Mandrake to Acquire Conectiva

An anonymous reader writes "With a press release Mandrakesoft has announced the acquisition of Conectiva. 'Mandrakesoft, the number one European Linux company, today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Conectiva, the number one Linux company in Brazil and Latin America. This acquisition is expected to increase significantly Mandrakesoft's size and R&D capabilities.'"

Comments

Big day for Mandrakesoft

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard they acquired Conectiva earlier.

Come on editors, READ YOUR OWN DAMN SITE.

Re:Big day for Mandrakesoft

[agm]

I reckon. I sent an email saying it was a dupe while it was in "the mysterious future". Not much point if they don't even read those emails.

Re:Big day for Mandrakesoft

[DarkMantle]

Actually, there's a big difference between the two. the title of the previous article says "Mandrakesoft Acquires Conectiva" as in it already happened. That post was sent to us from the future because this article says that "Mandrakesoft To Aquire Conectiva" as in it hasn't happened.

With time travelling news reporters named Trillian from Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, all of our news will be out BEFORE it happens. CNN's "News As It Happens" is a thing of the past....

Or is that present.

Stupid paradox..... :s

Re:Big day for Mandrakesoft

[LiquidCoooled]

Subscribers should have a button in the mysterious future.

Pressing it should sound an alarm and turn a lava lamp different colors.

Taco and Cowboy can get into their superhero costumes and slide down a pole to go and fight the evil menace.

Re:Big day for Mandrakesoft

[bsharitt]

I sent one too. Actually I've sent them e-mail for a couple of other dupes, and they still posted the story, again.

Re:Big day for Mandrakesoft

[scm]

I had to reload the page a couple of times. I thought something had gone wrong the first time because it was showing the same story on the top that it was when I looked at /. this morning...

What does it say about /. when the editors don't think their site is worth reading?

Re:Big day for Mandrakesoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, so they posted the dupe first? Slashdot is getting good!

Re:Big day for Mandrakesoft

[jspoon]

It's a stock swap. No money is involved. So apparently there's nothing stopping them from swapping back and forth acquiring each other several times a day.

Re:Big day for Mandrakesoft

[datadriven]

On the plus side, at least the topic icon is not a dupe.

Re:Big day for Mandrakesoft

[nahdude812]

While I'm inclined to agree: they could at least require their editors to read every front page article, I do have to say, the editors here won't be reading the front page for their own oedification. Think about it, they read many more submissions each day than we do, they read (presumably) all the distinct stories submitted by users, so chances are they've seen a dozen or more submissions in the submissions log on each story that does end up on the front page. Maybe with all that information it becomes tough to distinguish between what your coworker posted, and what some jack hole posted.

They should at least have some sort of QC process in place though, with all the dupes that have been coming up lately. Each article must be approved by another editor, and each editor is required to read up on the home page before doing approvals. Or maybe just an IRC channel, "Hey, did anyone post the Mandrakesoft/Connectiva article yet?" "Yeah, CowboyNeal did" "Ok, thanks"

Re:Big day for Mandrakesoft

[pcmanjon]

"What does it say about /. when the editors don't think their site is worth reading?"

What's it say about the readers when they visit a site that they know the owners don't even care about.

Says wonders on "we the people" :)

Re:Big day for Mandrakesoft

[brokenin2]

They do have the button, I don't know what it does on their end, but I suppose it might do all that, but if it does, they do an excellent of ignoring it.

I've mailed the on-call editor a number of times lately with plenty of time left for the stories to be pulled before they go live, and it never happens. I never recieve any reply to the messages either.

Normally, I've been getting the note to the on-call editor somewhere between 5-10 minutes before the article goes live.... I don't think their on-call person really does anything.. Ever.. I hate to say, though, that I missed this one..That could have been about #4 in 1.5 weeks..

It's getting really sad.. maybe they should just give subscribers the ability to delay a post until it, and the note the subscriber left as to why, can be reviewed by someone with authority over there.

geez

[Quasar1999]

Come on... the story is right on the front page still... same title... Are you people completely blind?

Re:geez

[bartok]

No but they're completely stupid.

Re:geez

[Anonymous Coward]

So, we need to come up with some new scheme to decide which stories make the front page.

In my view the moderation and meta moderation system works reasonably well as is, obviously it ain't perfect and it shows bias but its the cumulative bias of the people that read this thing.

Maybe moderation should be cast in to concrete and put on autopilot and there shouldn't be any people with god status anymore.

So couldn't you use moderation to let a number of randomly sampled readers mod up and thus pick the stories worthy of making the front page. You still need a mechanism for filtering dupes. Presumably the people with front page moderator points would need a mechanism to mark dupes of already submitted stories and to group submissions that are dupes that haven't made the front page yet and mod up the best submission on the group. I imagine moderators would be jazzed at the chance to pick front page stories so I'm sure people would be willing to do the work.

