MandrakeSoft has never been profitable as any CFO would define it. However, I would say that they have brought many profits to the Linux community. Many of those are part of same community that have come into Slashdot and made a mockery out of MandrakeSoft's appeal to all the freeloading SOBs that have used MDK's good will and nature to the point that they are broke. A lot of them claim that MDK cannot make a dime because they give away their products. They do give them and more away to the world community.
Among many things that the company have been supporting out of their own pockets are the ones listed on this page: http://www.mandrakesoft.com/labs .
Some of those are KDE, GNOME, Plex86, Bastille Linux, Prelude, Aurora, CUPS, PHPNUKE, Linux Kernel Development, LinuxPrinting.org and the list goes on...
I am sure that the worthless fsckers that troll thru here will find fault with some or all of those. To you I can say now:
So, like, what have YOU done to help Linux grow and prosper?
Since I won't be back, I'll give you the answer: The answer is that you have not benefited the world community nearly as much as MandrakeSoft has in less than four years. If/when it happens that they have to lock the doors, it is going to hurt a lot of people and you are probably in that list whether you know it or not.
WITH did you have to put "Again" on the end of that?
You make it sound like this is business as usual for MDK. It is not. They have been working very hard to develop the best Linux OS money can buy and repair the damage done by _previous_ management. The published decrease in costs and increases in revenue _PROVE_ that they are succeeding. It just has not happened as fast as they need for it to occur.
Think about it like this: You are unemployed and almost completely broke. You have excellent resume and several companies want to employ you. But your light bill is due and you cannot pay it. Since you have little of value to sell, where do you get the money to pay that bill and others until you can get the job and stand on your own again? You are not just going to quit when you know that everything will be better in a few months. So where do you go?
You go to your friends, if you have any.
And that is all that they are doing. They are asking their friends to help them out.
They could have pointed out that the last effort by their friends to help them was not enough and that is why they need more now. But they did not do that - they have not even hinted at it. The truth is that the previous support was not enough because there are many thousands out there that never contributed anything. The people that helped them in the past are not their focus for an immediate increase in capital.
It is not "Again". It is a continuation of the same request and one that they hoped they would not have to make.
It really would be a crying shame to see them go down when they are so close to getting in the black.
So how much of Mandrake's disto is proprietary ZERO. MandrakeSoft dld edition has absolutely no proprietary SW in it whatsoever. They do not even include Netscape because of their license.
It is already one of the most OPEN projects in the Linux communities with all of the development work being done on the "cooker".
The boxed versions include all kinds of software -free and commercial, IOW. That is to make the boxed sets appealing and more valuable. It has apparently worked as their sales have really increased. Unfortunately, the sales revenue is not enough to cover the immediate need.
The BIG debt was brought on, primarily, by MandrakeSoft's attempt to set-up and maintain an "e-learning" site for everything about Linux. The _previous_ mgmnt had a good idea at the _wrong_ time. IOW, they made bad decisions. The *new*, current, mgmnt has turned that around PDG so far.
It matters also because of the effect their collapse can have on the OS and Linux communities in general. -Those that hate us will be quick to point out how OS does not work, blah. -Lending institutions will be even harder to convince of the necessity of lending money for 'vaporware'. -The next time an OS company needs help, there won't be much of a chance for it to succeed. In fact, they probably won't even try and will just lock the doors. That will leave a lot of people wondering if OS is such a good idea...
These are some facts and my opinions. I'm entitled to the latter(at least I am currently.)
A bank loan has to be paid back. That INCREASES debt and does not help.
They need less than 10% of the estimated 250,000+ users of ML to buy a Silver membership in the Club for 120USD to get them over this BIG hump. Then they will need another 20,000 to pay the next bill. At that point it is all up to MDK to keep it going and not get bitten again by seemingly good ideas from bad management. Current managemnet is doing a good job but need cash to resolve the last mgmnt screw-ups.
All totaled, if even 50% of the freeloaders would have given back $ome of what they have gained from the MDK distro, none of this would ever have happened.
er, wrong. There is nothing wrong with gcc-3.2. I have it and MDK9 and it works fine. You must be confused with the (very) old gcc-2.96 issues that came up in the 8-series.
A bailout proves many things but most of all that the spirit of Open Source is alive and weel and we take care of those that take care of us.
These guys have put out _good_ distros for years and everyone has benefitted from that. Now is the time to give something back to them.
They have immediate debts that have to be paid to continue with the growth.
