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Interview with Mandrake's Head Honchos

Posted by Hemos on from the talking-with-the-men dept.

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."

13 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. courtesy of LinuxWorld... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...you can hear Francois too if you like :)

    It's a good interview

  2. sc0wned! by astrokid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?
    1. Re:sc0wned! by TWX · · Score: 3, Insightful

      OpenLinux being an example of a badly assembled distribution had nothing to do with it...

      At least Slackware, even with its problems has a long history and has an avid base of followers. Debian has ease post-install administration and maintains a good place with their different versions. Gentoo has a lot of fans of the "bleeding edge". RedHat and SuSE both have good corporate and community support for those who want something pretty right out of the box.

      I didn't see Caldera OpenLinux having any of these, and there were forces resistant to fully accept the GPL as well. The only surprise is that they lasted long enough to turn into SCOX.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  3. Pitfall of VC by wombatmobile · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  4. They're french? by Irvu · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:They're french? by Tarantolato · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Perhaps someone can explain to me the slight or not-so-slight bias against the French in the US I keep hearing about

      1. Your language is different[1].
      2. Your popular press is as prejudiced against us as ours is against you[2].
      3. French foreign policy has a long history of getting in the way of American - I don't just mean the recent stuff either; it goes back at least as far as de Gaulle refusing to endorse the Normandy invasion.
      4. American tourists who come back feeling that the French have been rude to them[3].
      5. Slightly different economic models, and the feeling on each side that the other's is insane.
      6. Historical attraction of American women to foreign men.
      7. Blue-assed baboon syndrome: it's easy to hate the losing side in any important struggle.
      8. Inheritance from British anti-Americanism.
      9. Instinctive dislike of anything that reeks of "high culture".

      [1] Easier to dislike people you don't understand.
      [2] e.g. frequent use of "cowboy" as an insult. or adulation of Michael Moore coupled with the lack of similarly hyper-harsh criticism of Chirac.
      [3] Usually they only go to Paris. Which is a bit like going to New York and then forming judgements about Iowa, New Hampshire and Mississippi based on that.

      --
      Google confirms: Ruby is the world's most beloved programm
    2. Re:They're french? by yamla · · Score: 5, Funny
      France was opposed to the US invasion of Iraq, and since then, they have been declared "unamerican".


      Strangely enough, the only people in the world who think this is an insult are Americans.
      --

      Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
    3. Re:They're french? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      France was opposed to the US invasion of Iraq, and since then, they have been declared "unamerican".

      Which is okay, because, as far as I know, they're not American anway

      Yes, but that comes as a huge shock to some Americans.

      I'm joking, of course, but only in part. Americans are particularly good at assuming that people in other countries think just like they do. This probably has something to do with the relative lack of other countries nearby compared to much of the world. In the U.S. one can live hundreds of miles (600? 800?) from the nearest foreign nation. Very little of their media gets into the U.S. either (the BBC and Telemundo are about it). And of course, foreign language (and thus foreign cultural) education are not emphasized in schools here in the U.S. In other words, there's a lack of experience with that sort of thing.

  5. I ordred the box set.... by gfxguy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
  6. Bigger than that by wombatmobile · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  7. Re:I can't help but wonder by bool+morpheus() · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'd say that for the amount of financial trouble they were in, the "whine and beg" was kept pretty quiet. It wasn't like something came up every 30 minutes saying, "Give us money!".

    --

    ----
    Ground Control to Major Tom...
  8. Re:I can't help but wonder by calethix · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Normally I find the majority of your posts to be pretty entertaining but I don't think I would put Mandrake in the 'begging' category.
    So they have a bunch of stuff on the download page asking you to donate, big deal. It's not like every so often, you run a program and it reminds you to donate in the same fashion as some shareware.

    Personally, I would much sooner make a donation to Mandrake based on how they treat their customers than buy Microsoft software. I'm lucky enough to get the professional versions of Windows and Office through my school if I wish. On the rare ocassion that I was working on a relative's PC with the home edition of something, I found product activation to be quite annoying.

    Besides, getting out of bankruptcty wasn't just about getting more donations. They had to take a look at their business and cut out what was wasteful to survive. That by itself should be a lesson to other companies which think the only way out of a problem is to gouge their customers a little more instead of looking for internal problems.

  9. more than just opposed by asv108 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The main French government action that caused the Bush administration and others on the far right to promote anti-french behavior was the French government's opposition to a second UN resolution, authorizing the use of force in Iraq. There were plenty of other countries that were against the resolution, but France was the only member of the UN security counsel that said it would veto any attempt at a second resolution outright.

    Personally, I think what France did was a brave a noble act that should be applauded.