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MandrakeSoft Exits Bankruptcy
joestar writes "It's official now: the Court has approved Mandrakesoft's exit plan from the Chapter 11-like protection status. This seems to be the result of the recently announced profitability of the company, and means that Mandrakesoft is now fully back to normal activities. Great news for the Open Source community and Mandrake Linux users! All details are available in an online PR."
No matter what, don't do business with those filthy frogs!!
I know how they exited bankruptcy, they waved the white flag!! Typical of all the French.
Those spineless monkeys had it coming.
I don't think Mandrake is anywhere near as good as SUSE, but wouldn't like to see them go down.
thats awesome
First Poop
So it's news when a for-profit open sauce company makes a profit? How sad.
www.coattails.net/forum
that open source software truly is a profitable industry!
_____
Thank you.
They put together a better distro than you complainers do...
- - - If the sun is a star, why can't I see it at night?
To celebrate, everyone is going to be allowed to download ISO images of Mandrake Linux FREE during the next week! Find your mirrors fast- bandwidth is sure to go quick.
I'm waiting to hear that SCO has entered bankruptcy.
This is quite significant. Its difficult for some major companies to dig themselves out of bankruptcy (see KMart), but for an open source/linux company to do it... it really proves that open source can survive in a capitalist economy.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I just got raped by a goat! I thought it was supposed to be the other way around!
Mandrake was my first taste of Linux and I'm glad to have learned much from them and their community. I hope these guys stick around - while Slack/Debian/Gentoo/etc. are great, it's always important to have distros like this available to those interested in making the switch. I haven't paid them anything since 2002 - maybe I need to throw them some bucks in gratitude. Seems a far better option than the windows tax (pirates be exempt from this doubloon taxation, me knows. arrr!)
I also reply below your current threshold.
However, Mandrake is one of the absolute best newbie/intro distros of all time, IMHO, and it's damned good to see them come back from the dead.
No matter what US folks may think of French things, and no matter how disdainful one may be, when it comes to Linux at least, we're all family.
Cheers,
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
This is great. As a complete noob to Linux (GUI only person), Mandrake is/was the easiest to set up and use... and it works flawlessly. Keep up the good work Mandrake!
I'm not suprised they started making money. Have you seen their download page?
If you download the ISO's you MUST pay us. Swear on everything precious to you that you will pay if you download. You are a leach if you don't pay. Please pay us. We can offer these ISO's free because you have to pay us.
Click here to download (and don't forget to pay)
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Mandrakesoft just hired old accountants from Arthur Andersen.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Glad to see that these guys are still going to be around for some time. Now if they can just deal with that infernal copyright problem....
This sig no verb.
This is most excellent news. I think that with French administrations (esp education, research and military) moving towards Linux, Mandrake might be able to secure a few core customers on their home ground.
Most of all, it's encouraging and a releif for all the contributors - Mandrake has a great record of quality tools given back to the community.
Atheism is a non-prophet organisation
they have debt to pay off for the next 9 YEARS. That is almost as long as Linux has been around. Who knows what it will be like in 9 years since it is so far away in computer time. The french chapter 11 is a lot differnet than filing bankruptcy in America when you just don't have to pay your bills after you are done with it.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Why do I get the feeling that, somewhere in some corner of the wolrd, Darl has a very very evil grin on his face.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
http://saveie6.com/
well just wait for SCO to sue their pants off.
in other news, despite the rise in mandrake purchases the french economy is still tanking..
Great news from Paris, and to celebrate, I'll continue doing what I've been doing for quite a while:
Recommending Mandrake to all my friends (who usually download it) and to all the companies I consult for (who usually get powerpacks).
Ask 8 slackers a question, get 10 awnsers (a citation, but I can't remember from who)
By which I mean a bunch of dirty, whining pussies who think they are better than everyone else. I guess that describes Slashdot too for the most part. Anyway, kudos to the French! There first victory EVER!!!!
Word on the street is Mandrake now has its sights on the FreeBSD userbase - all three of them.
