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A Community Takeover of Mandrake? 296

Posted by chrisd from the a-modest-proposal dept.
sombragris writes "Ben Reser wrote an interesting opinion about MandrakeSoft's current financial woes. Reser maintains that there's no great value in MandrakeSoft's current business model and that the best course of action for Mandrake Linux would be a community or non-profit takeover of the Mandrake distribution. Sounds definitely interesting..."
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A Community Takeover of Mandrake? More

A Community Takeover of Mandrake?

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  • It's one option (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ThoreauHD ( 213527 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:41PM (#5110613)
    From what I hear, the French version of Bankruptcy pretty much kills the business. Someone correct me if I'm worng, but it bears little resemblance to emergence from bankruptcy that US companies enjoy.

    Non-profit does sound like a good idea.

    • Re:It's one option (Score:5, Informative)

      by f97tosc ( 578893 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:48PM (#5110661)
      Someone correct me if I'm worng, but it bears little resemblance to emergence from bankruptcy that US companies enjoy.

      Well, US companies can file under chapter 7 or chapter 11. Under chapter 7, they are closed completely, but under chapter 11 they are allowed to continue to operate while they restructure their business.

      Many big and high-profile companies file under chapter 11, but in fact there are many more chapter 7 filings in total.

      Tor

    • Re:It's one option (Score:5, Informative)

      by spurious cowherd ( 104353 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:55PM (#5110693)
      according to the actual announcement [mandrakesoft.com] it looks very much like what we 'murkins would expect from Chapter 11

    • Re:It's one option (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mr.Ned ( 79679 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:56PM (#5110698)
      There was a comment at the Newsforge article which I think said the same thing - French bankruptcy is killer. I'm pretty sure there were several refutations about that, including one at Slashdot:

      http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=50817&cid=50 88 920

      Quote:
      ---
      Under French bankruptcy law these penalties [getting out of E-education contracts] would be voided and the remaining company (the company that sells a Linux distribution) would be viable.
      ---

      Things are probably not as bad as they seem.

      • Basically they will be a community linux no matter what, and will be a non profit no matter what.

        So it comes down to, what would you rather control, a commercial Linux that could actually make some money for us all, or would you rather own a non profit.

        I'd rather be subscribed to a commercial linux myself.

    • A better option! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by HanzoSan ( 251665 )


      Subscribe to the Mandrake Club.

      Lets face it, we will be paying the same amount of money regardless of if Mandrake is a for profit or not.

      Buy Stock, by owning stock if Mandrake is a for profit company and they ever do well, we all will get rich and be paid, so theres more incentive to do this than to just donate to a non profit which will never really make money back.

      By owning Mandrake as a company, we will have the power of shareholders, we will be able to control a commercial entity.

      We have no commercial linux which supports the community and we have enough debians and slackwares, newbies would understand supporting a company more so than trying to do the non profit thing.

      The best ideal situation for us would be to control a successful company in the industry. The only way to do this is to subscribe to Mandrake or buy stock.

      Subscribing gives you the same power as buying stock just without the $$ making benifits.

      Buying stock is just like donating money only you have a good chance of making your money back 3-4 years from now when the Desktop Linux market actually exists.

      Non Profit is an idea of last resort, but its certainly not a good idea. A non profit will have not even a quarter of the $$ support of a commercial entity.
    • I very much wish that HomeLife (a former division of Sears, still minority owned by Sears at the time of their bankrupcy, but spun off to avoid tarnishing the Sears name) was subject to French Law, if you are correct.

      I was robbed of several thousand dollars by unethical salesweasels who knew full well the company was going down the tubes but happily accepted my check for 7 grand in furniature. I got one piece, and a refund for less than half the remaining amount.

      Sears, of course, denies all responsibility "Look, we spun them off, see? our hands arent dirty!"

      Sears and whatever Homelife rematerializes into will never see a dime of my or my family's cash, and I wouldn't urinate on former employees of the Homelife store near me if they were on fire (and if they jaywalk in front of me they'd better pray to god that I don't recognize them).

      the thought that under French law the principals of Homelife would be broken and destitute, and likely never eat anything more interesting than a CHUNKY peanut butter sandwich appeals to me very much. Too bad it won't happen to them. Oh well, there's always the Karma they've gotten themselves.

      Mandrakes another case. It's my distro of choice, and I'm a member of the Club as well.
      • Sears and whatever Homelife rematerializes into will never see a dime of my or my family's cash, and I wouldn't urinate on former employees of the Homelife store near me if they were on fire (and if they jaywalk in front of me they'd better pray to god that I don't recognize them).

        So if a company you work for does something immoral you believe that everyone else has the right to treat you as subhuman?

  • Non-profit? (Score:5, Funny)

    by MeanMF ( 631837 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:44PM (#5110629) Homepage
    the best course of action for Mandrake Linux would be a community or non-profit takeover of the Mandrake distribution

    It sounds like they're already being run by a non-profit organization...

    • Re:Non-profit? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 )
      It sounds like they're already being run by a non-profit organization...

      Unfortunately, that's likely the reason Mandrake got into financial problems in the first place. In my opinion they forgot that old maxim, that "free software" means freedom, not price. They offered for free what anyone could download. Had they sold their product commercially, along with the source code in accordance with the GPL, they would have had more paying customers. In this case, distributing the source code would allow hackers more room to tinker, but the binary cd and installation still would be infinately more useful (and necessary).

      I don't understand this business about the GPL not being able to be successful; no one else can make money for your work, 90% of the customers don't want the source, and even if they do a binary copy is still important as well. Consider how much harder it would be to 'pirate' a distribution from it's source than from the binaries.

      • Re:Non-profit? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by MeanMF ( 631837 )
        Had they sold their product commercially, along with the source code in accordance with the GPL, they would have had more paying customers. In this case, distributing the source code would allow hackers more room to tinker, but the binary cd and installation still would be infinately more useful (and necessary).

        Since they're distributing under the GPL, they can't put any restrictions on what can and can't be redistributed. The GPL says that the source code must be available along with binaries, but it also says [fsf.org] that anybody can make the binaries available for free as well. If they want to restrict access to binary versions, they would have to release under something other than the GPL. Given the fuzzy distinction [fsf.org] between "aggregating" and "combining" software for distribution, this might be tricky to pull off without risking legal problems.

