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MacMillan Sells Most Linux, gets No Respect
g8orade wrote to us with a
column currently running on ZDNET about Macmillan Linux, aka Linux-Mandrake. The column is regarding the fact that while Macmillan is the best selling, the "geeks" of Linux don't give it any respect - which is an interesting point, although I would like to say that we've done more then one story on it. The column has some thought-provoking comments about useability and the direction of Linux, as well.
> The phrase is "box-shifter", and we've never yet had any respect for them, if they lack any developers - brains! - of their own...
My first Linux, RH 4.1, was a Mac. But only because they put "Red Hat" on the box in big letters and "Macmillan" in fine print. I didn't realize what I had done until I saw the return address on the registration form.
I didn't bother sending in the form. What kind of tech support could I expect from a book seller? Better to learn to RTFM than to sit on a line with someone else who hasn't.
If you want tech support, buy from the people who develop the distro. If you don't need a FM, download or buy from CheapBytes. If you fall between those extremes, Mac may be just what the doctor ordered. But let's not add them to the "boo hoo my favorite doesn't get equal airplay" list. We've got to long a list of those already.
When Mac does something interesting, I'm sure we'll be eager to talk about it.
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It is the mark of a more sophisticated market that different roles are taken by increasingly specialised companies. For example, the initial method of selling milk (driving cattle through streets) has been replaced by farmers, producers, transportation networks, wholesale distribution, retail, and marketing, all done by different entities. I see no reason why software won't go the same way with creation, porting, packaging, distribution, and support all going to different companies. By letting each component in the value chain focus and improve on their respective roles, a wider and more robust market can be reached. If the only complaint is the name or branding, then that can be easily solved.
The increasing competition between RedHat, Mandrake, Suse etc can only lead to more refinements and (hopefully) better software solutions provided nobody uses standover tactics. T'is good.
LL
> This just seems like someone is whining because thier favorite linux distro isn't the major player.
More likely, ZD is just trying to start a distribution flame war to get us off their back over publishing their assinine "security benchmark".
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If Macmillian can move software, let them. Help them, even. It's good for Linux.
But please do not whine [UK: whinge] they get no technical kudos. They have done nothing worthy of technical notice, nor do they aim do.
They just do a marketing job, as important as it is. Let them get marketing kudos.
-- Robert
What is the precise relationship between Mandrake and RedHat linux distributions these days?
Perhaps Mr Leibovitch ought to wake up to the idea that it was us "geeks" who brought him linux in the first place, and if we don't credit a Macmillan distribution (I'd never even *heard* of it until today!) then that's the way it goes, whether it sells boxes or not.
It's called doing the Right Thing, and I suspect merely cloning distributions doesn't deserve as much "respect" as writing your *own*, surprisingly enough...
As for we shun it "because it represents what [we] don't understand: marketing and sales", bollocks. I understand "Marketing" and "sales" as far as they're useful - they get credit for supplying my salary, and that's about it. For selling their souls to push something and having no brains (as per Dilbert stereotype), no credit.
The phrase is "box-shifter", and we've never yet had any respect for them, if they lack any developers - brains! - of their own...
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
"They may be giving some funding to the Mandrake/Linux folks, but they haven't sponsored the development of..."
:-)
They're publishers! Book publishers! They probably couldn't tell the difference between a new and malloc if it segmented between their ears
"Have they contributed funds or other resources to organizations like the FSF, The XFree86 Project, Software In The Public Interest, or other such?"
No, but they have contributed funds to the organization that started the linux i18n project, the first Free partitioner/resizer, etc. As for not contibuting to FSF or SPI, those are political organizations (surprise), and perhaps Macmillan doesn't want to get involved in politics.
..."there isn't any other source of "positive points"..."
What is this, Boy Scout accounting? Helping old ladies across the street isn't good enough? Maybe they figure if 99% of the extreme vocal advocates of Linux don't give back (give back what?) to the community, they don't have to either.
