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Interview with Mandrake's Head Honchos
Shipud writes "Newsforge has an
interview with
MandrakeSoft CEO François Bancilhon, and Mandrakelinux co-founders Jacques Le Marois and Gaël Duval.
Among the issues discussed are a the business model for a GPL-based public company, Mandrakesoft's shares, the role of user subscription in funding, the bankruptcy, Xfree 4.4's new non-GPL license, and more."
...you can hear Francois too if you like :)
It's a good interview
It is an interesting interview, but it was published more than a month ago on may 12th.
/. back then).
(and I think it was also covered on
I thought it was funny:
A GPL-based business isn't the easiest model to be successful at; what makes it successful?
FB: A GPL-based business has lots of advantages, such as benefiting from a huge contributor team who help develop and improve our products, and also communicate.
JLM: If you look to the history of Linux distributions, you will see that the fastest growing are the ones which follow the Open Source rules. Most of the proprietary ones have completely failed. Caldera/SCO is a good example.
Chewie does not get a medal. Come on, George. Can a Wookie get a medal?
GD: Besides not having cut costs enough and early enough, I think that the core of the problem was certainly to consider venture cash as revenues, and thus growing the MandrakeSoft structure artificially.
Yes. Worth remembering, that one.
It seems that an OSS-based company has to struggle for survival at all times. They are doing a great job, though, and eventhough I personally don't use Mandrake, I respect all the work they've done with it. Hope they come up with a solid business model and start making real money.
Well, you know what that means, that means we can't allow this so called "Mandrake" software to be used in the U.S. Nor any other Linux distro that might have "Parisian leanings". We should follow the lead of the Congressional Lunchroom and ban the use of all francophile software in the U.S. of A.
From now on all linux users will be forced to switch to Microsoft's FreedomOS! which does most, ok some of the things that other stuff does but without all the pacifism.
Microsoft's FreedomOS, yours for on $799 and up.
Because the best way to guarantee freedom is to take away your choices.
Over two weeks ago and still haven't received it. So ask me to support them, but now two weekends (the time I have to play with linux) are gone for good while I could have ordred cheapbytes CDs and had them last week.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I think the value of the tale goes significantly beyond Linux. It's a business story with some template lessons for how to manage venture funding (and how not to).
Easy lessons. Hard to learn.
Kudos to Mandrakesoft for getting out of their bankruptcy situation. They certainly have the possibility of becoming a leader in Linux distributions, since Red Hat has dropped the ball to focus on enterprise linux. Does anyone remember the days when Mandrake was little more than a relabelled RedHat with some slight modifications? I would never have guessed they'd still be around.
GD: Adopt a business model that is in harmony with Open Source Software; do not try to do proprietary with Open Source Software. And if you don't believe in OSS, don't do OSS!
There, you've been told by a frenchman!
I thought the principle of Open Source was anyone can use it however the hell they please.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
With as much success as a company like Mandrake is having, can't companies like Microsoft see that the days of charging $400 for you OS are gone?
----
Ground Control to Major Tom...
If you hang out on the Cooker mailing list, you'll see that these guys favor the Debian way of doing things. You can see that with their new release model
Mandrake's luckily not dead, but it's always worth to read a story, how other people didn't manage or had trouble leading business - so we can learn from their faults. You can IMO learn more from them, than from reading success stories. For example, check this one!
This is the first time I've seen a link to Newsforge without the "Slashdot and Newsforge both part of OSDN" disclaimer.
Is this an unintentional omission?
Gamers Europe - Gaming News. Reviews.
Does that mean we need to rename Mandrake to "Freedom Linux"?
Among the issues discussed are... Xfree 4.4's new non-GPL license...
I guess this is a discussion?
FB: Yes. We disagree with the new license with regards to the GPL.
This story is a MONTH old! Stop posting crusty news!
I used to work for a company ran by FB...didnot do so well. Spent way more money then they had a chanc e of earning. Hes a good guy...but hes started up 4 internet companies, only 1 of which was sucessful AFAIK. He was fond of outsourcing to India before it was popular too
I guess the news that Mandrake is planning to join the massive shift to X.org with the next Cooker version is more recent than this interview. Guess there's not much of an issue there any more.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Personally, I think what France did was a brave a noble act that should be applauded.
I have been a Mandrake Club member for last 2 years. My membership expires in a few days and I am re-thinking my committment.