      • Re:Non-profit? (Score:5, Informative)

        by jbolden ( 176878 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @11:08PM (#5111329) Homepage
        When Mandrake was selling software they were doing quite well. The software division still turns a good profit. The debts from the e-Learning contracts are what is killing the software.

    • Mandrakes Business plan is GOOD (Score:5, Interesting)

      by HanzoSan ( 251665 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @09:31PM (#5110862) Homepage Journal


      Lindows is using the same business plan. Thats get subscribers and sell the services.

      However, Mandrake screwed up in their budget early on, and ran out of money. IF Mandrake dies all the Mandrake users will be forced to use Lindows or Lycoris.

      Honestly, I think Mandrake has the perfect business plan for a Desktop Linux, Mandrake just needs investor support, if a company were willing to give Mandrake 5 million dollars of investment Mandrake would be profitable in a matter of months..

      • Re:Mandrakes Business plan is GOOD (Score:4, Insightful)

        by AxelTorvalds ( 544851 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @10:18PM (#5111091)
        However, Mandrake screwed up in their budget early on, and ran out of money. IF Mandrake dies all the Mandrake users will be forced to use Lindows or Lycoris.

        Why is that? The more likely reality of it is most of them will use Redhat, or a UnitedLinux product.

        It's also entirely possible that there will be a community lead effort similar to debian. They already have an insane amount of RPM contributions and such.



        • Desktop users dont use Redhat or United Linux, they want something for the desktop,not for hosting servers.
          • Desktop users dont use Redhat or United Linux, they want something for the desktop,not for hosting servers.

            Uhm no. Desktop users do use Red Hat, and Red Hat isn't a server distribution. It is a desktop distribution. It's install is very easy, just as easy as Mandrake.

            I use Mandrake, and I'm a software developer. I like an operating system that works. Red Hat works, Mandrake works, Debian works. These are all operating systems that are, in fact, easy to install.


            • Ok Mr. Software developer you sure do represent the casual user.

              Now go compile some software or something.
              • Ok Mr. Software developer you sure do represent the casual user.

                What about my girlfriend who uses KDE? How does Lindows support Japanese input? Is it as easy as it is in Red Hat or Mandrake? Especially if she buys it from WalMart?

                I'm not that different than a casual user, because when I'm not programming, I am that casual user. I check my email, browse the web, use AIM. It doesn't matter to me what system I use as long as it works. I do not want to mess around with any form of system maintenance when I need to work, or when I just want to relax and read the news.

                My servers are for customization and optimization, a desktop computer is supposed to work. Red Hat does that very well.
                • Im sorry but oyu aren't that casual user even when you check your email, browse the web, or use AIM. As someone who understands linux your use of the OS will be much different than someone who doesn't. Personally i like oyu understand the system but wheni try to show people around linux they use it in much different ways. Linux is still at a point where it wonk just always work. It wont usually crash such as windows but it also requirs more knowledge just to get it to run. It seems to me to be very easy to jsut check email under linux and at first i assumed anyone could do it untill i saw people try. They have difficulty and it made me realize no matter what i wont see a computer just like any casual user.

        • Re:Mandrakes Business plan is GOOD (Score:4, Insightful)

          by fucksl4shd0t ( 630000 ) on Sunday January 19, 2003 @12:05AM (#5111570) Homepage Journal

          It's also entirely possible that there will be a community lead effort similar to debian. They already have an insane amount of RPM contributions and such.

          IMHO, iif (and I say if) Mandrake dies, then the best thing to do is take their fancy control panel and graphical installer and shove them up debian's ass. Since that's really the only thing that differentiates Mandrake from Debian, then take the good stuff and give it to Debian. Then all the packagers can go learn how to make debian packages and so forth. Rather than having another volunteer distribution. I'm all for choice, but what about the idiocy of duplicating work?


          • Debian has a text based installer with very very old files, its never up to date.

            Why even compare the two.

            Not to mention mandrake uses rpm.
            • Apt and Synaptic have been ported to Mandrake, and work really well. As a little debian user (through Libranet and Knoppix), I love apt-get and also love Mandrake for its great community support.

              You can find apt and synaptic for Mandrake 9.0 here [ibiblio.org] thanks to Texstar [pclinuxonline.com].

              I'd hate to see Mandrake die, I believe it's the best all-round distro around, easy to install yet powerful, a great learning tool.

              Cheer,
              max
      • I can't see them turning out a profit. Since they released their stock, they have been burning money with not too much to show for it. Every release they had some new scheme to try to get more money, albeit the Members club, flat out donation begging, or a last cry for money. Granted that the economy all over the world is hurting, but it still depends on how you spend the money.
        I think the turning point came when they still wanted to use StarOffice with their distro. As we all now it became a "pay-for" app at roughly $60! So all the silver members (people who paid $60 for that membership) were excluded from downloading StarOffice, they had to upgrade their membership. That is what totally stopped me, why did they no switch to Open Office?
        Second, they are not known for great stability or a streamlined install. They always seemed to be a working Beta than a Full Release by the lack of this performance.
        Any how I hope the programmers fir the distro can find good jobs else were. I don't care for the distro, but the programmers that put it together obviously have some more to contribute to the community, just hope it is in their schedule.

        • Mandrake did not "burn" money, look at their revenue increases and their costs of running the company decrease.

          Mandrake can be profitable, the mandrake club "IS" their revenue stream and source of income. Its a community OS, not a corperate OS, if you want corporate control of linux go support redhat.
      • Personally i do agree that we need to support Mandrake right now but i dont think they really need it that bad. I know this situation is enough to get me to finally join mandrake club after leeching ISO's and lovin' em. Buying stock is not the best idea becuase it can cause you to get screwed out of money you should normally expect a return on. The mandrake club is the best because you know that your money is gone and you know what your getting for it.

        The key that most people aren't realizing is that MandrakeSoft didn't lose money off selling the OS. In fact they are making good money off the OS and club memberships. They lost money on their e-learning business. This unbalanced their bank account and all they need is what they are doing. They are going through a restructuring bankruptcy. Once they have cut out some of the bad investments they made they will be right back. They aren't going anywhere, they are just trying to get back to making money.