You know, s! like the electricity bill to run all those servers that people have been sucking dry for _years_ to get their free(as in beer) software rather than obtaining the free(as in GPL) software and returning $omething to them.
They deserve a pat on the back for the turn-around and a kick in the butt for not making it obvious that they were not going to get enough done soon enough.
They just got a new CEO and, I suspect, this appeal is partially his fault _because_ he told them that what they had done so far was NOT good enough. CEOs do that.
Mandrake _wants_ to be on a regular market. It is in their plans published at their site but they have to grow a bit more to get there. Immediately, they have to survive this winter.
Hey, thanks for the comments. And, very good and observant ones too. I, too, like the feel of a good hardback book and the quick and easy reference it can provide, assuming that I have read it and know where to look. I do get tired of online reading...
You're correct that InformIT does have _free_ books that are old. Linux _has_ come a long way since even 2000 and, consequently, some of the information is dated. The principles seem to be the same though, i.e., ls still works like ls did a long time ago and grep still greps, shell is still a shell(which most MSWin.x users don't know anything about), etc.... I bought "Running Linux" a couple of years ago- worst purchase I have ever made in a book. Except for a single page of reference to a couple of the VIM commands, it has helped me ZERO. Others really like it but I found the (then) *new* edition to be full of _very_ outdated info. I could have gotten the same info from InformIT for free. In fact, I did, later. InformIT's list of free Linux books has decreased considerably. It had more than 2 dozen at one time but over the last couple of years, the "free" books have been cut quite a bit, mostly to eliminate books like "Installing RedHat 6.x" that have little to no value. They have kept some (not all) of the free books that are somewhat timeless. I think it was an editor's decision to remove the old-er books and that they might be at a low-ebb at this time - not sure. It is also a financial issue which is where Safari takes over. Safari provides ~40 Linux specific books, many published this year and some within the last few months. All of those can be 'previewed' before purchase. Some pre-release books are also available. E.g., last year I read a great deal of Peter Norton's book on securing Linux _before_ it ever hit the press.
My major point is that Mandrake Linux has become so very easy to install and use that, with their manuals, a nOObie really does not need to buy the books first; buy the books _after_ finding out what they really need to know to get better at using Linux. Also, I was suggesting to read/preview as much as possible before purchasing any book (or software). MandrakeSoft's manuals/documentation have come a long way in the last couple of years towards being more newbie-friendly. They still need work but they are working on them and the docs improve with each release.
BUT there are more there to read for free(online books ).
And, if that is not enough, the fast readers can read any of these FOURTY Linux booksfor free during a 14 day trial or take the Safari online trip and spend more time(&money).
Is that old news as it was posted in July on CNET, here which reportedly had 962 nodes and was/is an "Evolocity" cluster.
Is this one for the sister lab(LANL): A powerful new 2,048-processor, $6 million Linux supercomputer is being built for the Los Alamos National Laboratory to run unclassified analyses and... (NetworX built it with 959 nodes and 2050 processors) in-addition-to"Pink" named after "Pink" -or- it it "Pink" -or- is the post about another one that going to LLNL and has nothing to do with "Pink"?
Is that 2, 3 or 4 this year?
This is getting strange.
Extreme Linux at http://www.extremelinux.org/ seems to have vaporized (behind the LANL firewall, I suppose).
It also seems kind of odd that LinuxBIOS is not mentioned in these articles and is, IMO, a critical part of the builds as well as being an outstandingly innovative use of the Linux kernel.
I think I need a Beowulf cluster to figure this out and tell me ?WHY? LLNL and LANL are suddenly in need of more SC's that are in addition to the ones that they already have.:?)
This book is not intended to be the only system administration material you ever study. Indeed, this book grew out of a course I have taught, an introduction to Unix system administration.
They ALL say that and it is still BS! It's a DISCLAIMER meaning 'I wanted to write a real book but XYZ publisher offered me just as much money to do one-fourth the work required to *really* teach the subject at hand. So if you screw your *, don't blame me.' It is no different than the GPL except you have to PAY for it!
In fact, we're going to gloss over the question of installation,...
AYA cop-out. The real use of such a book would be HOW2 FIX a broken installation, which one cannot do if one does not know how to get the stuff installed in the first place.
...or has very good installation and configuration documentation. (Red Hat and Mandrake Linux distributions are standouts in this regard.)