"It appears that their priorities are largely economic"
Hello, McFly! Macmillan is a business. They are supposed to make money. Their shareholders will tar and feather them if they don't make money. Respect don't put food on the table, economics does.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
This is the first I've heard that they actually pay royalties to the makers of the product they ship. Still, perhaps the reason no one gives them any respect is that they don't actually do that much. People respect Mandrake and Red Hat, but what reason is there to talk about MacMillan? It's not like it's a different product. It's just a different box! And a box from a company that has zero presence in "the community", except for some books which are most certainly not free. The article argues that we should pay attention to MacMillan because they sell so many copies, but I just did a Slashdot search on Cheapbytes (an equivalent operations, I suppose). Two responses, neither of which has anything to do with Linux. Why again are we supposed to discuss distributors in detail when one of the benefits of all this open source is that we're not subject to them?
Im not so sure about the geeks vs 'normal' users theme but Mandrake installs easier and faster. If I had to teach my kids or my parents Linux, Id use mandrake to do it.
I started with nothing and I still have most of it.
The most critical thing that can be contributed is working code. There are an assortment of other things that could be useful.
And if they don't contribute anything, then they will have to continue to remain "underrespected."
It's entirely likely that they will remain thus, which transforms their complaints into whining. Actions result in reactions; if their actions don't merit respect, then they won't get respect.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Man, you guys are giving Macmillan loads of penguin dung today! The main theme seems to be that Macmillan is exploiting Mandrake/Redhat/hackers/proletariat/etc.
If I recall correctly, and I may be wrong, both the FSF and the OSI see nothing wrong with commercial Free Software. I also see nothing in the FSF or OSI forbidding the redistribution of Free Software by non-geeks. I see nothing mandating "giving back to the community". I see nothing requiring distributors to be officially baptized by the elite.
Continually, to the point of nausea, madvocates keep telling everyone who will listen (and those who won't) that Linux is "NOT ABOUT FREE BEER". If that is so, then what's the difference between a $2 CD from Cheapbytes and a $30 CD+Book from Macmillan. Other compaints are based on Macmillan distributing something that they didn't make, that in fact, they are resellers. Again, what makes Cheapbytes holy and Macmillan evil in this matter?
But the GPL, BSD, AL, MIT, and every other Free Software license allows the redistribution of software. Linus, Richard, Larry, Kirk and Eric all knew very well that people would be distributing their works without contributing to it first. If they didn't like this situation then they shouldn't have used the licenses that they did. Are any of the people complaining here actually developers whose works are being distributed by Macmillan? I seriously doubt that there's even one. But in case there is, I must ask: If you didn't want someone distributing your work without your specific permission, why the fsck did you use a Free Software license?
But I think the real reason so many people are pissing in their panties is that their personal distribution of choice isn't winning the sales competition. And of course, being slashdotters, their personal choice is, ergo, the One True Distro(tm), and Macmillan has committed heresy, blasphemy or worse.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
"Mandrake just announced October 1 the availability of release 6.1 for download, while Red Hat's 6.1 is still on the drawing board."
This (even though it's innocent and I could be mis-interpreting it) is one of the concerns we must address.
When you look at the linux self at your favorite computer store, you see many different distributions of linux sporting many different revision numbers. More than once my local CompUSA has announced the arrival of Linux 6.0 (they've even called OpenBSD Linux).
The problem is the general public has been corrupted by lame revision numbers, to the point that some think developments parallel one another (eg the 4.0 browers). Many will pick the software that has the highest revision number, reguardless. This is normally the mark of the well informed user, but the "higher is better" has corrupted the idea of these little numbers.
This leads to the Mandrake/Redhat/Caldera/Debian/TurboLinux/ problem. All have toyed with their revisions just as much as a certain other company. Would someone be more inclined to get OpenLinux 2.x or RedHat Linux 6.x or even Mandrake Linux 6.1.? They'd pick the higher one, because "higher is better".
We must struggle to ensure that all linux distributions are uniform in saying Kernel 2.2.x on the box in big letters, or else the uninformed will lose all track of what's going on. The other day I asked someone what kernel they were running, "6.0" was the answer in a display of blissful ignorance equal to the "what ISP do you use?" "netscape" question.
BSD != Linux
Linux 6.0 == null
CompUSA == lame
Just about everyone I know who has been curious about linux goes out and buys a book- not the o'reilly books they probably should, but a book that also includes linux on cd, stuck in a little transparent envelope to the back cover. That's usually "Special Edition: Using Linux" or "Using Linux", both from Que, which is an imprint of Macmillan. Sams is also an imprint of Macmillan, and also has Linux books. Macmillan themselves has linux books. I'm assuming they all use Mandrake.