  • Mandrake's Demise (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Acidic_Diarrhea ( 641390 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:45PM (#5110634) Homepage Journal
    Ultimately, it doesn't matter if a "community" takes over Mandrake or if a non-profit organization does. The company has a flawed design. When you associate yourself with what is called "free software", then consumers will be confused and your product will not sell. Let's be honest - if you google on Linux, you get information that says FREE SOFTWARE. Managers can do this much research, and no more, and will be confused about the "free" aspect of Linux. This amounts to a product driven by people who are advocating open source and the free distribution of products.

    A manager would much rather spend money and get a lot of Microsoft product than try to understand why Linux is free. I don't care what you want to say, the savings are too great. They become confused by this and don't have any interest in Linux because of the price. Now, until "free software" and "Linux" are entirely separated, Linux won't be mainstream. I know this may sound like an awful thing to say but it is true.

    • Re:Mandrake's Demise (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Fnkmaster ( 89084 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:54PM (#5110682)
      Though you resemble a troll in certain respects, I'm inclined to think you have some decent points (in fact, your insight into the mid-level management mindset leads me to believe you either are one yourself or have had an inordinate amount of experience with the most small-minded from that set).


      MandrakeSoft has perhaps taken too strong of a position spouting off about Free-this, Free-that. You and I here on Slashdot understand that Linux is about Free Software (or Open Source, depending on which idealogical leaning you have, pro-RMS or anti-RMS). Freedom is important, Freedom is worthwhile. However, Freedom is not the same as Marketing. Selling a product is about Marketing. As I've stated before, I think MandrakeSoft would be much better off if they started charging for ISOs (or rather, making ISOs available only to MandrakeClub members), and starting focusing on marketing to businesses and home users, and spit-shining their product (get their fucking QA people in line for god's sake, and use your brain before you stamp a release as ready-to-go). If somebody in the community wants to put together a FreeDrake ISO with MandrakeSoft RPMS, let em. Hell, they could do that now, and put some spit-shine on the stuff. But they don't. People use Mandrake, and like it. They need to start capitalizing on their popularity among geeks who want a desktop Linux distro that Just Works (newbies and others), and broaden their damned market appeal and start selling some shit. If they don't, somebody else will. And my fear is that it will be Lindows or somebody equally smarmy. Ugh.

      • Being able to decide where the distro goes is actually a really significant service. Also, being able to request rpms is really great too

        (I requesteed a starcon 2 rpm, and it only took a week! starcon 2! starcon 2!)

        But I do agree that they should be more careful if they are going to sell plastic wrap. In fact, I think they should do the opposite: Stop selling package wrapped distros and focus on creating services and specific products like that firewall product they created. I always thought Open Source was about selling services, not software. They are trying to do both, and it is kind of cancelling out each other.

        Anyway, I hope ch. 11 (or the French equavalent) will force them to make these hard decisions and focus on one strategy. I personally hope they return to those humble times when they were profitable and put out an awsome single cd distro.

        I'll be making my opinion known over at the Mandrakeclub site if anyone needs me . . .

        Don't blame me, my English wasn't this bad before I started coming to slashdot.
    • It's amazing how much companies will spend for products that have low resource, rock solid, and free alternatives that are often times superior to the paid version. Jabber VS SecureIM, for example, or Zone Alarm VS BlackICE, Crimson Editor, Chokkin & Pettan, Putty, Pegasus Mail, YAPS... There is a perception of quality issue when trying to evaluate a product that doesn't cost anything. Managers are used to $100 widgets being better than $50 widgets. Free widgets are always junk. The software world is a very different place, and (fortunately) many of the very best things are free. Furthermore, a manager's time is worth, in theory, more than they are paid. So that $300 savings they made by using GuildFTP as their organization's internal FTP server is offset by the 4 hours it took to find and test all of the available freeware FTP servers.

      Linux's selling point should be that it is Open, not that it is free. $200 is how much that manager will pay the user of that computer before lunch.

  • Donations (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Klerck ( 213193 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:45PM (#5110636) Homepage
    Well, may as well not let all those donations go to waste and put the people who donated (the people who cared) in charge of something. Maybe the people who really care about Mandrake can turn it around?

  • Debian (Score:5, Insightful)

    by arikb ( 106153 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:45PM (#5110640) Homepage
    There is already a 'community' based distro. If Mandrake is to go down, maybe it's best to combine the effort put into Mandrake into Debian [debian.org]?

    I can see the fights over the GNU/Mandrake/Debian (or is it GNU/Debian/Mandrake) name.

    • Re:Debian (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Chris Canfield ( 548473 ) <slashdot@@@chriscanfield...net> on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:50PM (#5110668) Homepage
      While I agree that Debian and Mandrake would be an interesting marriage, I hardly think it is an appropriate one. How many years of testing does Debian do before they will put a package into Stable? And Mandrake? Mandrake is an ultra-easy to use distro. Debian is an ultra-easy to administer distro. While I would like to see a lot more bleed between the distros, I seriously doubt the two would survive the honeymoon. Still, an affair might bear fruit.
      • How many years of testing does Debian do before they will put a package into Stable? And Mandrake?

        While I agree that this seems like Debian is hardly appropriate for the desktop, keep in mind you don't need to run stable to use a Debian system. Unstable is more than stable enough for most desktop purposes and testing is even more solid.

        The benefits Mandrake's input into Debian would be made in unstable and would benefit people like me who use unstable on the desktop. Eventually, they'd make it into stable years down the road, but the people on the desktop would still have the benefit of the then unstable release for the then modern linux software.

        It's not fair to take away from Debian on the desktop just because only Unstable has the most recent software.

        -N

        • I ran testing for a long time with much success as a standard desktop, and know several business who rely upon stable for their desktops. Together, Debian would benifit from Mandrake's install tools, and Mandrake would benifit greatly from apt-get. X would have to be stripped for server installs, but X doesn't start automatically now anyway.

