H.J.Bathoorn wrote:
On Friday 17 March 2006 06:27 am, Dennis Myers wrote:
Damn, I have been here since the 6.X days and hate to see this happen. I
sub'd to ULTEO and will watch that but I guess PCLINUXOS it is, or SUSE
not sure just now. My VIP membership only has 4 months left unless they
cancel it. Dennis M. Linux user# 180842
It's a shame to see Mandy going to the dogs, but then we did see it coming
didn't we?
It's the ongoing battle of economics. Suse now being Novell doesn't really cut
it because of just that IMO.
Part (a major part) of my commmittance to FOSS is that I hope it will help
bring about a better world by offering a choice to those that would otherwise
be hopelessly enslaved by proprietary software àla MSoft and prolly Google in
the future.
Mandy was just right in it's mix of community-base and bussiness but
apparrently that's changing now ... !
Duval's planned ULTEO liveCD distro might be interesting, seeing as he was the
designer of "Move" and "One" but he will have to create a new community
around it from zilch ....... so I subbed too. ;-)
Luckily (for me) I've always used Slackware for myself (especially servers)and
it's still alive. Aside from a financial contribution I never felt the need
to get on to their mailing lists or IRC channels, though.
It's the little people in my house that want 3D and stuff for their amusement
and those straying of Msoft that want all their hardware to work eventually.
I strayed to PCLinuxOS last year, just prior to the 2006 release but wasn't
really that impressed. The OS, once installed has a rigid feel due to the
fact that you're stuck on the initial hardware you installed on (or reinstall
every time) and needs a broadband internet connection to be customized or
changed easily.
(This ain't NO Troll, just a personal rant!)
Well, despite the fact that I couldn't follow Scara's post, I'm going to
see if I can step into this thread and break my self-imposed silence
of late.
This is the absolute worst thing that Mandriva (a.k.a. Francois
Bancilhon) could have possibly pulled out of their collective brain-trust.
I understand the complexities of business enough to know that Mandriva
(the company) has been screwing up the one thing that made them
different - their community and the fact that it was one of the prime
reasons for their accomplishments and continued survival.
Gael knows that without a doubt, Francois seems to have missed the point
entirely. "Never fire the guy who started the company and made sure that
the community was well treated".
With Mandriva sticking their financial necks out and buying Connectiva
and Lycoris, they also inherited any internal problems with both of
those distros. It would seem that they had a few extra bucks in the bank
and decided to take them out for a test-drive.
Not that Connectiva or Lycoris were bad distros, but there must have
been some internal problems with both of them, since they were fairly
inexpensive to take over, and that's not factoring in the various
dynamics of each of those two other distros and their own in-house
politics, which would have also added to a difficult transition period.
Despite of all of the complications and the problems they may have
carried into the new Mandriva corporate body, it pales in comparison to
the internal situation at Mandriva.
Far too many times, we've seen good people leave the company. I
personally witnessed the shutdown of operations at their Canadian head
office here in Montreal a few years ago. It wasn't a pretty sight.
One way or another, they've managed to screw things up from a business
perspective. They don't take care of their Mandriva Club members with
the respect and support they deserve, their support costs and policies
are horrible, and their follow-ups are in dire need of a serious overhaul.
The one thing that kept them moving forward - that kept some momentum
out here in the rest of the world was their community and it's members.
Now, Francois has seen fit to kill that off as well.
No, he didn't come right out and say it, but that's exactly the message
he sent when he cut Gael out of the picture. Simple and obvious. The
Mandriva community isn't important, nor is it important enough to even
post a message on the lists to inform us of any details which might sway
our thoughts on this.
As it stands, Mandriva is still operating in the red as witnessed by
their financial statements and expected revenue projections (Thanks to
Ron for the links!), but all they have is a basic plan and their track
record with their plans (throughout their history) has been less than
stellar.
Don't get me wrong. Their software has been great! Their products
actually work - for the most part, but their business savvy stinks like
last week's trash.
Red Hat tried their own version of this idea and it blew up in their
collective faces, but they had the sense to fix it and Fedora is coming
along nicely these days.
Probably the one thing that ticks me off the most is that time and
again, Mandriva has had opportunities to make some serious noise in the
industry, but they've managed to screw them up almost every time.
Most people would be willing to give away personal body parts to have
the chance to direct a Linux distro and I think it's a shame that French
arrogance and bad business decisions are going to kill them off in the
not-too-distant future. (I speak from personal experience here, since
I've dealt with them face-to-face and since I am French as well as being
surrounded by them every day. Trust me, it's almost genetic with them.
Hopefully, someone will be nice enough to let us know when they're
shutting down the servers and mirrors, so we can grab a copy of all the
good stuff they've created.
Maybe then the community can make a success out of Mandriva in a way
that their executives haven't been able to do for a long time.
Oh, and would the last person left at Mandriva please shut off the
lights on their way out?
Thanks.
OK, I'm done, for now.
Dan LaBine
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