It is now official - Netcraft has confirmed: Mandrake is not dying Yet another crippling bombshell failed to hit the beleaguered Mandrake community when recently The Court confirmed that Mandrake accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all exit plans. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that Mandrake has gained more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Mandrake isn?t collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by not failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test. You don't need to be a Kreskin [amazingkreskin.com] to predict Mandrake's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Mandrake faces a promising future. In fact, there won't be any failure at all for Mandrake because Mandrake is not dying. Things are looking very good for Mandrake. As many of us are already aware, Mandrake continues to gain market share. Gold ink flows like a river of honey. Mandrake PPC is the most successful of them all, having regained 93% of its core developers. Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers. Suse leader Seibt states that there are a whole lot of users of Mandrake. How many users of Mandarke PPC are there? Let's see. The number of Mandrake versus Mandrake PPC posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about a whole lot/5 = a lot of Mandrake PPC users. Debian/Gentoo posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Mandrake posts. Therefore there are about a few users of Debian/Gentoo. A recent article put Mandrake PPC at about a chunk of the Mandrake market. Therefore there are [beyond here lie dragons / 4i] = [woah, Nelly] Mandrake PPC users. This is consistent with the number of Mandrake PPC Usenet posts. Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, Mandrake PPC didn?t go out of business and wasn?t taken over by Red Hat who sell another fledging OS. Now Red Hat is also prospering, its profits turned over to yet another charnel house. All major surveys show that Mandrake has steadily inclined in market share. Mandrake is very healthy and its long term survival prospects are very bright. If Mandrake is to prosper well it will be among large enterprises. Mandrake continues to grow. Nothing short of a miracle could stop it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Mandrake is alive. Fact: Mandrake is alive
Aye! Risk my business by relying on software from some failed group of deadbeats emerging from government protection similar to a Chapter 11.
I never liked my business anyway. Now its sure to fail!
Don't worry little Johnny and Janie, I may not be able to buy you braces or provide proper nuitrition and hygiene, but we'll be supporting some fanatical cult of misfit overweight hairy bedwetters on their noble crusade to make everything in the world community-owned. Workers of the world, unite!!
I don't want SCO to be protected by chapter eleven. I want to see them down, see their stock price below the 2 digits (I'm talking about cents here), see them being bought by somebody else who will take all their assets and sell them to the best bidder. Then I want to see Darl being sued by former SCO stockholders and thrown in Jail.
I don't want to see being protected by Chapter 11. I want to see it burn.
I hope to see more and more features and advantages for club members in the future, to encourage not only nice people who want to say "thank you", but also many other people to join ...
Couldn't resist the AC/DC reference, sorry.
Mandrakesoft seems to have plugged its way back up to profitability and that's extremely commendable. There have been a lot of people who wish for that "One Distro To Rule Them All" and a great deal of those people were going to crown RedHat king. I was one of them.
However, I've changed my tune in the last few days or so. Mandrake was one of those distros that focused on desktop linux very early on. When folks at RedHat were reluctant to jump on the other side of the server, Mandrake went in, both feet. At the very least, that's commendable.
The sad part of the story is that Mandrake isn't as big as RedHat nor does it have the backing of a Novell the way SuSe does. One can only hope that Mandrake's survival (and profitability) ensures end-users a great desktop distro from all the competition.
It is now official - Netcraft has confirmed: Mandrake is not dying
Yet another crippling bombshell failed to hit the beleaguered Mandrake community when recently The Court confirmed that Mandrake accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all exit plans. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey, which plainly states that Mandrake has gained more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Mandrake isn?t collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by not failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amazingkreskin.com] to predict Mandrake's future. The handwriting is on the wall: Mandrake faces a promising future. In fact, there won't be any failure at all for Mandrake because Mandrake is not dying. Things are looking very good for Mandrake. As many of us are already aware, Mandrake continues to gain market share. Gold ink flows like a river of honey. Mandrake PPC is the most successful of them all, having regained 93% of its core developers.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
SUSE leader Seibt states that there are a whole lot of users of Mandrake. How many users of Mandarke PPC are there? Let's see. The number of Mandrake versus Mandrake PPC posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about a whole lot/5 = a lot of Mandrake PPC users. Debian/Gentoo posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Mandrake posts. Therefore there are about a few users of Debian/Gentoo. A recent article put Mandrake PPC at about a chunk of the Mandrake market. Therefore there are [beyond here lie dragons / 4i] = [woah, Nelly] Mandrake PPC users.
This is consistent with the number of Mandrake PPC Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, Mandrake PPC didn?t go out of business and wasn?t taken over by Red Hat who sell another fledging OS. Now Red Hat is also prospering, its profits turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Mandrake has steadily inclined in market share. Mandrake is very healthy and its long-term survival prospects are very bright. If Mandrake is to prosper well it will be among large enterprises. Mandrake continues to grow. Nothing short of a miracle could stop it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Mandrake is alive.