          The problem, though, is trying to avoid growing into an XP: the server/Desktop OS that is a marriage of convienience rather than love. Debian is great because the developers are hardcore netjunkies serving the interests of admins everywhere. Mandrake is great because of a devotion to producing the easiest, simplest, purest linux desktop experience. If you marry those two, you get something that isn't particularly focused on either important target, though you risk destroying two of the best distros available. Better to have frequent interludes of cross pollination than a full code-synch.

          -C

    • Re:Debian (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ThoreauHD ( 213527 )
      I'd go for that with the desktop freindly branch of Debian with the GPL'd Mandrake toolsets/control panel and the option for more recent packages. That would be pretty slick.
      • I completely agree with this. Even without a merge, it would be very nice to see Mandrake people go over to develop Debain. Debian is great, but Mandrake is very user friendly and easy to use. A distro with the quality and stability of Debian along with the UI knowhow of Mandrake (making graphical front ends for stuff, arranging menus, making GUI programs to do all sorts of system administration, etc) would be great. I haven't used Mandrake in a while but I have to say I've missed their "control panels" type things more than a few times.
    • "I can see the fights over the GNU/Mandrake/Debian (or is it GNU/Debian/Mandrake) name."

      As if that would be the only fight. Do you realize how many LUG members will literally burst into flames if Debian hooked up with Mandrake?

      "Debian is the one, true dist... er, wait... Avoid Mandrake like the plague! Download Debi... er... um... Windows Me? ARGH! NOTHING MAKES SENSE ANY MORE!"

      My God, think of the carnage! It will make the GNOME/KDE flamewars look like... I don't know... vi/emacs...

    • Re:Debian (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jbolden ( 176878 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @11:22PM (#5111385) Homepage
      I gather you are a Debian user. The cultures of the distros are really dis-similar. Lets start:

      1) Mandrake started as a Redhat + KDE. In many ways Mandrake is the "home" distribution for KDE. Conversely Debian and Redhat are the core supporters of Gnome.

      2) Mandrake was one of the first to compile to Pentium; Debian still compiles to 386. Mandrake would naturally after the 2.6 kernel (which is going to require a recompile) probably set up Pentium III required optomized for the Pentium 4.

      3) Mandrake tends to be feature rich QA poor. Debian is almost exactly the opposite.

      4) Mandrake is RPM based debian is APT based. Though Mandrake isn't religious about this. However one of the key tools unique to Mandrake is an application control center which would be worthless with RPM.

      5) Mandrake has never concerned itself with producing a similar feel on multiple platforms. The PPC version of Mandrake was designed for PPC users and had features not present in the x86 version that would be important for PPC customers (Wine sort of thing for MacOS, netatalk installed be default...). Debian conversely wants the distribution to be very close on all platforms. While not quite as extreme as NetBSD they certainly don't see the PPC version of Debian as a seperate but related product from the x86 version of Debian. In general they won't include software that doesn't work on multiple platforms.

      Probably the best thing would be for Debian Desktop to just grab the Mandrake Wizards and use them. Perhaps they might want to consider Mandrake's automatic security level scripts. That's the only contributions I can see Mandrake making to Debian that they would want. In the other direction I think RedHat not Debian remains the best place for Mandrake to get support.

      • 1) Mandrake started as a Redhat + KDE. In many ways Mandrake is the "home" distribution for KDE. Conversely Debian and Redhat are the core supporters of Gnome.

        Huh? Debian is a "supporter" of Gnome just as much as it is a "supporter" of KDE or a "supporter" of GNU fileutils. In all cases, if there is a Debian developer who produces packages that conform to Debian policy (and are legal to distribute), it goes in.

        People tried to portray Debian as anti-KDE since it refused to ship KDE before Qt was GPL, but any accusations of anti-KDEism were empiracally disproven when Debian started shipping KDE the moment Qt was GPL.

  • Yeah, let the community have it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RailGunner ( 554645 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:46PM (#5110642) Journal
    Hopefully, the community can take over the Mandrake Distro. Mandrake has the reputation of being once of the easiest distros to get up and running, and with KDE 3 it's definately something that could appeal to Mom & Pop AOL'er.

    It would be a shame for Mandrake to go the way of the dodo, so I personally hope that members of the community step up and support it.

    Personally, I use Mandrake 9. Previously, I was running Red Hat 7.3, and since I didn't like what Red Hat did to KDE (which I prefer to GNOME, though GNOME is definately not without its merits), I decided to give Mandrake a try - and I've been running it since. Other Linux distros would do well to take a look at Mandrake and see how easy they make it to install and set up a Linux box. While not for everybody*, the drakconf utilities can be extremely useful.

    *Perl script wizards need not apply!

    • I agree. Mandrake is the only Linux distribution I was ever able to get to install. It shouldn't go to waste.

      Is there any closed-source stuff in the distribution? Is the installer open-source? Mandrake Control Center?

      If it's all open-source, then what's the big deal? Just fork it. It would be nice, but not vital, if the user community could cough up enough money to keep, say, one former Mandrake coder employed full time. But there are other distributions that work on an all-volunteer basis.

      But if there's important closed-source stuff in there, then I don't see how it can happen. The parent company and all the creditors will presumably want to monetarize all Mandrake's assets, not give them away for free.

  • Let Mandrake Die (Score:3, Interesting)

    by slasher999 ( 513533 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:47PM (#5110644)
    After using Mandrake for a few releases (6.1 - 9.0) I can honestly say the world won't - or shouldn't - miss it. It maybe nice for the Linux newbie, but even they deserve better quality that Mandrake shipped with. Out of all of those distros, I had 3D support that worked in one - 7.2 I believe. Fonts were always a complete mess. Package names were changed from their defaults (ie RedHat names) for no apparent reseaon. Bleeding edge in some ways, but a little too much bleeding and not enough edge most of the time.
    • I think you can keep this kind of s*** into your head. I had mostly *not any issue* with Mandrake since I started to use it (5.2) and I'm very happy with Mandrake 9.0 while Red Hat 8.0 freezes all the time on the same machines.

