Jackson was one of many who wrote to tell us about an e-mail from MandrakeSoft, makers of the popular Linux-Mandrake desktop Linux distribution. The press release can be read online or here at OSNews.com. Update: An interview with Gael Duval at ofb.biz.Flash: MandrakeSoft’s Future
—————————-
Many of you have followed the evolution of MandrakeSoft throughout the
past few years. Everyone who is concerned with the company’s future is
encouraged to read and distribute the following message.
Despite the many financial challenges of maintaining a fully open source
business model, MandrakeSoft has always followed the Free Software approach,
but in this normally joyful holiday season we are experiencing a serious
short-term cash crisis.
In order to reach the next release, MandrakeSoft currently needs to raise
cash and quickly complete an Increase of Capital. Please take a moment to
read this important message at the Mandrake Linux website:
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/future.php3
We know you may have read our previous appeals, but if you are truly
concerned about MandrakeSoft’s future, now is the time to mobilize and help
spread the word.
With the holidays upon us, a great way to spread some “Linux cheer” is by
offering the gift of a MandrakeClub membership. The Club is a great way to
support MandrakeSoft, and to help others too.
Sincerely,
The MandrakeSoft team.
Its interesting to see this request for money. This is following the other requests for money.. the requests for club memberships, and all of the other means they have tried to get money.
I’m not aganist them getting a revenue stream, but it is really hard to recommend a company to people that is always going around asking for money. I personally joined the Mandrake club quite a while ago.. and I guess I got my money’s worth with StarOffice downloads, but otherwise it has been minimally useful to me. Perhaps others get more value from it.
Geez, it looks like the shakedown of distros is starting (I mean successful distros as opposed to unsuccessful – I don’t mean Mandrake is shaking people down).
I wonder if the sort of status-quo 9.0 has hurt them? Also if joining UnitedLinux might, in some way, help them?
Before I start in I should mention that I am a very strong supporter of Linux: use it, have bought the boxed sets in the past (I am running a seriously mod’ed RH7.1 that I bought the original box for), and evangelize it.
Why should I send money to a company (MandrakeSoft) that is not capable of being financially viable? The purpose of a business it to make money, end of statement. If that business can not make money then they go out of business. Begging for cash seems to be the new business model of the 2k’s.
I am sorry to hear that they are running out of cash but that happens to a lot of businesses. Figure out how to make money or go under. Please don’t beg.
I could go on about basing an economic model on a niche market that refuses to even consider the concept of paying for software, but that’s really offtopic
.
The distro advocating by every Linux trolls have some financial problems ?
Just regarding how numerous are those trolls, i’m sure they will quickly save their precious mandrake$ ;-)))
Anyway, paying for free software is something i can’t understand, as you are already paying for it, via your tax. Just look how many “free” project are housed by a university.
I like Mandrake alot as a distribution and would like to see it stick around in the future. However, their bad business model today will still be a bad business model in the future. Even if they were THE major Linux player (usage-wise) they will likely never sell enough CD’s to remain a commercial entity.
In my opinion they should disband as a company, scale way down and move back to being a volunteer organization with the principal developers/admins selling services on the side. I believe the Apache Group may be a good example of this.
I would certainly not invest in them at this state, with non Linux related business decisions weighing them.
well, I installed it on my pc, and I use it, and I installed it in too my fathers pc and well he like it. anyway I went to this mandrakestore for ordring it, they do have this “Special Offer!
Free shipping to the USA, Canada and Europe for all orders over $50.” and I did try to order the “PowerPack Subscription Program 9.0
and SAVE $52 (57 Euros)!
155 USD/168 EUR”
well I am in Norway (thats is Europe
) but on the bill I got France vat (19,4%) and only 50% of shipping costs.
well I sendt them one mail and tell them, the first I got back wos that I can come back and try again, and try to make an order 4 dayes afther, but then I did have the same problems,, anyway afther the 4. try and the same thing.. I dont care,, well I give up..
Mandrake is a god distro, I like it, its frendly to use, and have the “cuting edge”.
and it have the “plf” http://plf.zarb.org/~nanardon/urpmiweb.php so that I almost find everything that Iam looking for.
I’m sure this will be the first of many. The problem right now is Linux is still catering to a niche market and you have too many distros with a limited number of users. If you have 8 million Linux users in the world and have over 50 different distros vying for their business not all of them will survive.
As much as I like Linux, it’s very pathetic to see a company begging for money.
I used (now on debian) mandrake for about 3 years. Its a real shame that the idiotic management they let in really buggerd up the business. They used to be profitable from the start, then there was the “eLearing” fiasco that screwed the company right up, and they havent been able to recover since. At least they are pretty much breaking even again, but they still have all their financial obligations from the eLEaring crap, and those are gonna sting them for a good few more years
For the past year I have experimented with the various Linux distros, particularly RedHat, Suse, and Mandrake, but also Caldera (Sco), ElX, Lycoris and recently Xandros. Mandrake made the strongest initial impression on me but each distro release appears to be adding less and less over the previous version. In the meantime, Suse has appeared to caught up and passed Mandrake by in ease of use and installation. RedHat with 8.0 has the slickest interface but I have ran into problems with it such as an inability to get it to print successfully to HP JetDirect print servers (something that was easy to do with Redhat 7.30) and the removal from the KDE menus of the Windows Shares setup utility.
