Mandriva has made a formal statement of its position regarding the recent Microsoft deals by other Linux vendors. "Up to now, there has been absolutely no hard evidence from any of the FUD propagators that Linux and open source applications are in breach of any patents. So we think that, as in any democracy, people are innocent unless proven guilty and we can continue working in good faith. So we don't believe it is necessary for us to get protection from MS to do our job or to pay protection money to anyone."
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Member since:2005-07-02
And if people asked for something they were harassed and humiliated to no end because they weren't in the club.
I no longer use Mandriva (I'm on Kubuntu now), but I can say that this is a load of hogwash. I never felt slighted or harassed because I wasn't a club member, and the only thing club members had that others didn't were that they were able to download ISOs earlier than non-member. Big whoop.
That is simply uncalled for. AdamW has never tried to hide that he works for Mandriva, and has been a member of the OSNews community for a lot longer than you. You may disagree with some of the Mandriva decisions, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be civil. In any case, I'd rather have people from Linux distros participate in the discussion here than not.
Member since:2006-09-19
I have nothing against him and I don't think I was not civil or was in any way personally offensive.
And if he can "pimp" his company's product on open forums then I can criticize and talk about his company and its products openly too.
I don't see anything wrong with that.
He is eager to defend Mandriva then let him.
Member since:2005-08-18
"How Mandrake went from #1 distro to pretty much irrelevant and barely known distro."
On other news, over time things change.
"Separate forums only available to club members and on and on and on. Pretty sickening."
Oh noes! Special forums for people who actually put up money and financially support the company. What an outrage!!
"Kind of like racial segregation."
not in any way whatsoever.
People with an axe to grind are so boring.
Note that I personally don't like Mandriva as a distro but this stuff is just nonsense.
Member since:2006-09-19
Well, I find it very wrong to restrict forums to special group of people only.
Even commercial companies don't do that.
It's a lame attempt to get money out of people and it's despicable for a Linux distro company to do that.
It's like if Debian suddenly set part of their forums for pay-only members.
Fine, you can say I have an axe to grind but I think it's also important to warn new Linux users about companies that have shady practices.
Member since:2006-04-19
"How Mandrake went from #1 distro to pretty much irrelevant and barely known distro."
- It is far from irrelevant. If you think that e.g. some "distrowatch rankings" are an indication for distro usage, then you should start to do some research. E.g. many people think that Ubuntu is the numero uno, but still, debian and fedora are used a lot more than ubuntu. E.g. fedora has more than 2 million users running only fedora core 6. Mandriva is still used by many, many people.
"Now on LQ forums, Puppy Linux has more threads than Mandriva."
-Most Mandriva users visit the official or inofficial Mandriva-forums where they get better support that at LQ forums. 
"One couldn't get anything without being a club member."
-Nonsense. Everything except some proprietary stuff was readily available. The rest could be downloaded from the plf mirrors.
"And if people asked for something they were harassed and humiliated to no end because they weren't in the club."
-Nonsense. Nothing else to say. I have never been a club member and was never harassed or humilated, nor anyone I know.
"Couldn't download new releases, couldn't get updated packages like KDE, X etc. because those were only available to club members."
-The possibility of an instant ftp-install was always there. The isos were available usually one month later. Since Mdv 2007, they are instantly available, even the ONE CD with proprietary drivers included! Shame on Mandriva for giving away everything for free (unless you WANT to buy the boxed set and thus support Mdv financially).
I could update my systems since years. Ever heard of easyurpmi? If not, do some research. Update mirrors were available for free since ages. Please stop spreading FUD.
"Separate forums only available to club members and on and on and on. Pretty sickening.
Kind of like racial segregation."
-As said above: Nonsense.
"And then when most users left, the company changed name and came up with marketing strategy, community distro etc."
-The name change was because of legal reasons, to mind you. Not because they actually wanted to change their name. And the free "community" distro was always there.
"Basically a crappy company with crappy management."
-I don't know the management personally so I cannot answer that one. Did you meet them?
"Stay away people. There are many much better and free distros. No need to give your money to Mandriva."
-Use which distro works for you, give your money to whoever you think deserves it. Nothing wrong with that. But please stop ranting about a distro if you apparently have no idea about the distro and the politics behind it.
No distro is perfect. Neither is Mandriva, but a bit more respect to what they do would not be out of place imho.
-a Fedora user-
Member since:2005-07-06
For the sake of accuracy: he is right about updated packages as he specifies 'new versions of KDE'. We did do updated versions of KDE and GNOME for Club members only for a couple of releases (they were in the 'Club software' repository, which like 'Club commercial', was accessible only to Club members). This was out of a desire to provide something to make Club members happy, not some evil desire to annoy people who _weren't_ Club members, though.
Member since:2006-03-10
Just for the record, your post has 2 more points than it should have, because I clicked the '+' by mistake and couldn't negate it. (That probably shows how seldom I'm moved to mod someone.)
First, though it has been said before, your personal attack on AdamW was unwarranted and distasteful. He only asked you a question, apparently hoping for you to expand on your off-the-cuff criticism of his employer (which in fairness, you did, between bursts of polemic).
Secondly, I was never a Club member and didn't feel the least bit disenfranchised by this status. 'Official' ISO releases were seldom any different from the 'Community' releases, and came not that far behind them anyway. I can't say what went on in the Club forums, but Mandrake did have the MandrakeExpert service which solved a lot of my n00b teething troubles. Aside from that, there was the very friendly 'unofficial' forum at mandrakeusers.org for non-paying users.
I suspect that if anyone made the Club forums hostile towards non-members (and right now we only have your word for that, care to give us some concrete examples?), it was probably other users who'd paid for membership and wanted to make themselves feel special about it. We've heard already from members who didn't get any sense of privilege from becoming members, so some low-self-esteem types would no doubt want to 'create' an elitist environment in which to hold court. You can't blame Mandrake/-iva for that unless you can guarantee that the people who were rude to you were in fact some kind of paid shills.
Really, I'd like to hear some detailed examples of this harassment you mention. I'm not challenging your viewpoint, I'd just be interested in knowing how you arrived at it, because you seem very embittered.
Member since:2006-09-19
Lol, you're funny.
You're saying that you're not challenging my viewpoint yet you've spent 5 paragraphs negating my post.
So I'm just gonna say that the situation on the forums was over 5 years ago so you can go ahead and browse through the posts if they're still there.
Other than that I'm not gonna waste my time with you.
I just love getting lip from punks that installed Mandriva for a month and think they know everything.
Member since:
2006-09-19
Ahh, the always watchful corporate police wants to know.
Well, don't you work for Mandriva? Then you know the history.
How Mandrake went from #1 distro to pretty much irrelevant and barely known distro.
Now on LQ forums, Puppy Linux has more threads than Mandriva.
I don't know if it's still like it was back then.
I haven't and wouldn't touch Mandriva ever again.
But it was like:
One couldn't get anything without being a club member.
And if people asked for something they were harassed and humiliated to no end because they weren't in the club.
Couldn't download new releases, couldn't get updated packages like KDE, X etc. because those were only available to club members.
Separate forums only available to club members and on and on and on. Pretty sickening.
Kind of like racial segregation.
And then when most users left, the company changed name and came up with marketing strategy, community distro etc.
Basically a crappy company with crappy management.
Stay away people.
There are many much better and free distros.
No need to give your money to Mandriva.
Yeah, once bitten twice shy.
And save your breath AdamW, nobody will buy your PR talk, that boat has sailed long time ago.