So how many "boxes", as this article talks about, are actually strange information containment mechanisims called "books"?
When you take that into consideration, of course they sell that many- they can sell linux in barens & noble and waldenbooks, instantly bringing up the number of point-of-sale locations by an order of magnitude. Think about how many bookstores there are compared to computer stores savy enough to carry any linux distributions.
Not that I have any problem with more sales of any version of Linux. I'm not knocking Macmillan, just the idiotic article. Someone else called it already- a new trend "slashtrolling", writting articles designed to get on slashdot to attract all those slashdot eyeballs.
*obDisclaimer-- I have worked as an independent contractor for Macmillan in the past.
The discussion following this article is interesting, but did anyone else think this was a Slashtroll, that is, an article written with the intent to make it on Slashdot. The big key is actually mentioning /. in the text. About three of Byte's articles every week are of this variety, now it looks like Zdnet is learning a thing or two.
Macmillan, unlike most of the "boxed Linux" vendors (including Red Hat), has a solid understanding of the retail channel, and can get their product into the low-end stores and general market bookstores that wouldn't otherwise be moving product at all (or minimally). Solid general market distribution is the key to World Domination.
If the other vendors develop merchandising/packaging/distribution skills, they will gradually displace Macmillan in that channel. But until then, Macmillan takes a decent Linux product, bundles it with online textbooks and goodies, sells it to newbies and people looking for a bargain, and pays royalties to the developer of the distro they use. It's a win for everyone right now...
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Ah. But as a complete newbie, I had no idea of this. Nor would I have known who linuxcare was if I had found it somewhere in the fine print.
No grudge against Mac really. It's just silly (IMO) to think of them as a major player in the Linux game. But perhaps they will be some day.
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Besides, isn't MacMillian just like Cheapbytes? What do they offer besides a burned CD and a book? Not too damn much. I'd rather forgo the cheap little book and get a $5 CD.
Well, maybe the lawyers. I don't think the deal with IBM, which catapulted Microsoft from obscurity and basically made them what they are today, was done with any aid from MS's marketing folks.
By the time they started serious marketing, they were already in the number one position - a big advantage in marketing in and of itself!
D
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In the OS section they had "MacMillan Complete Linux" or something like that .. and I thought to myself, isn't MacMillan in the BOOK business? What are they doing selling Linux? And -- why isn't beyond.com selling RED HAT?
It wasn't until a few days later that one of my more clueful buddies informed me that it was a boxed up Mandrake.
I checked again after I read this article and discovered that beyond.com is selling a MacMillan "Complete Redhat Linux v5.2 OS Del Secure Server" -- whatever THAT is. I could be wrong but it seems to be several releases behind ... with the additional irony of the recent /. discussion about the zdnet secure server trials and the patches needed for Red Hat, here's MacMillan selling what appears to be an out of date version billed as a "secure server." Interesting.
Crusade against lame software! votezone.com
They say that they are the "best selling". Perhaps that's true. But so what?
That doesn't even mean they're the most popular. All of the good Linux distributions are free software, which means that we're free to share them with our friends. Around here, a lot of people burn Red Hat CD-ROMs for each other. (Well, OK, not a lot of people, but enough that I thought it worthy of mention.) On the other hand, I use Debian, and while I have purchased Debian CD-ROMs (makes bootstrapping faster), usually I download from the unstable release.
So, in at least two cases, there are major Linux distributions in use where sales aren't being made. This is basically the same problem that the Linux counter project(s) have tried to address -- since Linux can be freely redistributed without accountability to the programmers, there's no real way to know how many people are using Linux, or what distribution(s) they're using.
And more to the point, most of us here are not strongly commercial. I don't care that AOL is the best-selling ISP in this country; I use a local ISP because they offer me real (albeit slow) connectivity to the Internet, whereas AOL... doesn't. I don't think AOL is a better ISP just because they're richer. And likewise, I don't think Mandrake is a better distribution just because it's selling.
Unfortunately, while that strategy does get books onto bookstore shelves quickly, quality suffers just a tad...