    • Re:Let Mandrake Die (Score:4, Informative)

      by Amich ( 542141 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @09:22PM (#5110816)
      While I am no slouch when it comes to Linux, Mandrake is the only distribution I will use. I refuse to spend hours of my time editing config files which I can simply click Mandrake Control Center and have everything working in 5 minutes. Out of at least a dozen systems I've installed Mandrake 9 to, in each case, after install, the system was 100% usable, all hardware autodetected, autoconfigred, etc. Saved me tons of time. Why anyone would WANT to piddle with config file when they don't have to is beyond me - and if config file editing is your thing, what's keeping you from doing that in Mandrake?

      3d issues? I've never had a problem with 3d in Mandrake. I download the Nvidia RPMs and go. On my ATI system, the dirvers were automatically installed. I've never had a problem running games such as UT2003, RTCW, or Counter-Strike (through WineX).

      If Mandrake dies, I will be faced with a tough choice. I had problems with RedHat (plus I'm a KDE nut),SUSE refused to work properly with my video card (an nVidia card), and I don't think I'd like Lindows or Xandros (though I'd try them if Mandrake died). I would probably end up going to Windows, something that I swore I would never do.

      So, all of you wanting Mandrake dead - just remember that if Mandrake dies, a LOT of people (their employees as well as their users) will be left out in the cold.

      -Jim
      "Amich"
    • On the other hand the features that I found useful were handled perfectly by Mandrake.

      It does a lot of things (desktop and server related) really well. For example it was the first distro that out of the box worked with my video card, scsi card, sound card, ReiserFS partition and FreeSWan connection. Right now I'm using Gentoo just because it's easier for me to administer but I still think Mandrake deserves a lot more credit than it's given.
  • Mandrake is one of my favorite distros. Most of the people I know use it(and love it). The simple fact is Mandrake should have been non-profit the whole time. The majority of its users are those learning linux, not major enterprises that pay RedHat or some other company thousands of dollars for support. Mandrake is a desktop OS. The only way it could ever survive as a for-profit is taking up the SuSE model. No complete install ISO's, make people go through the long(IMHO) FTP install, and charge for disks, and include something to make it worthwile to buy the boxed edition.
  • "For the future, we are thinking about a "Mandrake Foundation" which would be a non-profit organization that focuses on developing the Mandrake Linux distribution exclusively...[...]"

    http://www.ofb.biz/modules.php?name=News&file=arti cle&sid=162 [ofb.biz]

    I think a non-profit organization is something that could actually fit the ideals of Mandrake Linux, and according to this interview, it's a project that MandrakeSoft had for a long time. I think it could work, especially if it's launched by MandrakeSoft team.

    • I disagree

      I think mandrake should stay for profit, and just have a non profit foundation be formed for development purposes to hire extra developers.

    • I'd like to see a "Mandrake Foundation" like Duval mentiones in there. Have it a non-profit organisation that does development, and have it paid by the MandrakeCluband others, and MandrakeSoft which sells boxed sets as a for-profit.
      That would give much more security for the distro itself.

      On a second note, there were some interesting comments on the different Mandrake mailinglists.
      Mandrake can already choose to build a non-profit organisation. Just let MandrakeSoft die, set up a non-profit. Get all the open-source software from the cvs server, and there you go. Nobody could stop them if they wanted to, and they wouldn't have massive debts from their previous management.
      It might not be the best solution though. It will piss off some investors, which are often users that have shares of MandrakeSoft. It might scare away partners that they have. It might break the social structure of the company, the employers and the contributors.
      But actually, they could do this right away, but they don't. So they must have a reason for it. Probably because there is a chance that the company can go on after this Chapter 11 thing is over. Or because they are working hard to form a non-profit behind the schemes, and we'll see breaking news tomorrow :-)

      My personal preference is to wait for MandrakeSoft to make steps. If the company continues, I expect them to evolve into partly non-profit and partly for-profit. If the company goes under, I expect they do take steps to setup a non-profit. Probably in cooperation with Ben Reser.

  • if it comes to that, sounds like a good idea (Score:4, Insightful)

    by timothy ( 36799 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:51PM (#5110670) Journal
    I have been using / recommending Mandrake (among other distributions of the GNU/Linux/xf86 smorgasbord) for several years. Mandrake (IMO) for a long time was the easiest of the mainstream Linux distros to install, had the friendliest desktop once installed, too. Note that this is largely subjective, and you may think that Slackware with no GUI is the best -- so be it :) Lately, I find myself using RH 8 more than any other system, though, so my appreciation of Mandrake is not *too* slavish ;)

    That said, I hope that the current bankruptcy filing means consolidation rather than dissolution. Let's say it does, though: if Mandrake sinks, then I hope that a lot of good things about Mandrake are either a) maintained in one place as this article suggests or b) looked at thoughtfully by the makers of other distros.

    Attention to user friendliness is the way I'd sum up Mandrake's best qualities, and (even though it's not part of the distro per se) the mandrakeforum.com website is one I wish more distros would emulate. PHPnuke / postnuke / slashcode -- whichever! -- systems with actual company involvement are a good idea, in computer or any other business. They're a good way to make announcements, to help users help each other, etc.

    timothy

  • Full Circle (Score:3, Insightful)

    by betasaur ( 12453 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:52PM (#5110675)
    All good distributions started out as a community project. Most great ones still are...

  • Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ucblockhead ( 63650 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:54PM (#5110687) Homepage Journal
    Aren't there already plenty of community run distributions? It seems to me that there are too many these days, not too few. For evolution, you need to not only produce variations, you need to weed out the weak.

    It would make more sense to me to carve it up for parts, taking those parts of it that are worthwhile into other distributions, commercial like Red Hat and non-commercial like Debian, and then letting the distribution itself die. The fragmentation of distributions is already annoying.

    And frankly, if I ever see another damn "mdk" rpm again, it will be too soon.
    • There's nothing standard for hardware detection, and there should be.

      Libdetect, made by Mandrake, is coming close. If Mandrake dies, that project will be taken up in a heartbeat by its supporters in Mandrake for a move to other distros.

      Then we can all have it.

      Not that Debian, Gentoo and Slackware users aren't trying right now...

      Eventually, complaints will get smaller and smaller until choice of distro is only a matter of which packages are on the distro's source tree.

      And even that might go away if all the distros start adding support for source based package installation straight from the supplier's websites.