Then when 9.0 I looked forward to receiving my update as per my subscription to the Mandrake Powerpack Subscription. Now it is nearly Christmas and I still don’t have it, although finally they are promising to deliver it soon only after I sent 6 emails to the Mandrake Store and MandrakeSoft itself. It is no wonder they are having difficulties with such sloppy customer service. They can’t ship out what they have already taken orders for and yet at the same time on their website they offering all sorts of incentives such as free shipping and Powerpacks for Windows upgraders for $12.50.
All of hope is they last long enough to get out Mandrake 9.1 so hopefully I will get all that I paid for with my subscription. But after that I doubt I will worry Mandrake any longer. Xandros has really impressed me and if they could get it to join a Windows 2000 domain with the same ease it can join a Windows NT domain it would be ahead of every other Linux desktop distro.
If you go to ELX Linux’s website you will notice it has not really changed in a long time and they keep promising to get ElX Linux 2.0 out the door any day now. They would be another candidate to fall by the wayside soon.
Interestingly enough on another Linux website today, a commentator predicted for 2003 that the number of Linux distros would contract and I have to agree with him. It might in the long run be good as it would cut down on confusion in the marketplace and shake out the ones who have no real business plan.
Ron D
Nuff Said… I like Mandrake… but I would rather pay my 40-80 dollars for SuSE, then listen to Mandrake gripe about money issues and then charge me to get into their distribution and the extra perks… I just like SuSE from the get-go.
Good luck to Mandrake… but SuSE and RedHat look like they may be running away with this one.
my $0.02 only.
I think the main problem with commercial distros (especially this one) is that it’s kinda hard to get motivated to go out and buy a copy when I can download it for free on the web.
I’m sure there are ‘politics’ involved as to why you should support these distros with your wallet, but I say politics can go take a flying leap when I can get it for free.
As for those that offer non-free versions, they’re going to have to people out of the mindset that Linux == free if thay want to survive. I think that, because zealots have been screaming from the rooftops for so long that running Linux will cost you $0, there seems to be a certain stigma in people’s minds that actually paying for a distro is somehow not ‘proper.’
As for companies like Redhat that are profitable, they probably do it with their Advanced Server stuff and the services they provide, not by selling shrink-wrapped desktop versions os the distro (just my guess).
I think that, except Red Hat, commercial distro have totally missed there is a very new and very effective distribution channel : ADSL.
What is the REAL service of a distro ? Packaging all those b***t piece of available for FREE software, from GNU to Postgresql via python and octave.
This service is really minimal, and in the case of mandrake very bad, their distro strictly doesn’t work.
So i prefer to donate for Debian or Red Hat, which are working out of their own product, a good point, than paying for the crazy ‘vision’ of some f***g money-maker.
Bye-bye to false charity business.
they have a free iso to download, then you can buy a separate licence for support and access to the IRIS gallery, plus you can get their new productivity pack, interconnect….
some people gripe that you have to pay, but I think they’ve found a good balance between free and not free.
they’ve got some problems, like not giving credit to OO for their prod pack, but I’m sure they’ll rectify that. they also need to get KDE3.1 when it’s available (this will be in Beryl), and they have to get more items in IRIS.
For a small startup, they’re doing OK so far….
I really like the free distro thing….and that’s why I don’t use lindows or xandros…..i have no problem supporting something that I’ve tried and liked..but I’m not taking a chance on something I don’t know will work for me, or going through the hassle of trying to get a refund.
I really think Lycoris has got it right….of course, subject to my noted criticisms above…
I am a member of MandrakeClub, and i have allways downloaded the distribution or get it in a Magazine for free.
I have never paid for the distro, and the Club is for the people that act like me. So the really service of Club is to pay for the things you enjoy first for free.
With that money they paid developers who work in projects (Debian doesn’t) like KDE (Red Hat doesn’t) GNOME, linux Kernel,etc. Ah, yes, Mandrake download edition is a completely free software distribution (no non-freesoftware on it), not like all distributions from SuSE.
And… no, this is not a service for people who don’t enjoy Mandrake distribution.
Another thing, SuSE is not very well at their finances (apart from that their distro is not all free software as Mandrake, RedHat or Debian), but they have IBM behind them.
So, for all of you that are so unpolite, first try to know what is the real world.