And to be honest letting a random group of Slashdot readers with reasonable karma manage the front page couldn't be anyworse than Rob and Co. have been lately. I mean most slashdot readers actually read Slashdot so they can spot dupes which is obviously more than Rob and Co. do. I get the impression that to them Slashdot is just something they make a living and they don't actually like enough to even want to read it.

Having a few omnipotent people choosing the front page stories pretty obviously doesn't work. They are showing huge biases and its become obvious that they don't give a rat's ass about Slashdot because they pretty obviously aren't reading their own site.

Needless to say if Rob and Co. don't care enough to fix the evident and apparently systemic brokeness of late maybe its time for some enterprising people to set up an alternate Slashdot someplace and put it under new management. Not sure it wouldn't be a bad thing to get the goodness of the Slashdot community going someplace without the increasing corprate corruption of VA or whoever it is that owns all this stuff these days. Whenever I think of VA I think of company that had mega block buster IPO and then immediately abandoned the business plan that they told to everyone who bought their stock. Bad, very bad on the integrity front.

Re:geez

[Fred_A]

Oh no... it's Groundhog day !

I'm having déjà vu all over again !

Paid for it twice?

[TERdON]

Conectiva's former owners must have done good business. As we can read at here MandrakeSoft paid for it once yesterday too...

Re:Paid for it twice?

[Lord Haha]

I have the brooklyn bridge up for a nice price too...

Re:Paid for it twice?

[taj]

deja deja vu

Mandrake Appealing to Community, Again
Linux Mandrake | Posted by michael on Friday December 20, @05:11PM
from the maxing-out-the-credit-cards dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It seems that MandrakeSoft's short-term financial problem is worse than was thought. A new page on the Mandrake web site says: 'Everyone who is concerned with the company's future is encouraged to read and distribute the following message. In order to reach the next release, MandrakeSoft currently needs to raise cash, and quickly complete the Increase of Capital.' Darn, and I thought they were almost over this hump. Looks like a good time to help recruit Mandrake supporters for the Club."

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/2 0/ 1815214&tid=147

not much earlier

[imess]

it's on the same day! on the same front page!

Re:not much earlier

[Justin205]

But it has a different topic icon. It must be different.

How, you say? Don't look at me... Ask the editors!

Again?

[bsharitt]

How many times can they acquire the same company in one day.

dupe

[MC68000]

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/24/ 1546209&tid=163&tid=147

Gees, not even left the front page yet!

First Duplicate?

[JackL]

Its a duplicate. Nothing to see here. Move along.

This comment may be a dupe...

[datastalker]

...but that would fit with the site.

It's still on the front page!

http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/05/02/24/1546209 .s html?tid=163&tid=147

Re:This comment may be a dupe...

[frission]

that's funny
when I read
"Well, I say everytime we find a dupe..."
I thought it was going to be followed by..."an angel gets his wings."

deja vu

[Anonymous Coward]

It's so good, they bought it twice!

Re:deja vu

[10101001 10101001]

I think it goes "With a name so nice, they bought it twice."

Harrrrrrrrrr

[hamfactorial]

^---------^ Holy overreactions Batman!

In other news...

[mpupu]

In other news, Mandrake acquired Connectiva.

This is good.

[beejay54]

Personally I think Mandrake is one of the best distro's for the beginner and anything that helps them build on that is fine by me. Although personally I wish they would take a more serious look at unifying the look and feel like RedHat or SUSE, but I'm sure that will come with time. I proclaim it conectivadrake! Muha!

How?

[Stevyn]

How do they have the money to do this? Weren't they almost bankrupt about a year ago?

(this is a joke)

Re:How?

[Stevyn]

actually the joke was finding the first comment modded up to 5 and posting it. I guess it wasn't that obvious, and therefore not too funny.

Can't win 'em all

THIS ISN'T A DUPE!

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Come on guys, have some sympathy.

I mean, once Mandrake aquired Connectiva, they had to reboot to load the new kernel. It's only natural that you'd see the message twice.

Shessh ...

Increase their size?

[JPriest]

I though MDK just recently became financially stable, now they want to increase their company size? What will they really gain by becomming a much larger company releasing mostly the same exact product?

This is a dupe

[jaymzter]

Before we go off and slam the editors for a truly horrible week, maybe we should reflect on ourselves. I mean, who is really so blind that the same stories keep getting submitted?? People, check the damn site before rushing to submit a story! You're not planting a flag and won't go into the history books just for getting a story submission on /.