  • why not fold into Debian? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jab ( 9153 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:54PM (#5110690) Homepage
    If you really wanted to go the non-profit route, why don't the Mandrake folks fold their efforts into the Debian project? Debian has a "Debian for Kids" subproject, a "Debian for Medicine" subproject, and even a desktop subproject - which could especially benefit quite a bit from the Mandrake community's programming firepower and desktop expertise. I think it would be a good move rather than have competing non-profits. My personal opinion - and that as a Debian developer - is that subprojects and subdistributions are a great use of economy of scale. I think it could work out well even despite some initial cultural differences. :)

  • *MandrakeSoft* launched the MDK Foundation idea... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18, 2003 @08:58PM (#5110705)
    I read that in a recent interview of Mandrake Linux founder Gaël Duval at Ofb.biz:
    Interview [ofb.biz]:
    For the future, we are thinking about a "Mandrake Foundation" which would be a non-profit organization that focuses on developing the Mandrake Linux distribution exclusively. It would be financed partly by Club memberships and/or donations and/or by a "Street performer"-like system, and partly by companies that make money with Mandrake products, including MandrakeSoft. We think this approach would be much clearer for everyone to understand, and would also provide a more secure future for the Mandrake Linux distribution. It would also help MandrakeSoft become a more successful and profitable company by cutting most of its development costs.

  • The problem, as I see it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Squidgee ( 565373 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @09:05PM (#5110736)
    is that, while this would push Mandrake into rapid developement, it would most likely lose sight of its user-friendly goals, and move toward the road of Slack or Debian (Both extremely good, but complicated).

    IMHO, if Mandrake is to become as user-friendly as it hopes, Mandrake needs a contingint of professional coders/GUI designers. If it becomes non-profit, Mandrake will only be coded by hackers.

    Not to look down on hackers; I'm one myself, but I'm making a serious effort to move my programs toward user-friendliness and performance. But hackers will not make a user-friendly OS with a good GUI; they will make a hugely powerful OS with a ugly, horribly unintuitive interface, and complete user-hostility. Mind you, this isn't a bad thing; for things like servers, no problem. But Mandrake is aimed for the desktop, and that will just not do.

    I'd hate to see Mandrake go, as it had a great goal. But I fear if it goes this route, it will fade into the sunset, a lot like Slack sadly has.

    • First, Slackware has NOT faded into the sunset! It's still going strong, with Pat V working on Slack 9. However, I agree that Mandrake's strength is ease-of-use, and there's no point in scrapping that. We already HAVE Slackware & Debian for power-users. Mandrake's niche is the desktop.
    • Thank you for posting this. And to add to your point, Mandrake has always been open. People could have started up Openmandrake anytime in the past. Why didn't they? Because there was some kind of value added in paying developers to code that did not exist in the free developer environment (mainly, easy hardware detection and easy to use interfaces). I mean, Debian is proof of what a distro becomes when nobody is paying the developers (I mean this is a positive way. Debian is pure technology, but this is not attractive to some users).

      I think Mandrakeclub addresses this issue, and we will soon see a 9.1 version coming from a profitable, but very humble Mandrakesoft this spring. They will still be paying off debts for the next year or so, but they will, hopefully, have returned to a simpler time when life was just about getting an easy distro available to the public.

      That is why I am a Silver member for the next 584 days and will probably renew way before that period is up. Call me stupid, but what do I have to loose? I am still paying MUCH less than I would have for MS, and I am helping others have an excellent distro for free. And for someone who will never get his name written down in history books, this will be as close as I can ever get to having an effect on the world.

      Anyway,thanks again for the great post.
    • The problem with people coding tools for themselves is that they know too well how the code works - they are at the defining end of the learning curve. I remember being a tester on a project, and rattling off the name of a sub-sub-sub-sub menu to a producer along with a procedure that any of the other testers would have understood. His blank stare made me wonder if I was so experienced with the product that I had lost any idea of how people actually used it.

      -C
  • Now that Apple has entered the area of Unix computing, they would make an excellent customer to buy out all of Mandrake's capital such as software, hardware, office furnishings, etc.

    Apple could take Mandrake's slick new graphical installer, Konqueror Web browser, and other great pieces of software made by the French developers and really make their OS X product shine.

    I think this sounds pretty feasible, and could at least serve as a nice parting gift to the Mandrake creators as they enter unemployment.

    It's sad things have come to this, but at least get out while you can. I admire the Mandrake folks and think they changed the Linux world, community, and followers forever.

    Computing will never be the same, and we have Mandrake to thank. It's just a shame things didn't end up better.
    • I don't think Apple has entered the area of Unix computing so much as they poured millions of dollars down a number of high profile sinkholes (Taligent, Pink, whatever the rest of those cute codename projects they had back in the early nineties that completely failed....) and finally gave up and threw a GUI layer on top of NextOS because that's the best they could do.

    • Why would Apple spend money to buy software they could get for free, or crusty hardware they wouldn't ever use? Or, desks that they would have to ship halfway around the world?

      Why is it every time a computer company is in trouble, someone roots for another company they like to buy it out? I've seen it here so many times it makes me sad. Here are the ones I remember off the top of my head:

      "Why doesn't Apple buy Mandrake?"
      "Why doesn't Apple buy SGI?"
      "Why doesn't IBM buy Eazel?"
      "Why doesn't IBM buy Loki?"
      "AOL should buy Red Hat."
      "HP should buy Compaq."

      Uhhhmm...forget that last one. But get over it. Companies don't acquire unprofitable debt-ridden companies unless the payoff is worthwhile.

  • The best way to take over mandrake (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HanzoSan ( 251665 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @09:15PM (#5110783) Homepage Journal


    Buy their stock.

    Subscribe to the Mandrake Club.

    By doing these two things Mandrake will remain operational, but they will be forced to obey you because if they dont you'll just unsubcribe or sell your shares, not to mention you can sue them.

    I want Mandrake to be a private company because this allows them certain freedoms. I'd rather support a private company which can benifit from the features of capitalism, one reason is because we all can earn money by owning their stock while no one earns any money by just having them be a non profit.

    second if we do it like this, we can buy other companies if we ever get enough power. All we'd have to do is pressure Mandrake.