They may be giving some funding to the Mandrake/Linux folks, but they haven't sponsored the development of X servers like Red Hat or SuSE, and it appears that they generally don't actually produce any free software themselves.
Unfortunately for their "level of respect," the "quality of product" matter results in some "negative respect points," and there isn't any other source of "positive points" that they are using to earn back respect.
None of these things are the "fault" of anyone other than the management of Macmillan, as they represent their policy decisions of what to do and what not to do. It appears that their priorities are largely economic; to get "respect" they would have to modify those priorities as well as their actual behaviour.
I don't feel sorry for them in this; they have made their bed, and will have to sleep in it...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
I think there are a number of reasons for this happening. Main among them is "who in the hell is Mandrake?" Up until a few weeks ago I don't ever really remember paying attention to any press they issued. I know all about the /. link here to see the past Mandrake stories, but I think a majority of people relate more to the Big 3 (soon to be 4) - Red Hat, Caldera, SuSe, and soon Corel. You see those names and you know it is a Linux article. I think Mandrake needs to start jumping up and down and waving a flag or something to get some more attention. From what I have read about Mandrake, it seems like an excellent distro.
I think another thing I consider to be a problem is Distro-bigotry. A case in point: last week I went into the efnet #linux channel. What a disgrace! The ops were there flaming everyone they could, made fun of this one newbie because he was playing around with WinLinux and was having some problems with it, and just plain making asses out of themselves. I was in the channel for an hour and all they could do was sit and bash this distro and that distro. Of course, they had their favorite, and everything else was pure crap to them.
So, imagine what is going to be happening... new guy comes in and wants to get some opinions, everyone chimes in "Red Hat!" and off they go. Those using Mandrake or Caldera or SuSe are not going to say a word for fear of either a) being flamed, or, as I saw the ops do to the WinLinux guy, b) kick and ban him.
We in the Linux community have a lot of attitudes to change and they need to be changed really fast.
-------------------
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may be drafted...
Infojack - you *really* don't like Mandrake do you? Why is that? I honestly don't get it!?
d ay/lwt-indepth3.html
What I'm saying (again) is that this is the way Open Source works (and is supposed to work) - you're free to take the Mandrake-distribution (or Redhat, or SUSE or Caldera or...) and put your name on it and sell it. Nobody stops you from doing that.
Even Redhat think Mandrake is great!
Don't believe me? Read this: http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/linuxworldto
As I said, it is a win-win situation for all of us, because, as Donnie Barnes (from Redhat) states in the article, it is all GPL'ed (allright - KDE isn't, but that doesn't matter in this case).
When Redhat don't see a problem with this - why do you?
And why do anybody have a problem with Macmillan selling a lot of Mandrake boxes?
I think it is a great thing - more people gets to know Linux, which I think is good. They add value to the boxes (books AFAIK), which is really needed for a newbie, if he shall have any chance of using and learning Linux.
I don't understand why people is flaming each other just because the other person is using another distribution?
Ups - this is getting offtopic, sorry...
A lot of companies are selling Linux. And a lot of companies are developing Linux (note; 'developing' like making your own distro. For example the way SuSE does). Both ways are very supportive for Linux IMO and people deserve credit when they're working on projects like these.
I'm sure glad there are companies who are shipping / selling Linux. Thats great & what Linux IMO needs to get well known. However... Being such a company does not make you special. Face it; if you look at this worldwide (because Linux is known wordwide) you will see you are just one of the many. However; not special does not mean companies/people like that deserve no respect. On the contrary.
Back to our friends... They ship Linux and for that they should earn some respect from the Linux community. Unfortunatly they are throwing this away them selves (as far as I'm concerned).
Mandrake is, IMHO, a RedHat ripoff. And now we have a company who is dressing MD up (add (C) tools and some books) and selling it. You know what? I can live with this. Its great, helping MD out shipping their distro (whether I like it or not) helps the Linux cause in a way.
The thing that pisses me off is the simple fact that this company is acting like Jabberjaw; demanding respect for something everyone could have done. Investing money in a distro does not make you special. Many people want to make money out of Linux and this is just one other way to do it. As far as respect goes; the minute I see that those companies are also doing something back for the community (like RPM, Yast to name just 2) they got it. Whether I like the distro/company or not.