Re:This is a dupe

[LiquidCoooled]

If a press release is posted somewhere, its entirely possible for multiple people to read the same story at a similar time. Consider also the syndication via AP or other sites - look at how Google handles dupes, most single news items have 1000s of sites all saying the same thing.

Each of the readers of these thousands of sites can decide to submit their take on the story, and so for every single bit of syndicated news travelling the web, there could for certain stories be thousands of submissions (i hazard its usually much less though).

The editors themselves have to filter through all these and find out what interests THEM, what stands out from the rest. They have to read and judge all these, and quite quickly decide which to post. The single story you see could be from a flood of 100 similar "dupes" themselves, so the editor thinks its new and picks the best one at that moment.
</ponder>

I can quite easily see WHY they happen, perhaps we could help the editors by making a submission scanner and search function. An interface to google news (as somebody pointed out recently, they manage to index very quickly so would catch most) would be simplest I think. Even just using link domains as an initial "this might already have been posted very recently" test would help them out.

Any perl hacks out there got any ideas?

Re:This is a dupe

[dedazo]

Really now, they do this for a living. They won't fix anything, unless you give them "patches", they won't do anything else except keep the boxes running or whatever it is they do. This is the one thing they should at the very least try to do well.

If they take themselves seriously enough to charge people for the extras, run ads and insert their pontificating rants into each and every submission, at least maybe they could take their jobs seriously as well.

Re:This is a dupe

[secondsun]

The easiest way would be to just check links in posted stories for the past 3 weeks. If the URL's match there is almost no way it can not be a dupe. If you want to get more complex you can create a hash based on verbs and proper nouns. (For example acquire Mandrake and Connectiva) Based on how your algorithim works you can find other near misses. It isn't THAT hard to write (requires a little though, head to a library they have plenty of papers on the subject with sample implementations).

Look at the bright side

[bstadil]

At least it is not the same guy that submitted the story. I am holding out for Cowboyneal submitting same story twice on same day.

I understand Ladbrook is giving 9:1 currently

Re:Look at the bright side

[grammar fascist]

That would make an excellent April Fool's joke.

Dupe

[CastrTroy]

Can't the editors at least look at the front page to see if the story is a dupe? Sometimes I think they do it just to rattle our bones.

dupe, dupe, dupe ... dupe of Earl

[MMHere]

Watch CowboyNeal screw it up again!!!

previously reported here

Echo-echo-cho-o-o-o

[Grave_Rose]

Does anyone know where I can get some Post-It notes? I have this wicked idea about creating a Super Mario mural...

The "N" Confused them..

[byronmiller]

Guess the editors thought that meant "N"ew

Probably has been submitted before

[hsoft]

the other story showed up.

Re:Connectiva?

[HokieGeek]

bravo on the racist joke. real classy

mirror...

[same_old_story]

right here

Woah

[Mozk]

Déjà Vu. It's like the Matrix. Not because Neo had a Déjà Vu in it, but because it sucks.

DUPE DAY

[zoloto]

Well, I say everytime we find a dupe - especially one within the same day and on the front page - we just dupe the comments and karma whore till our faces are numb and eyes are pained.

Just an example:

How? (Score:5, Interesting)
by sfraggle (212671) on Thursday February 24, @11:27AM (#11767199)
(http://fraggle.alkali.org/)

How do they have the money to do this? Werent they almost bankrupt about a year ago?

[ Reply to This ]

Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
by crow (16139) on Thursday February 24, @11:32AM (#11767258)
(http://www.votecrow.com/ | Last Journal: Monday July 01, @01:30PM)

It's a stock swap. No money is involved. This is typical of how mergers often work. The companies agree to merge, and they agree what the company being acquired is worth, do some math, and convert the shares of the acquired company into shares of the new company. The math is much like doing a stock split, though the ratio usually involves a number of decimal points. (The accounting for the investors is also much like a stock split.)

The real question in this case is why is Mandrakesoft's stock worth enough for Conectiva investors to consider this to be a worthwhile deal (as opposed to grabbing on to a sinking ship). I haven't looked at the business side of either company, so I can't comment there.

.
.
Simple isn't it? I think we should all do this and maybe the guys running /. will start to notice... wait.. they dont' even read the front page, how are they going to notice the comments? D'OH!

*tears up plans and flushes them down the toilet*

NEXT!

Dupped comments

[HokieGeek]

you think a dupped story is bad? some idiots have dupped this article's first post like 50 times!! what is this world coming to?!

Hey!

[lsmeg]

Don't knock Slashdot for catering to people with alzheimer's. They're people too!

Can You Hear Me Now?

[klausner]

It's like Deja Vu all over again!

Re:Connectiva?