    We dont need another community Linux, we have Debian, Slackware, Ark Linux. We need a commercial Linux for the desktop thats supported by the community.
    • Hanzosan, you just posted this exact comment just a few postings up. here [slashdot.org]

      • Not exactly the same word for word, just the same ideas and opinions.

        Each comment gives different details but the main idea I'm pushing is, we should just support Mandrake, they exist, they have employees, and currently we have the power.

        It would be better for us as a community to run a for profit company, it would also prove that its a viablee business model.

        We can let Mandrake die, but Lindows will just take its place, I'd prefer Mandrake compete with Lindows than to give Lindows a monopoly.

        Mandrake is only dying because it ran out of money, not because of a flawed business model, it sucks to see a company which could be profiting which isnt.
  • There is value in the Mandrake distribution, installation and name. Are the investors in Mandrake supposed to just give that value away after losing their money?
  • 1. File for bankruptcy protection
    2. ???
    3. Profit!!
  • Make getting their ISOs harder.
    Somehow parolling them or putting to easily slashdotted servers or... ( a lot of options).
    I downloaded Mandrake ISOs most of the time, while in December I finally bought Mandrake 9
    Power Pack off the shelf. If it would be a little harder to get those ISOs - it would be more options for me to convince my management to buy packaged Mandrake.

  • the question is (Score:4, Insightful)

    by asv108 ( 141455 ) <asvNO@SPAMivoss.com> on Saturday January 18, 2003 @09:48PM (#5110922) Homepage Journal
    Would the community be able to release a good consumer oriented distro? Community efforts have led to the release of great software, but there is a tendency to focus on solutions for the people writing the software, which is only natural. How would usability, graphics, and interface design folks be integrated in to a development team for Mandrake?

    Most of the OSS projects that are polished enough for the average joe are products that were either started as closed sourced and opened up or are managed by a OSS company. Mozilla and Staroffice are good examples of closed -> open. Ximian's products are good examples of OSS managed by a company.

    What is a good example of a community application that was developed entirely by a community and has the polish and interface of a major closed soured project and is targeted towards the average clueless user? I guess Gnome and KDE could be good examples but what other apps are out there besides window environments? There is lots of great OSS software out there but not many community projects have a professional look and are targeted towards non-techies.

  • The community already * has* Mandrake! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aquarian ( 134728 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @09:57PM (#5110944)
    It's open source, isn't it? At least as far as I can tell -- the only things that aren't free/OSS are the third party apps included with the pay-for product. The basic distribution, and the neat Mandrake installer and admin tools that make Mandrake Mandrake are all free/OSS. Correct me if I'm wrong...
  • Since Redmond is doing such a good job of preventing the Dells, HPs, Gateways from bundling Linux: Maybe Mandrake should partner with a start-up computer maker to sell and support a really good "(Mandrake) Linux on the Desktop" machine and be the first one on the block. Look what a little head start did for M$>
  • I like Mandrake a lot. My path went SLS to Slackware to Redhat to Mandrake with 2 Debian machines thrown in. I'm a kernel hacker and an embedded programmer and have been on UNIX since the mid-1980's. I've also got a few of degrees, including an advanced one. I'm not Alan Cox or Linus but I'm not exacly a newbie either. Technically, until 8.2, Mandrake was on par with anything. I've yet to hear a substantiated argument that it's not, just hearsay from people who couldn't get their sound to work or install fonts and probably, IMO, couldn't properly adminstrate any version of Linux or UNIX. Please follow up if you want to refute this point. I'm only bringing it up because I'm sick of the bashing going on, go bash UnitedLinux or those pricks at Lindows.

    Out of the box, it comes more secure than I tend to believe Redhat or SuSE does; particularly with the high and paranoid options. It's easy to set up and they have a ton of contrib packages, I rarely find them lacking an RPM for anything, which is very important for RPM based distributions, nothing can screw them up faster than willy-nilly compiling and installation of packages from source that the RPM database can't manage. I like that packages are there when you want them.

    Now there are some stylistic things, but I can't find anything to complain about with Mandrake that I couldn't complain about in all non-BSD platforms. It's also just style, if you're admining all day then you're probably not writing code or being productive. I don't know maybe I'm not "IT department" enough to be able to bitch about admining a box. I throw Linux on a box and write code. I guess if you don't like graphics for some reason or really dislike GUIs then you probably wouldn't be happy with Mandrake. Big deal. Again, follow up with some specifics if you'd like to refute this.

    Now in the 8.2 days I personally think they lost a bit of their edge, primarily because they've been running like a bat out of hell from financial problems and because Redhat is looking hard at the desktop and produced a killer app with blue curve. Nothing that can't be fixed but definitely not the same quality we were used to. Also there has been a lot more input and submissions from the user community at large. 9.0 is a bit better and you can easily see them getting back to form as they get used to the new operation style. It already looks like a community driven distribution. So what do you mean Ben? Do you want to fork? Go for it, like you've said, their code is GPL, I might go with you. Are you asking for someone to rise to the occasion and start driving project "Freedrake"? Or are you throwing salt in the wounds? I don't want them to go away exactly but I'm not sure what you're advocating here.

  • From what I read in Ben's article he is basicly advocating that the community hijack Mandrake. I assume that "Mandrake" is trademarked so they would have to call it something else but it could be done. I not sure why it has to be nonprofit or community based. Its GPL'd is in not? No rule saying you can't rename it something else and become a startup again.

    Mandrake is a fork off of Red hat is it not?

    I like Mandrake and use if for basic samba file servers and my own desktop. I would be more suportive of a new handler would keep trying to make it user friendly AND upgrade the security of it.

  • Hope they remain what they are, but in a better financial shape.

    Even though I am not a direct customer of theirs (just the wrong flavour for me) as anyone else using Linux you will be an indirect customer. Of course same goes for other distro's.

    StarTux

  • worst comparison ever. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Yankovic ( 97540 ) on Saturday January 18, 2003 @11:32PM (#5111420)
    From 1998/1999 Fiscal Year to the 1999/2000 Fiscal Year they had a 424% increase in revenues. From 1999/2000 to 2000/2001 they had an 18% increase. And from 2000/2001 to 2001/2002 they've reported a 31% increase.

