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MandrakeSoft Publishes Support Policy
joestar writes "MandrakeSoft has posted a statement about its product support policy on its website: 'At a time when some of the established Linux companies are turning away from their Open Source roots and progressively abandoning full-time commitment to Open Source Software, many people have asked MandrakeSoft to clarify its position regarding product-lifetimes and its Open Source development model.' As a result, this interesting reading provides 8 Golden Rules that lead Mandrake Linux development and product support lifetime. This certainly makes MandrakeSoft one of the most 'Open Source' Linux companies, and all Linux companies should maybe think about releasing such a statement."
4) Free as in 'Libre' and Free as in 'Beer'!
A download version of Mandrake Linux, consisting entirely of Open Source software, will continue to be released, provided without cost, and supported.
This is great news in my opinion. Any company that won't offer a "preview" of their product (like ISO's of a downloadable version in this case) will never earn my bucks. This is imperative if they hope to get me to join the club, buy the boxed set, etc. Besides, what I really want is a DVD so I don't have to swap CD's, so if I like the ISO's enough, there is a fair chance I will buy their power pack and get the DVD.
Granted that it isn't quite the Debian social contract [English version], it's still pretty good. I think that it is especially interesting that Mandrake, which is known, and sometimes derided, for being easy to install and friendly to newbies, is doing this.
Can I get OEM Suport for Mandrake products through Support/Service providers like Sun, HP, Dell etc?
Most large corporation like to have just one support contract from one major service provider (sun, dell, or HP etc). They don't want to manage several contract for the data center equipment.
One thing I like about RedHat is: OEM support for RedHat products is available from Sun and HP.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
You're right, it isn't a statement that can be legitimately compared to Debian's statements. That would be because Debian is not a company.
I _love_ Debian. This laptop I'm writing this on is running Debian (Thinkpad 570, -unstable, to be precise.) One of the big wins with Debian is precisely that it can make such a social contract. Companies cannot, and stay viable.
That Mandrake is willing to go this far is a wonderful point for them, and we should applaud them.
I'm vaguely reminded of a time in college when I was lambasted for only offering a couple of hours a week at a charity. When I pointed out that dedicating more time would likely result in me flunking out, thus losing my loans, thus moving somewhere else and not being able to give a couple of hours a week to the project, I was ridiculed for lack of dedication.
I forget what 8 was for.
... if you include Fedora Core as a Red Hat product, with the possible exception of #3 (no change in product lifetime).
#1 - Software updates for all supported products. Note that anything older than Mandrake 9.0 is already not supported, and therefore they have no committment to provide updates.
#2 - Product lifetimes not hidden. The same is true for Red Hat, or at least it has been for the past year. The EOL of the 7.x series was announced way back in March or April, and was very easy to find.
#3 - Product lifetimes will not change. This one they may have on Red Hat. I don't remember the old lifetime for RH 7.3 or 8, but I did expect it to be longer.
#4 - Free as in libre and as in beer. True if you include Fedora Core - and Red Hat reps have gone on record saying that RHEL would have no future without the free distro.
#5 - GPL code. Same is true for Red Hat's installer, config and other tools. They're picky about trademarked names and logos, but all the code is open source.
#6 - Open source development. Mandrake Cooker was there first, but Fedora has picked up the same model.
#7 - Free Support. Note that they specifically mention "community-supported MandrakeExpert.com" - so Mandrake itself isn't pledging to provide anything more than the forum for other people to provide support.
#8 - Mandrake listens to you. OK, this one they may have too. On the Fedora Core lists RH seems to be responding to people, but there's always the "faceless corporation" side of things. This point could easily start a flamewar, so I'll keep out of it.
Ask any MBA student on day one of classes: what is it that any company must do to survive? Of course, the answer is "profit." If you're asking, 'What about charities and non-profits?," then realize that even they rely on someone's profits. So the question for Mandrake, which has struggled mightily with finances in recent times, is whether a 5-year product life means a great deal when the company's welfare over the next 24 months is itself an issue. I like Mandrake and hope they will do well; I wonder, however, whether they have the teeth and bones, like RedHat, to profit sufficiently to improve and maintain their product whilst paying their developers, managers, accountants, et.al., a decent day's wages.
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
Even for a publically owned company.
It's the goal pursued within ethical constraints.
The shareholders are the employers. No employer can ethically oblige you to be unethical, just as a soldier is not obligated to obey an unlawful order. Nor can a coach ethically require a team member to cheat in sports. Profit does not trump other ethical requirements.
Sure, the officer of a public company has an obligation to do right by the shareholders, but only to the extent that other obligations aren't shredded.
Hmmm, I happen to like Mandrake, and use it on 5 systems. What their government does is their governments concern (re: the French.) And, as a funny historical side note to your comment ...they will look back to the moment they threw their support behind a tin pot dictator and basically shitted on the idea of people living free from oppression.
You do realize that, a few decades ago, the United States of America actually "...threw their support behind..." Iraq (and it's "tin pot dictator") with weapons, training, and intelligence during the Iran/Iraq war?
With your pathetic RAH-RAH pseudo-patriotic post (AC, of course), you give the impression that we should Boycott anything and everything Italian, after all, they supported Hitler. Boycott anything and everything Japanese, after all, they bombed Pearl Harbor. Boycott anything and everything English, after all, they tried burning the White House. Boycott anything and everything insert any country in the world here because ALL government at one point or another does monumentally stupid shit.
So you just go ahead and fuck off with your ridiculous boycotts, and eat your "freedom" fries, and I will happpily continue using my "freedom" distro.
For those who describe their systems as 'boxen', do you order multiple 'boxen' of corn flakes also?
I agree, Mandrake is a nice distro. I've been using it for several years and just installed 9.2. I've been using UNIX since 1982, GNU/Linux since 1995 and remember installing a device driver in 4.2BSD by manually editing the device switching tables and recompiling the kernel. So I'm not exactly a newbie. But I like a distro that installs easily and recognizes my hardware. I have plenty of other things to do than hassle with my installation, including installing all of the non-standard software that I use. I may do a pure source installation on one of my machines soon, for optimization and to get better acquainted with the current system, but except for that situation, I see no reason to shift from Mandrake. People who deride a distribution just because it is easy should get a life; its a silly form of machismo.
It just amazes me to keep seeing this anti-money attitude in the oss community. Open source isn't about giving away software. It's about freedom. This confusion is one of the main reasons I think that it should not be referred to as "free software" -- it fosters an uninformed and misdirected belief that if someone doesn't give their work away then it's wrong. It's not people. Get over it. MandrakeSoft is a strong supporter of open source and I, for one, hope they do survive and become profitable.
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"