[Richard Dick Head]

Hey, I was born in Mexico, so I'm allowed to say these things! I think....

It's a shame

[ErichTheWebGuy]

... that we can't moderate the article -1 redundant.

In fact, this brings up a good point. Maybe such an article-moderation system would give the editors feedback as to which articles we want to see.

Re:It's a shame

[mungojelly]

The only disadvantage I see to this plan is that "mod article down!!" would cease to be a Funny Joke..

<3

Re:It's a shame

[mungojelly]

It's not a funny joke; it's a Funny Joke.

<3

Cool!

[by hemos]

Being a Mandrake user for several years, I am happy to see that they overcame their financial difficulties and are in a position to expand.

Apart from the botched 9.2 upgrade debacle, they have a distro that I can use for a Linux home network without spending too much time on it. I have four machines running Linux at home, and don't want to spend a lot of time on each configuring it.

They are also familiar and friendly enough for my kids to use it as their only desktop. They get to play their MP3, use FireFox or Konqueror, use Open Office for homework, ...etc.

Moreover, it is also perfectly good as a server for LAMP, Samba, ...etc.

Go Mandrake!

Re:yep

[hdparm]

Acquisition went so well that they are now thinking about acquiring Conectiva, as well.

Re:#1 European Linux company?

[Lxy]

SuSE still owned the linux desktop in Europe last I checked. That being said, they're no longer a European distro as they're now owned by Novell, headquartered in Provo, Utah. Therefore SuSE is no longer a European company, despite the fact that they may still have the market share.

Re:yep

[qewl]

Your marklars are wise and true.

After marklar chose to obtain marklar, marklar paid a lot more marklar for the marklar than marklar wish marklar had. Other marklar dislike French marklar and want powerful and profitable marklar away from those marklar. But no matter marklar, the best marklar will always be free marklar. Open marklar forever!

CowboyNeal Zonked?

[Filmwatcher888]

Folks, at least scan the front page. You had me hitting my refresh button in 14 different combos before I realized that it was YADA YADA YADA (Yet Another Dupe, Again... Yet Another Dupe, Again... Yet Another Dupe, Again...)

same friggin day

[TLouden]

it's one thing when the posts are on different days, but this is just too sad

question?

[dsb]

Is it redundant if I say that this story is a dupe?

In other news

[RelliK]

Slashdot to stop posting dupes. ok, maybe not.

Conectiva to be Acquired by Mandrake

[Darth McBride]

Be fair and balanced. Report both sides of the story!

Plagerism!!!

[crow]

That was My post 11767258 in the original story.

Re:Plagerism!!!

[kf6auf]

Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
by crow (16139) on Thursday February 24, @11:32AM (#11767258)
(http://www.votecrow.com/ | Last Journal: Monday July 01, @01:30PM)

It's a stock swap. No money is involved. This is typical of how mergers often work. The companies agree to merge, and they agree what the company being acquired is worth, do some math, and convert the shares of the acquired company into shares of the new company. The math is much like doing a stock split, though the ratio usually involves a number of decimal points. (The accounting for the investors is also much like a stock split.)

The real question in this case is why is Mandrakesoft's stock worth enough for Conectiva investors to consider this to be a worthwhile deal (as opposed to grabbing on to a sinking ship). I haven't looked at the business side of either company, so I can't comment there.

Actually, he gave you credit for it, though he didn't properly cite it according to MLA specification. I think that makes it copyright infringement for copying it without permission instead of plagarism. Don't worry; it's better for you this way: if you assume that by posting it to slashdot he reproduced it several hundred thousand times without permission, you can make a good $150,000 times 100,000 equals $150 billion. =)

Re:Plagerism!!!

[kf6auf]

Actually, he gave you credit for it, though he didn't properly cite it according to MLA specification. I think that makes it copyright infringement for copying it without permission instead of plagarism. Don't worry; it's better for you this way: if you assume that by posting it to slashdot he reproduced it several hundred thousand times without permission, you can make a good $150,000 times 100,000 equals $150 billion. =)

Ah crap. Now you can sue me too.

A deja vu ...

[gbitten]

is usually a glitch in the Matrix

News Flash

[mordors9]

Mandrakesoft has acquired Conectiva, again.

Re:IF YOU'RE REALLY PISSED ABOUT THE DUPES...

[thryllkill]

Actually I only find dupes funny. It is nothing to really get pissed off about. I mean come on, did this dupe really inconvenience you? If it did I think the problem is more with you and less with them.

Yes, the ineptitude of others can be a hassle, but in this case you're really not put out. So maybe lay off the caffeine and come up with a good dupe joke or something. Plots to spam the editors with dupes is just plain childish and stupid.

In other news...