A CIRCULAR reference! They claim that one should read other documentation and not depend upon what little they include. So, yes, they standout - as gibberish!
I believe that there are very few books in this world that should be burned but any book with the title starting as "Teach Yourself" and ending with "Hours" should be on the list. The really sad part is that the poor librarians that have no technical skills order these books thinking that they could be good 'beginners' reference material and waste the funds from an already very limited budget.
I honestly still do not understand the marketing for these books. What kind of lamer would actually believe the title? It is completely ludicrous to buy into such nonsense. After this book proves to be *just* as good as Zhang's "Teach Yourself c in 24 Hours" and the the other wonderful 'TY *Almost Anything* in a Day' books that are full of incredibly dangerous advice, they will publish 'TYUSA in 72 Hours' and then 'TYUSA in 1 Week' which will include some, but not all, of the authors' intended tutorials and corrections and still not cover the subject enough to be of any *REAL* value - unless you need a big paperweight on your desk. SAMS used to be a good publisher and not let such books hit the market. Now it seems that they and MacMillin are bound to the almighty dollar, regardless of the consequences, preying upon those poor people that actually believe that college is for chumps. I am a firm believer in TY because that is the most worthwhile benefit one can obtain from formal education. If one pays attention, the skill to learn many things by teaching oneself becomes second nature and you really can teach yourself the *basics* of many complicated subjects like USA; But, in ONE DAY???? -gimmme a break!
I admit to purchasing a 'TY' book by mistake. It came as part of 'Introduction to c'(Borland) package deal some years back. I learned nothing of value about c until I put it down and got some REAL references to use, after which I became AFRAID to reference it anymore. Stay away from these 'TY * in 24hrs' books unless it is about a VERY simple subject and even then I would doubt the validity of the title.
Well, this is what happens when you screw around too long.
FD.net, http://209.249.55.157/ , 'had' software capable of doing this in the palms of their hands...and it was near to being released as open source.
Oh well, All's well that ends well...uh, this isn't ending well is it.
ng
Slashdot Mirror
Among many things that the company have been supporting out of their own pockets are the ones listed on this page: http://www.mandrakesoft.com/labs .
Some of those are KDE, GNOME, Plex86, Bastille Linux, Prelude, Aurora, CUPS, PHPNUKE, Linux Kernel Development, LinuxPrinting.org and the list goes on...
I am sure that the worthless fsckers that troll thru here will find fault with some or all of those. To you I can say now:
So, like, what have YOU done to help Linux grow and prosper?
Since I won't be back, I'll give you the answer: The answer is that you have not benefited the world community nearly as much as MandrakeSoft has in less than four years. If/when it happens that they have to lock the doors, it is going to hurt a lot of people and you are probably in that list whether you know it or not.
How about giving her a Mandrake Club *Silver* membership for Christmas? I mean after all, it is your Mom.
:)
She will probably let you use it too... Mom's are like that.
Merry Christmas
It's mine too... 3 years.
WITH did you have to put "Again" on the end of that?
You make it sound like this is business as usual for MDK. It is not.
They have been working very hard to develop the best Linux OS money can buy and repair the damage done by _previous_ management. The published decrease in costs and increases in revenue _PROVE_ that they are succeeding. It just has not happened as fast as they need for it to occur.
Think about it like this:
You are unemployed and almost completely broke. You have excellent resume and several companies want to employ you. But your light bill is due and you cannot pay it. Since you have little of value to sell, where do you get the money to pay that bill and others until you can get the job and stand on your own again?
You are not just going to quit when you know that everything will be better in a few months. So where do you go?
You go to your friends, if you have any.
And that is all that they are doing. They are asking their friends to help them out.
They could have pointed out that the last effort by their friends to help them was not enough and that is why they need more now. But they did not do that - they have not even hinted at it. The truth is that the previous support was not enough because there are many thousands out there that never contributed anything. The people that helped them in the past are not their focus for an immediate increase in capital.
It is not "Again". It is a continuation of the same request and one that they hoped they would not have to make.
It really would be a crying shame to see them go down when they are so close to getting in the black.
So how much of Mandrake's disto is proprietary
ZERO. MandrakeSoft dld edition has absolutely no proprietary SW in it whatsoever. They do not even include Netscape because of their license.
It is already one of the most OPEN projects in the Linux communities with all of the development work being done on the "cooker".
The boxed versions include all kinds of software -free and commercial, IOW. That is to make the boxed sets appealing and more valuable. It has apparently worked as their sales have really increased. Unfortunately, the sales revenue is not enough to cover the immediate need.