    Consider for a moment Microsoft Corporation. Between 1998 and 1999 they had a 29% increase in revenues. 1999-2000 16% increase. 2000-2001 10% increase. 2001-2002 12% increase.

    Mandrake went from 500k to 3.5M in 2 years... Microsoft went from $6 B to $8 B. The two are so vastly different even hearing this comparison makes me want to cry. It's like saying last week my parents paid me $5 for cleaning the garage and this week they paid me $15 for cleaning the attic and painting a fence. I have a revenue growth rate of 300%! I should be valued 30x more than MS who has only a 10% increase y/y!

  • WTF?? (Score:2, Funny)

    by JW Troll ( 607432 )
    the best course of action for Mandrake Linux would be a community or non-profit takeover of the Mandrake distribution
    I think that the problem is that Mandrake is already non-profit. I don't hold much hope they'll rise from the ashes.
  • I mean, the main assets are GPL. Aside from the value of existing contracts, goodwill of the Mandrake name, and maybe some boxen, the company could just do this:

    1. Go out of business,
    2. Apologise to schmucks holding bag,
    3. Start new Mandrake business and pick up where they left off...

    It would probably be cheaper than 4 million euros!
  • First let me say that I'm a big Mandrake fan. I have used it for years and I buy official CDs and I am a Mandrake Club member.

    That said, I never like the whole street performer concept. The reason is that it will never provide more than a minimal existance. People will give as long as they feel it's a worthy cause. As soon as people see any form of real financial succes the giving will all but stop. It's just human nature. So I think Mandrake needs to quit pretending that it's enlightened financial model is going to work. I think Mandrake needs to offer more services for a fee. For example US mirrors of Mandrake suck. I can rarely get a connection and when I can the files are outdated. I would be willing to pay well for a descent update service. I want to issue a command, get some feedback about what's going to be installed and proceed. Signed files would be nice too. I'm a big fan of open source but companies need to be smarter about how they are going to make money in an open source market. For some it's not hard but you can't model yourself after closed source companies and you can't expect windfall profits from what is really a non-profit business model. Maybe Mandrake going non-profit is a good idea. I think that's the best idea so far as long as enough money can be raised to support it's excellent programmers and designers.
  • what happened with the Blender?

    I don't know if this sort of thing would even be possible in the US; it seems to work "over there", though.

  • Does anyone actually read anymore (Score:5, Insightful)

    by woogieoogieboogie ( 598162 ) on Sunday January 19, 2003 @05:33AM (#5112454)
    Equivilent of US chapter 11 [mandrakesoft.com]

    Mandrake is not going out of business, they are seeking protection from their creditors and will reorganize their business model. Bankruptcy allows a good business to overcome a mistake which would normally destroy the company. Selling enhancements to a free product is a good business model and one which can be highly profitable. The core of Mandrake is solid, it is the other avenues Mandrakesoft took to increase revenues which have faltered.

    Looking at Mandrakesoft's investors, Vivendi [vivendiuniversal.com] is a major investor in the company and has deep pockets. Why do you think a relatively obscure French company can get highly visible and valuable shelf space at US stores like CompUSA.

    I find the "Mandrake is for newbies" comments on Slashdot worse FUD than anything Microsoft puts out. Mandrake is a Linux distro and can be as easy or as difficult as on wants to make it. Nobody has to use or even install the the usability features of Mandrake and experienced users can do an expert text based install and create EXACTLY the system they want. This is not to mention that ease of use != newbie. Many highly experienced users prefer the simplicity which Mandrake offers knwoing that underneath it is Linux and can be adminstered either through the convenient supplied interface or via the command line ro by directly editing the configuration files.. Once you have gotten past the NEWBIE stage of impressing yourself with Linux, you realize it is just another OS spending hours configuring a machine is a waste fo time since that time could be spent actually doing something productive with the system.

  • 1. Screw Mandrake, I've never used it.
    2. I love it, let's keep it alive. Can I sell my liver to donate cash?
    3. Debian, gonk gak Slackware.
    4. Goatse.cx
    5. Bla bla bla pontification of free software, soapbox sermon on business and management tactics, waste of space.
    6. Why should I support free software? I don't use it. Wait..I do run linux but...nevermind. Debian.
    7. Mandrake is for noobs, I'd never be caught dead with it on my computer. Gentoo arg ack ports system.
    8. In Soviet Russia, Mandrakes attack people.
    9. Some nonsense from a non-native english speaker that leaves everyone scratching their head.

    Well that about sums it up. Keep this in mind next time you see a mandrake announcement and save yourself the time of reading the redundant posts on it.
  • If things go really really bad (can they get worse?), i bet there's developers who are more than willing to adopt mandrake distribution and continue where the company left off. And, add same kind of businessmodel as Slackware (atleast, used to have) has. Devels are independent and if necessery, 3rd party company takes care of the cd production ?

  • Proprietary drivers? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by curious.corn ( 167387 ) on Sunday January 19, 2003 @09:50AM (#5112980)
    Ok, I'll bite the bullet here...
    What makes Apple os X slick & cool? After all it's a ppc port of a BSD kernel and apps... it's drivers, it's having the hardware you bought working at it's best without fiddling with it to desperation. So Mandrake, or any distro, could sign NDAs and get the source to those damn drivers (3d accel) and patens (freetype, legally) and release dual licensed boxes. That is, sell the box with GPL only components and access the FTPs with the license number to get the extra you pay for.
    Ok, you can do that already for free (beer) but having them work clean and out of the box is what the consumer target would want and pay for.
    I would certainly pay for encrypted XFree sessions, alphablended HW accelerated KDE/GNOME themes and not the current hacks that turn performance to ground (very clever... but still hacks).
    Infact Desktop Linux efforts are stifled by XFree and it's lack of focus on these key issues (to be fair, they don't have the resources to keep up with the pretending users). Get some X hackers, pay them, build a value-added X; don't embrace & extend a là M$ but place the option for high performance at a price.
    Afraid of breaking up the standards and the opennes? Ok, give back the code if you like, but at least lead the innovation and pretend the $$ to get it done!

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