[fieldcomm]

Slashdot gets stuck in feedback loop.

i was worried

[mschoolbus]

After I read the first story, I thought, wow... Was I dreaming?

When the 2nd story came out I knew, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was awake during work!

Next time...

[crimson_alligator]

Post the summary in French at least.

Brought to you by...

[Mercury2k]

This article has been brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.

CowboyNeal... why even have the email link?

[powerlinekid]

For the first time ever I emailed that this was a dupe to the editors before it was put on the front page.

I even linked to the story and mentioned it was on the frontpage.

So now we know they not only don't read their site, but they don't read email about their site. Which leads to the question of... what do you actually do? You don't edit. You submit anything Roland whatever posts. You post shit that has already been posted. You let Michael post amaingly misleading items.

Bah I'm done. Well heres one less subscriber...

Re:CowboyNeal... why even have the email link?

[stinkbomb]

Bah I'm done.

Liar! You'll be back in 30 minutes, just like the rest of us.

Re:CowboyNeal... why even have the email link?

[powerlinekid]

Yeah but I'm not going to be paying for it.

Thats the difference.

Re:CowboyNeal... why even have the email link?

[vondo]

I think I've e-mailed the editor about a "future" story three times. Twice were about corrections to the story. Those were accepted. Once was about a duplicate. I assume many people must e-mail about duplicates. I can only assume they post duplicates on purpose or really, really don't care.

Re:CowboyNeal... why even have the email link?

[ggvaidya]

There is something unbelievably perverse about slashdotting the slashdot editors. :)

Meh. I can't be bothered. It's always fun to watch the commentary when there is a dupe. And it's Slashdot, y'know ... journalism ain't exactly a priority. That said, if you paid for this, and your money is being wasted, I guess you ought to complain - and more power to you.

Re:CowboyNeal... why even have the email link?

[pcmanjon]

"
So now we know they not only don't read their site, but they don't read email about their site. "

Yeah, I'm currently in the process of being sued for releasing a trade secret accidently on a slashdot post by someone I supposibly got fired.

The individual who got fired told me if I don't get the post off ./ he would sue be, now look... I'm going to end up in court.

I must have E-Mailed every address tied to slashdot, the whois addresses, cowboyneals and all the editors personal E-Mails. I didn't even get one reply. I begged them, they never responded.

Life fucking sucks...

Okay so does that mean the Drakes will..

[RobertLTux]

Pick up a few good mirrors on this side of the pond? Im wondering if it will take until Christmas for me to get my hands on a 10.2 OE DVD. (yes i do know that it will be a month or so for CE) First On Topic Post!

From a leaked OSTG corporate chatlog...

[KrackHouse]

Zonk> Damn slashdot junkies are calling us on our sloppiness. What'da we do?
CmdrTaco> To hell with 'em. We're getting paid peanuts, isn't redundancy the mother of invention?
Zonk> I read somewhere that redundancy is the mother of invention.
CmdrTaco> What?
Zonk> I know you are... But what am I?
CmdrTaco> To hell with 'em. We're getting paid peanuts, isn't redundancy the mother of invention?
Zonk> Who's on first?
CmdrTaco>Yes
Zonk>What?

Time is going backwards

[D4rk Fx]

Oh no, first they aquired it, then they have plans to aquire it... time must've started going backwards... Everyone, grab something and hold on!

Ugh

[TechnologyX]

Everytime that Slashdot dupes a story and I load up the homepage, I get this weird feeling, much worse than deja vu :P Like I just got sucked back a few days.. or in this case, a few hours

On CowboyNeal / Timothy days, I feel like that all damn day.. talk about net-lag

Perhapss it's just a conincidence,

[doomtiki]

but didn't this happen recently on a story about a star exploding? Maybe, Mandrakesoft (star logo) is coming completely back from bankruptcy, and therefore this had to be reported twice.

Correct me if I'm wrong....

[simetra]

but... didn't Slashdot run this story already?

It's really hard to be sure, but I could almost swear...

So many dupes lately...

[Max Threshold]

Is somebody resubmitting every story that comes up on the front page? A simple article URL search would eliminate 99% of these dupes.

And they want me to subscribe to this shit? Hah!

Re:Dupe!

[tomhudson]

That's right folks - tomorrow, they'll post:

Mandrakesoft rumoured to be thinking of taking over Connectiva

Connectiva stock up on rumours of takeover by Mandrakesoft

Then, Saturday ...

Mandrake to issue Mandrake linux 9.0

Then, Sunday

Mandrake to issue Mandrake linux 8.0

By April Fools Day, it'll be time to post

Linus releases version 0.9.0 of his kernel.

