-oriented idea of Open Source. And just maybe some people could give a little back...just maybe.

Re:If it truely offers nothing, why did you use it

[the_2nd_coming]

well, that is a very nice analogy, but I would not care about that since he should have gotten his dumb ass down to the welfare office and to get some foodstamps.

Re:If it truely offers nothing, why did you use it

[vsprintf]

I'll bet you're the guy who uses all the printed return-address labels that come in the mail without ever donating to the cause. :)

Re:If it truely offers nothing, why did you use it

[vsprintf]

So you don't believe you might be willing to pay for value received, only things that you are forced to pay for. Interesting concept. That takes capitalism to a new, even-more-cynical level.

Re:If it truely offers nothing, why did you use it

[the_2nd_coming]

if they are giving it away....guess what...in capitolism, everyone would take the freeby and not "donate"

Re:If it truely offers nothing, why did you use it

[vsprintf]

So you never tip a waiter or waitress for services rendered? You don't have to - the service in a restaurant is usually free. Of course, it sucks to be you if you ever go back to the same restaurant.

And I'm not familiar with this "capitolism" that you know so much about. Is that something practiced only in Washington D.C.?

Re:If it truely offers nothing, why did you use it

[the_2nd_coming]

a service given by a person is not the same as a product given away by a company.

Re:If it truely offers nothing, why did you use it

[vsprintf]

a service given by a person is not the same as a product given away by a company.

And you have no compunction about shorting either one? :) The person works for the company - the company provides the service. No obvious point there. I think you're becoming deliberately obtuse. See ya.

Last Post!

[alpg]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on
the subject of towels.
Most importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For
some reason, if a non-hitchhiker discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel
with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a
toothbrush, washcloth, flask, gnat spray, space suit, etc., etc. Furthermore,
the non-hitchhiker will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or
a dozen other items that he may have "lost". After all, any man who can
hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, struggle against terrible odds,
win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be
reckoned with.
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

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