Fact: Mandrake is alive
(note : I originally forgot the bloody plain old text option. crap.)
I haven't put any money into Mandrake though. I'm feeling guilty. I've used and abused it extensively. I'll buy a t-shirt and join the club for awhile.
but it's got an exit plan!
[go ahead, select 'flamebait' - you know you want to]
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
but today i found that my teacher's hole punch is made by a company called "rapesco", or "Rape SCO".
back to my pit..
--- I'll finish this after my cig. break
... allow me to be the first to say: STFU n00b!
(this is said in jest, of course =)
It looks like a vendor is starting to sell blade servers like IBM's with Mandrake Linux installed exclusivly. http://www.mandrakesoft.com Looks like mandrake is really starting to broaden their horizon too.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Is this some sort of cult? Didn't the members commit mass suicide when the bankrupcy statement was issued?
That is http://www.mandrakeworks.com/ looks like stuff for enterprise business done through a third party or somthing. Anyone else hear of MandrakeWorks?
Sig: I stole this sig.
I wonder, do we see a pattern here? Could this be why Mandrake wound up in "Chapter 11-like protection status?" Could it be an indication that it might again wind up in said status?
It appears that Mandrake is a great distro for newbies (I know, I started with it myself) who then do not stick around (yep, me again). The result is a relatively high cost of sales, and a relatively small continuing income stream. Can a distro survive if it is everybody's first distro, and nobody's second?
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
Americans, french, israeli, palestinian are all human people...
We all eat, drink, sleep
We all like children
We all love Women (men/dogs/cats/sheeps...)
Having the same tastes, we could all be friends (Bah...).
Well, there are these that bad bad things called "Hate" and "Politics" that make/made people do awfull things this century and the last one...
Personnaly, I'm french and I love americans (the american girls).
So, you see... The antagonism between france-us isn't so bad.... ^_^
Lakedemon
ps : go go go Mandrake !
U.S. Offshore Outsourcing of Computer Software and Services to Grow 26 percent annually.
Global Insight, Inc. announced
today the release of a new study, "The Impact of Offshore IT Software and
Services Outsourcing on the U.S. Economy and the IT Industry," commissioned by
The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), the leading trade
association for the IT industry. The Global Insight research team was led by
chief economist Dr. Nariman Behravesh, who is recognized as one of the world's
most accurate economic forecasters. Nobel Prize winning economist Dr.
Lawrence R. Klein, the founder of WEFA and a Global Insight associate, made
significant contributions to the Study.
The in-depth Study found that global sourcing of computer software and
services, while displacing some IT workers, actually benefits the U.S. economy
and increases the number of U.S. jobs. According to Study findings, the U.S.
economy has much to gain from global sourcing and an environment of free
trade, open markets and robust competition. Benefits include job creation,
higher real wages, higher real GDP growth, contained inflation and expanded
exports resulting in increased economic activity.
According to the Study, U.S. spending for offshore outsourcing of computer
software and services is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of almost
26%, increasing from approximately $10 billion in 2003 to $31 billion in 2008.
During the same period, total savings from the use of offshore resources will
grow from $6.7 billion to $20.9 billion. Using offshore resources lowers
costs and boosts productivity. As a result, inflation is lower, interest
rates are lower, and economic activity is higher. The increased economic
activity creates a wide range of new jobs, both in IT and other industries.
While there are some dislocations that affect both industries and regions, the
overall economy adjusts so that offshore IT outsourcing actually creates new
jobs. Over 90,000 net new jobs were created in the U.S. through 2003. The
number of net new jobs is projected to grow by 317,000 in 2008. The impact on
U.S. jobs does vary by industry sector, with the major beneficiaries for the
next five years being construction, transportation and utilities, education
and health services, wholesale trade, and financial services.
"The benefits of free trade clearly provide a boost to the U.S. economy,"
stated Dr. Behravesh. "Using offshore resources reduces costs, dampens
inflation, lowers interest rates, increases spending and creates additional
jobs. The challenge is to help displaced workers transition to other
productive activities," he concluded.
The Study estimates the total number of new jobs by state, by examining
each state's industry employment concentration and its forecasted industrial
growth. The results of the Study indicate states that are larger and more
economically diverse will gain the most new jobs through sheer size such as
California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and
Michigan. However, the states that will lead in terms of expected growth in
the number of new jobs will be Kansas, Nevada, Washington, Arizona, North
Carolina, Colorado, South Carolina, Iowa and Georgia, according to the Study.