Microsoft releases Windows for Workgroups, DOS 6.2.4

By Thanksgiving, we'll be seeing

Ford Motor Co releases the Model T for $640.00

Christmas:

Fire good. Me hunt. Cave dry.

Finally, on New Years Eve:

Apeman-think - "What ... is ... that ... black ... monolith ... thing ..."

And start the new year with

In the beginning, ...

... and I used to love the movie Groundhog Day ...

Dupe!

[Joey Patterson]

Don't make me start my day over, CowboyNeal! I'm almost home!

Longtime Mandrake user

[ibentmywookie]

I've been using Mandrake since 8.0. But lately it's started annoying me a bit. It just doesn't seem all that polished or professional. I've avoided updating to 10.1 because of all the reported problems with it (from personal accounts from friends).

Their tools are okay, but I tend to just use the command line these days (faster). The tools don't integrate into the system at all. I mean, why use perl with GTK bindings to write your tools, when your default desktop is KDE ? It just looks all out of place. A lot of the dialogs and text in their tools just screams "amateur".

I just want something that looks and feels like it was put together by professionals. Finely tuned and polished.

I'm sticking with it for the time being, but I'm definitely on the look out for something better - Ubuntu being my first preference (if I can get used to Gnome).

Wow!

[boarder8925]

Your username fits perfectly with the talk of dupes and whatnot....

=P

Como se escribe...

[Reignking]

How do you say "dupe" in Portuguese and French?

Ten hour propagation amonst editors...

[TheRealStyro]

C'mon CowboyNeal, CmdrTaco, Zonk, Timothy, et. al. would it be too much to ask for you people to check published articles over the past 24 to 48 hours? Keep this up and the Dailyshow will mocking the great slashdot.

Re:IF YOU'RE REALLY PISSED ABOUT THE DUPES...

[Nik13]

I don't think anyone's really getting pissed ofg about them. Most people have been posting (dupe) midly humorous comments about it being a dupe.

Of course there's always a few who will get verbal about issues, but sometimes it's also good to bring them up, you can't necessarily blame them for that either.

I mean, if you say the same article on page 2 and then again on page 8 in your newspaper - once every week, wouldn't you start to think it's time we do something about it?

M and A is what its all about.

[StrandedOrg]

Yeah, yeah, yeah... dupe

But, for companies, mergers and acquisitions is a huge deal. it can determine the path and success for a company for many years down the road. What I want to see is how this will impact thier valuations. Also, I would like to see how they avoid some of the common pitfalls, what are thier intentions?

It is now official - Slashdot has confirmed: Slash

[mybecq]

It is now official - Slashdot has confirmed: Slashdot Dupes are here to stay

Yet another duped story bolstered the imitative Better Slashdot Dupes psyche when recently IDC confirmed that Better Slashdot Dupes accounts for a majority of all news stories. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that Better Slashdot Dupes has copied more stories, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Better Slashdot Dupes is replicating in an exponential fashion, as fittingly exemplified by duping fastest in the recent Slashdot comprehensive duplicity story postings test.

You don't need to be a CmdrTaco [cmdrtaco.net] to predict Better Slashdot Dupes' future. The electrons are on the screen: Better Slashdot Dupes faces a repetitious future. In fact, the future is all copies for Better Slashdot Dupes because Better Slashdot Dupes is reproducing. Things are looking very good for Better Slashdot Dupes. As many of us are already aware, Better Slashdot Dupes continues to replicate more stories. Green ink flows like a river of money. Frontpage Slashdot Dupes is the most promising of them all, having gained 93% over other duped stories.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the (reciprocal) numbers.

Obviously Blind Slashdot Dupes leader Timothy states that there are 7000 Slashdot Dupes each year. How many stories due to Blind Slashdot Dupes are there? Let's see. The number of Frontpage versus Obvious dupes on Slashdot is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Obvious dupes. Less Obvious Dupe stories on Slashdot are about half of the volume of Obvious dupes. Therefore there are about 700 Less Obvious Dupes. A recent article put Frontpage Slashdot Dupes at about 80 percent of the Better Slashdot Dupes share. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Frontpage Slashdot Dupes. This is consistent with the number of Frontpage Slashdot Dupes showing as Slashdot stories.

Due to the fortunes of Linux, OSDN, and so on, Frontpage Slashdot Dupes doubled business and overtook Obvious Slashdot Dupes. Now Obvious Slashdot Dupes are cloning, turning over an increasing number of dupes.

All major surveys show that Better Slashdot Dupes has steadily redoubled in news stories. Better Slashdot Dupes is multiplying its pace and its long term prospects are exponential. If Better Slashdot Dupes continues this growth, it will be at the expense of regular stories. Better Slashdot Dupes continues to copy. Nothing short of a miracle could save real stories at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Better Slashdot Dupes are here to stay.