One thing I was dissappointed was the 'rpm voting of members'. When KDE 3.2 was released, there were no MDK packages any where in MDK website (or I couldn't find with thier search). Not even in club area. In the voting area, there were numerous requests for KDe3.2-mdk.rpms for MDK 9.2. But weeks went by without no response from MDK team. Finally I was so sick of waiting and installed through 'konstruct' (what a nice piece of software!).
So now that MDK is making some money and they are not as 'needy' as they were couple of years back, I'll probably skip renewing my membership.
Are there any other 'tangible' benefits for club members that I am not aware of?
Dont Insult the Americans , There is a reason the
Etats-Unians call themself Americans when they are in fact The US of A and not CANADA
( C ourageous A merican , N oble A merican , D efender of A merica )
There ashame of who they truely are so they try to make them self look bigger by saying where from that continent and not from that country.
This interview was actually very refreshing, a large part due to the way in which the questions were answered:
The bankruptcy issue loomed over MandrakeSoft for a long time. What led to the bankruptcy filing?
FB: At the time, we had to seek protection for a simple reason: There was no more cash in bank, and our revenues were still lower than our expenses. It was a matter of a few months, but it was needed.
Short answer: "we were broke". No doubletalk, no spin.
MandrakeSoft made posting asking the community to help them with their financial woes. Some have said that MandrakeSoft essentially begged for money. Any truth to that?
FB: Yes, the community of Mandrakelinux users helped us, but they get something in return: We're still here, we improved much, and we keep on providing products that fit their needs.
Translation: yeah, we begged, but we had to, and it paid off in the end. Now we're stronger for it.
What about the problems with NTFS in the Community Edition?
FB: This was something that never should have made it into the CE. This should have been caught in our developmental process. We have some definite improving to do.
I'm not pulling these quotes out to make fun of Mandrake or anything. The thing is, it's easy for companies and representatives to talk straight when they're speaking about their successes. What's hard is to acknowledge failures, and acknowledge them directly. The fact that the responders didn't try to beat around the bush, and actually answered the questions posed is extremely promising. I'm not a Mandrake user, but the fact that these guys seem to talk straight makes me trust them quite a bit more than other companies.
If I ever have to choose a distribution to recommend to someone who is not too familiar with Linux, I think I have a pretty good idea of who I'll go with now.
-Laxitive
You mean an Etats-unians , American include People from Canada to Argentina who live on the american continent. Dont insult them by bringing them down to the same level as to the majority of stupid people living in the United states.
Thats why there country is called United-States "OF America".
But to sum it up, go to any country and you will find some morons who hates another country due to its own stupidity alone , no real reason is needed.
As far as other influence , your fact base is wrong , but what people watch the most on TV is Reality tv, simpson and other Internationnal show, or something similar.
No the United States "OF America" whas called irelevant , stupid and above all else "UNAMERICAN".
... ) to join them in this "ILLEGAL" ( all war are illegal , but the one sanctionned by the UN are at least legally based and on moral ground) war.
EVERYONE and EVERY Country whas oposed to the war in Irak exept the cureent leader of the United States GWB. Who purposely Lied , cohearsed and fabricated false intel to bring a number of other country ( Britain , Spain , etc
But the Stupid Etats-Unians ( real name of the people of the United States ) always see the French as someone to pick on because the French And Canada , who whas a colony at the time Helped Create the United States. And for that they are ashame of.
For anyone considering Mandrake, download it or get it from cheapbytes. If you want to support them, then go ahead and order it, but if you actually want it in a timely manner, you'll have to do it yourself.
With the club membership you get access to the club mirrors for a whole year, don't have to wait for shipping, and don't cost them money on packaging, etc.
Mandrake knows all about bankruptcy,that's for sure.
lol
what did you think the ww2 version was a made up thing?. :)
its a sucky interview, and no one cares.
/. is chock full of them, and i dont know why i try and dilute the loserdom here with my god-ness, but its probably to just say fuck you and leave you pigs in the wake of my godliness.
you are a fucking loser for liking womandrake.
fuck you. go be a loser somewhere else.
That's so... 70s
But I guess you can expect that when talking about an OS based on UNIX, it'll always be nostalgic about the 70s, with its beards, sandals, lame tight tshirts and people that keep talking about boxen, bofh's, insensitive clods, soviet russia, without realizing they're just laughable fossils that nobody takes seriously anymore.