"We have long held the position that worldwide sourcing creates more jobs
and higher real wages for American workers," said ITAA President Harris N.
Miller. "Now we have the data that prove it. This research replaces fear
with sound economic analysis, allowing for an informed approach to the global
marketplace."
Contact:
Bob Cohen, Sr.VP, Information Technology Assoc. of America,
+1.703.284.5301,( bcohen AT itaa.org)
In fact I'm having a bit of trouble with GTK+, it's yelling about lib/cpp failing sanity check. As far as I know it shouldn't even be using that instead of GCC, but whatever...
I've always loved Mandrake. Anyone can complain that Linux isn't user-friendly, but it takes very brilliant people to actually get up and DO something about it. And that's exactly what the Mandrake distro is: Linux as user-friendly as it gets. From the install to the first time you start X, anyone who has even used a computer will feel right at home.
Granted, to get the most out of any Linux distro, it helps to be a propeller-head, but it's great to know that, once installed, you could teach a granny how to use Mandrake for Web/email/office apps.
I'd just like to sum up my thoughts about why you should give Mandrake money in a quote I saw years ago: "Support those that enrich the world, not those that use the world to get rich."
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
...that would be *BSD.
Can a distro survive if it is everybody's first distro, and nobody's second?
Yes, absolutely. Because it will never be "nobody's second"-- people naturally resist change. If enough people are convinced to switch from Windows and wind up using Mandrake as their desktop-- and it's my opinion that Mandrake is well suited to that task-- then the lower-tier users (ie people who just plain want to use the computer for email, web, etc.) will stay with Mandrake. Hell, we've got people who're resisting the change from Windows 95. When something works, Random User will not risk it by upgrading unless there's a damn good reason. Random Geeks (like us) will always progress to the Next Big Distro, and in the case of Mandrake, it won't be that.
If you want to make a Linux Desktop a reality, make it simple to use and get into. Mandrake gets that pretty close to right. It was my first distro, and I trashed my hard drive twice before I finally got it right; Mandrake's installers made things pretty easy, but not infallible. And besides, how many Random Users are going to worry about installing it more than once?
(Wow, my first Linux-zealot post. How'd I do? ^_^)
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
It's magic!
And kick this guys ass!
erosion of user a3cording toethis
Not chapter 11, but chapter 7 (dissolution of the corporation.)
Finding God in a Dog
SOMEbody needs to support them if they're going to be really successful. And that's me ($120 Silver Club Member).
Also, in addition to paying for the club, you get the powerpack for download, and commercial/contrib packages on the mandrakeclub rpm section. (If you're a silver member).
Actually, what really drove me to go from $60 to $120 was the fact that I could download the Mandrake Move! CD with USB Key functionality... Man that thing rocks!
So I figure I'm getting enough out of it to justify the price of $120 for a year... Others may not feel the same way. Others may subscribe to online games... I choose to support Mandrake. Everyone has to make that individual choice, but Mandrake can help people realize that it's important to support Mandrake.
Don't you think they have a right to ask people to support them? Isn't that the whole spirit of the OSS community?
Ok,
Just as an FYI, most companies are profitable *under* Chapter 11. During 11, the company has all of it's debt (aside from secured) debt stayed and does not pay interest. So, it would be make all the top line $$$$ and not having to pay what drove you into barkruptcy in the first place!
I am rooting for these guys...but let's see what the profitability looks like over the next 2 quarters...
Second to use on a regular basis. And I feel like stick with it, even make it better maybe...
I'm too lazy to WORK with all that command line... It's good when I program/learn/toy around, but Mandrake made me typing commands into "execute" window (BTW, did it get autocopletion since 9.0?)
The thing I'm wishing for is also packages compiled with the oldest fitting library, not the bleeding edge ones. It's pain to upgrade every prog installed...
WYSIWIG, but what you see might not be what you need
now can they tell me why PCMCIA stopped working for no reason, but works well in windows?
With even more positive press, I hope more people decide Mandrake is worth a subscription or two. I used to be a SUSE guy, but Mandrake was my first taste of Linux, and I've at last returned to Mandrake, for a few very important reasons.