Fact: Better Slashdot Dupes are here to stay.

This story is like

[_pi-away]

Deja vu all over again.

Even funnier

[David Rolfe]

It's even funnier when you go straight to the linux.slashdot.org address... then the front page looks like this:

Mandrake to Acquire Conectiva
Linux Mandrake
Posted by CowboyNeal on 2005-02-24 21:09
from the changing-of-hands dept.
An anonymous reader writes "With a press release Mandrakesoft has announced the acquisition of Conectiva. 'Mandrakesoft, the number one European Linux company, today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Conectiva, the number one Linux company in Brazil and Latin America. This acquisition is expected to increase significantly Mandrakesoft's size and R&D capabilities.'"

( Read More... | 21 of 148 comments )

Ask Slashdot: Building a Linux Computer Lab for Schools?
Software
Posted by Cliff on 2005-02-24 14:12
from the penguins-in-education dept.
joseamuniz asks: "After giving Linux classes to Secondary School Teachers, I got in touch with a non-profit organization called UNETE. This association has donated 1,523 computer labs to public schools in Mexico. I told them about Linux, and they are interested in equipping a beta computer lab with this Operating System, with Intel PIII, 256 MB RAM PCs. The more they like this lab, the higher chances to include Linux in the new labs donated by this institution." What hardware configurations and software packages would you install on such a machine to show off the real power of Linux in an educational environment?

( Read More... | 44 of 428 comments )

Mandrakesoft Acquires Conectiva
Linux Business
Posted by Zonk on 2005-02-24 11:25
from the one-plus-one-equals-linux dept.
rednaxel writes "This morning, both companies issued press releases about the merge. French Mandrakesoft is acquiring all shares of brazilian Conectiva for a total amount of 1.79 million EUR (2.3 million USD) in stock." CNet has coverage of the merger as well. From the article: "This won't elevate us to the status of Red Hat or Novell/SuSE yet, of course, but this is a significant growth for us..."

( Read More... | 31 of 209 comments )

That's right, THE DUPES ARE SO CLOSE THEY APPEAR IN THE SAME FREAKIN WINDOW. They are seperated by one -- ONE -- other story. It's a new level of laziness.

Re:Even funnier

[zoloto]

I didn't even think of that. That's awesome man.

Re:Even funnier

[CyanDisaster]

... It's even funnier when you go straight to the linux.slashdot.org address... then the front page looks like this...

Oh yeah? Try this one: http://slashdot.org/search.pl?topic=147

Mandrake to Acquire Conectiva
On February 24th, 2005 with 167 comments
An anonymous reader writes "With a press release Mandrakesoft has announced the acquisition of Conectiva. 'Mandrakesoft, the number one European Linux company,...
Linux > Linux Mandrake, Linux Business, Linux

Mandrakesoft Acquires Conectiva
On February 24th, 2005 with 212 comments
rednaxel writes "This morning, both companies issued press releases about the merge. French Mandrakesoft is acquiring all shares of brazilian Conectiva for a...
Linux > Linux Business, Linux Mandrake

Hope be with ye,
Cyan

Wormhole! Wormhole!

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like, as we step forward, the story goes backward. Someone tell Micheal to post a story:
Mandrakesoft thinking of acquiring Conectiva?

Slashdot to Acquire Groundhog Day

[arose]

Posted by CowboyNeal on 2005-02-26 4:09
from the we-changed-the-Matrix dept
An anonymous reader writes "With a front page dupe release Slashdot has announced the acquisition of Groundhog Day. 'Slashdot, the worldwide number one repeated news site, today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Groundhog Day, the number one repeated day movie in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. This acquisition is expected to increase significantly Slashdot's size and R&D (repeats and dupes) capabilities.'"

For Gods Sakes

[Ravage382]

Please look at the front page before you post. I understand that it may take some effort to look through past days, but please, no dupes on the same page. That is just sad. If you care anything for this site, please try a bit harder, and read your own content.

What did Merlin say about Mandrake?

[infonography]

it was to Morgana;

Merlin - What is that root?

Morgana - Mandrake, the essence of it can prolong the act of love

Merlin - And if too much is taken?

Morgana - Pain and Death.

Relevanice? None. Just liked that bit in Borman's Excalibur.

And if your wondering what my distro is, it's SuSE, because she wears short skirts and big black leather boots...

Re:What did Merlin say about Mandrake?

[MrResistor]

And if your wondering what my distro is, it's SuSE, because she wears short skirts and big black leather boots...

Indeed! Not just for wierd Germans anymore...

Wrenching this thread back OT, though, wasn't Connectiva a UL partner? I wonder if they use Yast in their regular distro as well?