The BIG debt was brought on, primarily, by MandrakeSoft's attempt to set-up and maintain an "e-learning" site for everything about Linux. The _previous_ mgmnt had a good idea at the _wrong_ time. IOW, they made bad decisions. The *new*, current, mgmnt has turned that around PDG so far.
It matters also because of the effect their collapse can have on the OS and Linux communities in general.
-Those that hate us will be quick to point out how OS does not work, blah.
-Lending institutions will be even harder to convince of the necessity of lending money for 'vaporware'.
-The next time an OS company needs help, there won't be much of a chance for it to succeed. In fact, they probably won't even try and will just lock the doors. That will leave a lot of people wondering if OS is such a good idea...
These are some facts and my opinions. I'm entitled to the latter(at least I am currently.)
A bank loan has to be paid back. That INCREASES debt and does not help.
They need less than 10% of the estimated 250,000+ users of ML to buy a Silver membership in the Club for 120USD to get them over this BIG hump. Then they will need another 20,000 to pay the next bill. At that point it is all up to MDK to keep it going and not get bitten again by seemingly good ideas from bad management. Current managemnet is doing a good job but need cash to resolve the last mgmnt screw-ups.
All totaled, if even 50% of the freeloaders would have given back $ome of what they have gained from the MDK distro, none of this would ever have happened.
er, wrong. There is nothing wrong with gcc-3.2. I have it and MDK9 and it works fine.
You must be confused with the (very) old gcc-2.96 issues that came up in the 8-series.
A bailout proves many things but most of all that the spirit of Open Source is alive and weel and we take care of those that take care of us.
These guys have put out _good_ distros for years and everyone has benefitted from that. Now is the time to give something back to them.
They have immediate debts that have to be paid to continue with the growth.
You know, s! like the electricity bill to run all those servers that people have been sucking dry for _years_ to get their free(as in beer) software rather than obtaining the free(as in GPL) software and returning $omething to them.
They deserve a pat on the back for the turn-around and a kick in the butt for not making it obvious that they were not going to get enough done soon enough.
They just got a new CEO and, I suspect, this appeal is partially his fault _because_ he told them that what they had done so far was NOT good enough. CEOs do that.
Mandrake _wants_ to be on a regular market. It is in their plans published at their site but they have to grow a bit more to get there.
Immediately, they have to survive this winter.
Hey, thanks for the comments. And, very good and observant ones too.
...
I, too, like the feel of a good hardback book and the quick and easy reference it can provide, assuming that I have read it and know where to look. I do get tired of online reading...
You're correct that InformIT does have _free_ books that are old. Linux _has_ come a long way since even 2000 and, consequently, some of the information is dated. The principles seem to be the same though, i.e., ls still works like ls did a long time ago and grep still greps, shell is still a shell(which most MSWin.x users don't know anything about), etc.
I bought "Running Linux" a couple of years ago- worst purchase I have ever made in a book. Except for a single page of reference to a couple of the VIM commands, it has helped me ZERO. Others really like it but I found the (then) *new* edition to be full of _very_ outdated info. I could have gotten the same info from InformIT for free. In fact, I did, later.
InformIT's list of free Linux books has decreased considerably. It had more than 2 dozen at one time but over the last couple of years, the "free" books have been cut quite a bit, mostly to eliminate books like "Installing RedHat 6.x" that have little to no value. They have kept some (not all) of the free books that are somewhat timeless. I think it was an editor's decision to remove the old-er books and that they might be at a low-ebb at this time - not sure.
It is also a financial issue which is where Safari takes over. Safari provides ~40 Linux specific books, many published this year and some within the last few months. All of those can be 'previewed' before purchase. Some pre-release books are also available. E.g., last year I read a great deal of Peter Norton's book on securing Linux _before_ it ever hit the press.
My major point is that Mandrake Linux has become so very easy to install and use that, with their manuals, a nOObie really does not need to buy the books first; buy the books _after_ finding out what they really need to know to get better at using Linux. Also, I was suggesting to read/preview as much as possible before purchasing any book (or software).
MandrakeSoft's manuals/documentation have come a long way in the last couple of years towards being more newbie-friendly. They still need work but they are working on them and the docs improve with each release.
Thanks again for the comments.