It's a great distro because you can get your hands as dirty as you could with Debian, and yet its glossy and friendly enough for a newbie. And that's good for me, because I don't ALWAYS want to pretend I'm running Gentoo. That, and Mandrake doesn't seem to lean so heavily on one desktop environment that they ignore the other. I can use GNOME or KDE (or install XFCE4) and not feel like I'm running in some secondary mode. SUSE was like this with GNOME and RedHat & Debian seems to treat KDE that way.
Mandrake has always been concentrating on desktop use, and has been doing it for years, so I think it's a lot more mature than Lindows (can't speak on Xandros). As soon as I can afford it, I'm purchasing 10.0 Final on DVD. God knows I've been using their distro for long enough.
...do not hire the previously unemployed Ohio power plant operator who's now the unemployed NY 911 system operator, they should be fine.
I ordered Mandrake from them in November and after a few weeks of them not shipping, I cancelled the order. They kept on saying they would refund the money, but never did. Then they just stopped replying to my emails. If this is how they are dealing with coming out of Chapter 11, that is a sad way to go.
Just wanted to point something out -- PR most commonly denotes "Public Relations" rather than "Press Release" as this submitter has implied.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Corporate Amerika is gonna make a delivery RIGHT UP YOUR ASS!!
Mandrake has always had a very nice distro, so I wish them well. Hopefully we will see the competition at least get back to two for the main desktop. RH could have made it three but they caved. Some people don't like Suse for some reason. I have used and like all three, each new version just gets better no matter who's name is on the box or the website.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
What, they just graduated college?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
...when you cheat your creditors out of what you owe them.
Mandrake isn't dying at all!
It's #! at distrowatch.com
The reason it was in Chapter-11 was dot-COM style expansion by a new management team that has since been relieved of its duties.
Their whole education push a few years back guzzled their profits -- and the debts carved away at their earnings
Funny, I went through Slackware -> Debian -> Mandrake. I think it had to do with how much work I wanted to get done _on_ the OS (setting it up, that is) vs _in_ it. Plus Slackware was the distribution of choice back when I first installed it. Downloaded all the packages over a not-really-56k modem too.
I still find this to be an atrocious distribution. Twice burned, thrice shy? Anyway, I personally think their biz plan should have been to sell their installation/partitioning software for all popular distros, say $10 a pop, and give up on the bastardization of RedHat's core work. The rest is a waste now that SUSE and Gentoo are more "complete" and Fedora continues to be the baseline distro.
Nice ad hominem attacks, Mr. Hermit. Damned Anomalous Cow Herds.
Just more proof that open source software truly is a profitable industry!
/. is still celebrating pocket change.
Ooh... they just made half a mil or so of profit!! Microsoft has individual customers who pay more than Mandrakesoft's entire revenue stream. Hell, SCO has customers that pay more than that.
Open source will not "truly be a profitable industry" while
-a
just wanted to see what you'd say:-)
...about my Windows partition and Learned to Love Linux.
;) I play/learn/expand my knowledge of Linux,etc. I also started with Slackware, then RH and now Mandrake. I will probably try Gentoo, next when I can afford a few seconds of my time.
In between school and my work (computers, on other platforms
Mandrake is a great distribution for Newbies, just ask my teenage daughter who has stopped asking me when I was going to restore the XP partition on the home system. She is amazed at how fast it runs (at least Mozilla). She has even asked me to install Windowmaker on it so she can try some 'goth' theme. Who knew!
"Just remember, it takes a village idiot." -- The Motley Fool.
Met with nothing but unflagging friendliness from everyone there -- the only exceptions being averted eyes when a group of American teenagers staying in the hotel with us behaved exceptionally boorishly, and then it was just a sort of wince. Teenagers. Loud American teenagers. I related. The people of Paris to be polite -- and helpful when you showed any signs at all of needing help.
I came back, though, and the guy a cube across went on for some time -- days now -- about various awful things I surely hated there. Could I drink the water in that third world country? Aren't they all a bunch of communists? And so on. The picture he has of France right now is a sort of funhouse mirror of his own political leanings. And it's not pretty. No surprises there.
Sad to say, our culture war heroes are on the wrong side of a completely stupid argument here, and they're just plain petulant about that. They were wrong at the time -- the UN Security Council arguments about whether Bush had valid grounds for his war will show you just how right Villepain was at the time -- and now they're PO'ed about it. Typical behavior toward any dissenting opinion that questions their questionable thinking.
They resent questions. It's as simple as that. And that feeling's still there for some of the people on this side of the Atlantic. Pathetically.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.