One website and some hardware detection module is not included here as far as I'm concerned. For a company who started out ripping other peoples work I expect a whole lot better then that.
About six or so months ago, I bought a nice shiny box with a penquin on it that had, in loud letters, "Red Hat whateverversionitwas". I think I paid something like $ 49 for it.
The reason I bought it at the time is that Rasterman was working for Red Hat, and I wanted to support the company that would do such a cool thing.
Imagine my shock and dismay when I learned that the box was not "Official" Red Hat, but rather MacMillan's version! Now, perhaps I was just being a stupid goober and what-not for not checking the package more closely before buying, but the way it was marketed still left a sour taste in my mouth.
Now, I see official Red Hat versions all over the place. If they lower their price, they'll gain most of their lost market share back, me thinks. I'm not at all sure why they priced their latest releases so high.
D
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Java. The IBM JDK does not run well on Mandrake for me, in particular when trying to access a network.
Video. I had Redhat 5.2 and 6.0 running X on a machine fine. When I installed Mandrake 6.0 (and 6.1) the video was freaking out. I had the same settings for X on Mandrake as I did for Redhat.
Besides that, Mandrake has worked well for me, but I think that I'll stick to Redhat for Java development.
Some people won't like the concept of a "Non-Techie" company selling Linux. The more people that use Linux, the less exclusive Linux becomes. It's the same phenomena as the the sports car driver that sells his car when he sees another person driving the same type of sports car.
Personally I think that the more people using Linux, the better. More newbies using things like Gnome or KDE means more usability feedback, which in turn means better applications.
I don't think that more newbies means that the command line should be hidden: When I first started with Slackware and Redhat 4.1 in early 97, I wondered what the hell BASH was. Was I doing something wrong, hence the system wanted to "bash" me? Now of course, I prefer to do most stuff from the command line, like editing the xfs config files to add a truetype directory... Although I must admit I'd prefer it to be done for me, and for those sorts of functions to be grouped in some kind of windows-like control panel (with nice icons, etc, I detest Linuxconf)
The more people that use Linux regularly, the more likely it is that we'll get stuff like quicktime at the same time as other platforms. The more people not using windows, the better the web and computing in general becomes. (Even the worst MS-loving PHB won't want to drive 60% of customers away from an "e-commerce" (blech) web site by making it IE specific if IE is proven to be installed on only 40% of computers)
The fact that the MacMillan books tell people quite a lot about Linux should be helpful. Hopefully the whole clueless factor of newbies will decrease. (I was one, and O'Reilly's Running Linux was a godsend)
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
I don't have a whole lot of trust in the Thick Tomes that publishers like Sybex, Que, SAMS, and, yes, Macmillan, put onto shelves. They tend to be rushed to market, made as thick and garish as possible, with the result that quality suffers.
Your criticisms of "What's Hard About Linux" represent things likely to be solved by organizations contributing to the development of tools like Linuxconf or COAS.
Macmillan isn't contributing to those sorts of developments, which means that they're effectively not part of the solution. This doesn't necessarily make them "bad people," but it does mean that they are not in much of a position to claim that they are helping substantively.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
I saw the official debian package in a local bookshop this weekend - at around 20UKP.
The book looked nice - it had that 'Produced with LaTeX' feel, making it look like a real manual.
I may purchase it this week - Debian seems to be the only distro I can trust, and I lack the diskpace or Bandwidth to download it.
Sorry Dan, but this is not true. Even if it doesn't really matter who did what first I can not resist to point out that Stampede Linux was the first 2.2 kernel distribution that was compiled with pentium optimization.
I stand corrected. They were the first 2.1x kernel based distribution w/ PGCC optimizations, I'm almost positive.
My memory's kinda fuzzy, but I remember spazzing quite excessively over Berolinux's contents. Anyone out there have a more accurate timeline?
Well, the boxed package they sell in the software stores (that I've seen) says "Linux Mandrake" on it in big letters across the front of the box, with MacMillan in a corner somewhere. Unless they've changed it recently, I'd say the name-marketing was pretty well in favor of Mandrake.
Wait a sec, I could have sworn I've seen some book from Macmillan w/ Mandrake included that barely mentioned Mandrake.
If what you say above is true, then I really don't think that ZD guy did his homework. We've been talking about Mandrake for months now.