***
http://www.informit.com/isapi/product_id~{D2DC4A4F -FD63-414C-9140-6E8C603017C6}/st~{E4CD8850-0597-41 77-B459-A48B8F5332B9}/session_id~{544BBC32-9B38-42 B1-A9B7-D6D7A65C899A}/content/index.asp
and then type " man bash " at any CLI prompt.
BUT there are more there to read for free(online books ).
And, if that is not enough, the fast readers can read any of these FOURTY Linux booksfor free during a 14 day trial or take the Safari online trip and spend more time(&money).
InformIT rocks.
It's that the publisher offered money for insisting on the crappy title for his book
So, what's the difference?
The effect is the same!
If you cannot work out the logic, don't bother to troll.
Is that old news as it was posted in July on CNET, here which reportedly had 962 nodes and was/is an "Evolocity" cluster.
... (NetworX built it with 959 nodes and 2050 processors) in-addition-to "Pink" named after "Pink"
:?)
Is this one for the sister lab(LANL):
A powerful new 2,048-processor, $6 million Linux supercomputer is being built for the Los Alamos National Laboratory to run unclassified analyses and
-or- it it "Pink"
-or- is the post about another one that going to LLNL and has nothing to do with "Pink"?
Is that 2, 3 or 4 this year?
This is getting strange.
Extreme Linux at http://www.extremelinux.org/ seems to have vaporized (behind the LANL firewall, I suppose).
It also seems kind of odd that LinuxBIOS is not mentioned in these articles and is, IMO, a critical part of the builds as well as being an outstandingly innovative use of the Linux kernel.
I think I need a Beowulf cluster to figure this out and tell me ?WHY? LLNL and LANL are suddenly in need of more SC's that are in addition to the ones that they already have.
This book is not intended to be the only system administration material you ever study. Indeed, this book grew out of a course I have taught, an introduction to Unix system administration.
...or has very good installation and configuration documentation. (Red Hat and Mandrake Linux distributions are standouts in this regard.)
They ALL say that and it is still BS! It's a DISCLAIMER meaning 'I wanted to write a real book but XYZ publisher offered me just as much money to do one-fourth the work required to *really* teach the subject at hand. So if you screw your *, don't blame me.'
It is no different than the GPL except you have to PAY for it!
In fact, we're going to gloss over the question of installation,...
AYA cop-out. The real use of such a book would be HOW2 FIX a broken installation, which one cannot do if one does not know how to get the stuff installed in the first place.
A CIRCULAR reference! They claim that one should read other documentation and not depend upon what little they include. So, yes, they standout - as gibberish!
I believe that there are very few books in this world that should be burned but any book with the title starting as "Teach Yourself" and ending with "Hours" should be on the list.
The really sad part is that the poor librarians that have no technical skills order these books thinking that they could be good 'beginners' reference material and waste the funds from an already very limited budget.
I honestly still do not understand the marketing for these books. What kind of lamer would actually believe the title? It is completely ludicrous to buy into such nonsense.
After this book proves to be *just* as good as Zhang's "Teach Yourself c in 24 Hours" and the the other wonderful 'TY *Almost Anything* in a Day' books that are full of incredibly dangerous advice, they will publish 'TYUSA in 72 Hours' and then 'TYUSA in 1 Week' which will include some, but not all, of the authors' intended tutorials and corrections and still not cover the subject enough to be of any *REAL* value - unless you need a big paperweight on your desk.
SAMS used to be a good publisher and not let such books hit the market. Now it seems that they and MacMillin are bound to the almighty dollar, regardless of the consequences, preying upon those poor people that actually believe that college is for chumps.
I am a firm believer in TY because that is the most worthwhile benefit one can obtain from formal education. If one pays attention, the skill to learn many things by teaching oneself becomes second nature and you really can teach yourself the *basics* of many complicated subjects like USA; But, in ONE DAY???? -gimmme a break!
I admit to purchasing a 'TY' book by mistake. It came as part of 'Introduction to c'(Borland) package deal some years back. I learned nothing of value about c until I put it down and got some REAL references to use, after which I became AFRAID to reference it anymore.
Stay away from these 'TY * in 24hrs' books unless it is about a VERY simple subject and even then I would doubt the validity of the title.
WTH happened to truth in advertising??
Well, this is what happens when you screw around too long. FD.net, http://209.249.55.157/ , 'had' software capable of doing this in the palms of their hands...and it was near to being released as open source. Oh well, All's well that ends well...uh, this isn't ending well is it. ng