Re:What did Merlin say about Mandrake?

[Kiryat Malachi]

I would argue that short skirts and big black leather boots puts it *squarely* within the realm of weird Germans.

Re:What did Merlin say about Mandrake?

[infonography]

YAST is open source, you can download it and compile it and put it on anything besides Windoze.

Re:What did Merlin say about Mandrake?

[MrResistor]

Yeah, I know that. That doesn't mean every distro uses it, and I'm pretty sure Mandrake is one that doesn't.

Connectiva was a UnitedLinux partner, and UnitedLinux was based on Suse, which in many ways means it was based on Yast. My question was if Connectiva also used Yast in their "regular" distro, and if, now that SCO has pretty much killed UL, their still using Yast at all. If they do, then my follow-up would be: what is Mandrake going to do?

Yast kicks ass, and it's what makes Suse the best distro of all, IMNSHO. People keep talking about how Linux needs to standardize, and Yast would be a great admin tool to pick for the job.

I love Slashdot

[Stalyn]

I love your dupes I love your flamewars I love your bad grammar I love your poor editing I love your missing poll options I love hot grits on Natalie Portman I love your goatse.cx links I love CowboyNeal I love the karma whores I love the slashdot effect I love it all... no matter how crappy and poor designed you may be you got character... and thats what's important.

now where can i buy a t-shirt?

Story submission

[BierGuzzl]

So.. if you want to get your story submitted to slashdot, just pick one that's on the front page already?

Much better idea....

[BierGuzzl]

Why not just cook up a script that processes the rss feed and pumps the contents back to slashdot as new story submissions with a variable time delay?

Re:Much better idea....

[MissTuxie]

I'm thinking Catch 22 (Soldier in White, anyone?).

The editors will end up just swapping yesterday's front page with today's front page, whenever one is done. Not that they're not already doing this...

Stop falling for this

[picklestix]

CmdrTaco obviously has a self-esteem issue. This whole dupe phenomenon is just a ploy for him to see how many people actually read his site, and thus, give his self-confidence a boost. If we stop replying to these dupe stories, they will go away - no longer serving their purpose!

Re:IF YOU'RE REALLY PISSED ABOUT THE DUPES...

[codemachine]

Kind of funny, but it certainly can't help their subscriber rate. Between duplicate stories and completely misleading summaries, it all comes off as very unprofessional.

When the "editors" don't read their own site, or even RTFAs, it doesn't exactly inspire one to pay them money.

The Sky Is Falling!

[jIyajbe]

OMFG! It's a DUPE!!!!!!!!! Help, help, HELP!!!!!

For God's sake, people, if you see it's a dupe, and there's no additional value in it for you, DON'T READ IT. Why is this so hard?

You remind me of all those people who complain about "how bad Star Trek has gotten", but keep on watchin', and keep on bitchin'.

You complain about the S/N ratio on Slashdot these days...Guess what? YOU'RE THE NOISE.

(Yes, I feel better now, thank you.)

Re:IF YOU'RE REALLY PISSED ABOUT THE DUPES...

[thryllkill]

heh heh... true, but I wasn't saying you should pay them either... yeah, then I might get a little upset.

From the..

[xtracto]

One-plus-one-equals-the-changing-of-hands dept...

The dark side revenge

[ron_lima]

The announcement is on the Conectiva's web site (http://www.conectiva.com.br - both portuguese and english). Fusion of enterprises mean only one thing: revolution.

The free software moviment is shaking the industry and big players are investing big money on the initiative. The future is clouded. The veil of the dark side has fallen. The Linux wars begun!

makes sense...

[torrents]

story involving 2 companies deserves two stories on /.

Fun fact

[yahwotqa]

In soviet Russia, Connectiva acquires Mandrake!

First Foe!

[DrunkenTerror]

Hehehe, indeed it was, crow, my friend.

I just felt like "duping the dupe," so to speak, and yours was the first score-5 post on the list. Karma's not the issue here, as I have plenty of that.

Perhaps others will disagree with me, but I just felt that the most obvious response to the still-on-first-page dupe was the time-honored repost tactic. I don't take /. very seriously. I mostly just read comments for the amusing trolls and the RARE funny, non-obvious joke.

Tech coverage? Gimme a break? You'd get better tech coverage from a bimonthly newsletter. Mostly, IMO, /. is just a running gag-line on 3 day-old geek news.

That said, I find your foeing of me highly amusing. A snap judgement of my post, perhaps, but I hold no animosity towards you. We could start a flame war if you'd like, but I don't find those very entertaining.

mandrake...?

[frankenbox]

So does this mean that if I load Mandrake Linux in the near future it won't flash the bios of my lucky goldstar cd-rom?