If I remember correctly the discussions I've seen on Usenet/irc/WWW have stated that the prime reason for Mandrake use is the ability to download .iso installations. I think Redhat has learned by their mistakes and now that Redhat is putting out iso distributions Mandrake users will drop off.
I have a question:
Could one download the Redhat Source cd and do a huge rpm build install to have automake compile the distribution optimized for your own computer?
(I'm not certain of the syntax for rpm, but I know you can have the rpm build itself.)
Joseph Elwell.
Of course, since he's not a superior techno-geek, Slashdotters will diss him. But folks like Evan, and like MacMillan, are just as important to the success of Linux as the uber-geeks who actually produce the technology. What's the use of great technology, if you can't come out of the closet? Aren't we tired of Linux being the gay stepchild of operating systems?!
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I just don't see making distributions being the kind of high margin business that would justify all the interest in RedHat. I think a lot better argument can be made for cross-distribution support and training operations like linuxcare being a big growth market with higher margins.
It's not that I don't think that RedHat isn't providing a great service to the Linux community, I do. I am having a hard time with the business model justifying the astronomical stock price. If what I think is reality later sets in, a crash in RedHat stock price in the future will not do the Linux community any favors as it might signal a lot of people that the "Linux Revolution" is over.
On the other hand, it might be better if the "Linux Revolution" hype cooled off. Linux doesn't need the hype to be really big. The big industry players (the IBMs, Compaqs, SGIs, etc.) like the hype because it keeps stirring the pot, getting people to buy new systems and services. Just as customers were tiring of the Microsoft/Intel Upgrade Treadmill, here comes Linux to get customers back on the "install a new IT infrastructure because it's the coming thing and we don't want to be left out" treadmill.
RedHat has come up with a good and complex distribution, pretty much from scratch. That deserves some amount of respect.
Mandrake has come up with a new spin on RedHat's distribution (different default desktop, Pentium-optimized binaries, and a few other changes). They did some new things, also deserving of some amount of respect.
Cheapbytes has taken RedHat and Mandrake, copied everything that's freely redistributable, and packaged them at a much much more affordable price. They didn't do much creatively, but their price opens up Linux to more people, which is worthy of some respect.
Macmillan has taken Mandrake (they used to take RedHat), cloned it, charged an arm and a leg for it, and flooded the shelves of companies like CompUSA with misleading packaging. I know many people who bought Macmillan's RedHat 5.2 thinking they were buying the "New version of Red Hat" (6.0 at the time). Their business practices border on fraud, they don't do anything creative, and they sour people to the Linux community. Why should we respect them?
----
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Open mind, insert foot.
Sorry, Mac.
I like you guys. I actually do. Your Personal Bookshelf is an surprisingly useful site when I need a quick primer on some tech that I really should know off the top of my head by know, and you've kept that thing up for years.
But it's not fair for you to say you have a distribution. I think you know it.
Fellow Slashdot readers, I've been following the Mandrake guys ever since they merged with BeroLinux. BeroLinux, for those who don't know, was the first 2.2kernel distribution with everything recompiled to be pentium optimized. It was one heck of a slick package, unfortunately hobbled by some broken install routines.
Once Bero joined Mandrake(at the time, "Redhat+KDE"), I knew we'd be seeing a major powerhouse.
MacMillan may be doing great sales and marketing, but they're marketing the superlative work of the Mandrake people. I'm sorry if some Sales and Marketing folks at MacMillan don't feel they get much respect, but the bottom line is that the entire Linux community has been delivering rounds of applause to the Mandrake folks--those aw-shucks kinda guys who actually put together the package--to the degree that they got product of the year at the last Linuxworld Expo.
MacMillan should do the honorable thing and allow Mandrake to market the name of its distribution. There seems to be something quite faustian about his whole arrangement if you ask me; it's as if MacMillan went to Mandrake and said, "You could create the number one selling distribution, but it wouldn't be your name on it..."
That being said, I think they're doing a tremendous amount of good getting Linux out there, and we shouldn't take biased ravings(those geeks don't know what Linux is all about, thus he raved) too seriously--not even, mind you, from the person doing the raving. Five bucks says the guy was just quoting some out of line MCP guy off the record.
One lamer does not an organization doom...
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com