Javier
It emphasizes past mismanagement and the fact that it has been replaced, which is fine for convincing people to stick around as paying customers. But as others have mentioned, the appeal is essentially for donations (what, so we can reward the stupid VCs they’ve just exposed?). Although they have reduced costs, it sound as though the reductions haven’t been as draconian as the situation merits. On the revenue side, since they’re not a charity, they should try to figure out how to sell premium or side products which give people real value while also “helping advance free software” – the combination of the two may convince people to buy even if the products are overpriced in some sense.
Too rare to find a man enjoyed of paying. For my part, i think i totally missed the concept of “paying for free software” ;-)))
“So, for all of you that are so unpolite, first try to know what is the real world.”
Reasonnable worlds, but maybe a little bit too late, i can remember litteral insults from Linux zealots ( and really nothing else ), so now they just have some return of what they have spreaded…
Yes, I do understand and support how capitalism works, but everything in moderation. For example, we don’t allow unfettered capitalism because it would quickly self-destruct: which is why you have anti-trust laws, consumer-protection laws etc. These modifications to the system make it STRONGER long term – which is why capitalism survived. Sometimes it means you have to temporarily finance alternatives in the marketplace for the greater good.
Mandrake has made mistakes, but they have also been vital in spreading the word about Linux. We need them. There are a few key distros whose disappearance would hurt the end-user, and Mandrake is one of them IMHO.
The key thing is: is this just a temporary crunch, or is it a long-term problem? If it really is the case that they just need to get over this hump, then I’m willing to help out (just to make things clear, I’m only a student, so all I can afford is about $200). Of course, if this is an ongoing problem that’ll last on and on, then the fundamental business model is broken at Mandrake, and then it should be allowed to die if the marketplace so decides.
For the time being, I’m willing to give them the benefit of doubt, and I’ll spring for some help, even though personally that’s not a distro I use.
I guess so far looking at the responses I’m the only one – which makes it seem pretty futile. I’m not going to pass judgment on anyone who decided that MD do not deserve support – we can honestly see things differently. To me it is a case of trying to support all the people who have given of their time and effort to give all of us a choice – I may be wrong, but that’s my position. Linux should survive not only for its own sake, but because to whatever limited extent, it makes M$ try harder (IMHO). And that means to whatever tiny extent I can help, I’ll try. YMMV.
Hi,
I would really hate to see MandrakeSoft go down the drain. A few years ago I tried Suse, then Redhat to build a firewall. Mandrake was the distribution that made this possible without too much hassle. So I would rather see Suse go down, if it’s really necessary that some distributions disappear like others are saying in these talkbacks.
Mandrake, together with Debian is a distribution that stayed and stays true to the ideals of free software. Everything they make is GPL’d. And it’s a distribution that’s very usable. I don’t agree with the person that says that not enough is changing from release to release. The available packages are updated. More hardware is recognized and configured correctly every six months. That’s what’s important. Not whether it looks different enough from the previous release.
I paid for the MandrakeClub last year when they called for help. This year I started contributing a bit of my time and they made me a VIP member of the Club. So I decided to use my 60 euros to pay for somebody who would otherwise not be able to join, as he lives in South America.
Now, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get another silver account. At this I don’t have more means to assist them or to buy stock. If I did, I wouldn’t doubt for a moment. I’m convinced they can have a bright future and I enjoy their products a lot.
It will be a sad day for Linux and free software in general, if they happen to go away.
Jo
You have said:
>Too rare to find a man enjoyed of paying. For my part, i >think i totally missed the concept of “paying for free >software” ;-)))
Free, in free software, is “libre” (liberty) and not “gratis”(no cost). Like you should know, in this life everything has a cost of money or time.
And i don’t enjoy paying for nothing. What i enjoy is using libre software, and if i want to be able of enjoying it in the future i have to support it in time or money.
At this time, i only can do in money, and for me the best way is to support Mandrake (and at same the time Mandrake supports other projects of libre software with my money).
I’m agree with you that a lot of people in Linux is not polite. But that people normally doesn’t pay for nothing, i know it very well.
And the windows home users… NEVER PAY. Microsoft is payed by enterprises, and the majority of home users use piracy software (at least here Spain).
I don’t know you, but i would like to be paid for my work. So the best can i do is paying others for their work.
Javier
Ok, now all you Linux zealots out there that harp on SuSE, Xandros, Lycoris etc. for not providing 100% free software or 100% free downloads, now’s your chance.
Put your money where your mouth is.
If you use Mandrake because you download the free isos, and if you’re one of those who cry foul whenever a company tries to make some money so it can survive in the ultracomepetitive computer industry, this is your time.
Ante up.
Pay Mandrake something.
Don’t say “awww… I can’t afford it…. it’s too expensive…”
Face it; you’re not a coder (and by “you” I mean the collective “you” out there — most people are not coders.). If you are a coder and you give back code, great, you’re exempt from this. But if you’re not a coder, then pay something.
Support Mandrake, if that’s your distro of choice. Everyone can afford $5 or $10 or some amount of cold, hard cash. Next time you think about going to McDonalds and plop down $5 for a crappy extra value meal, or go to the movie to see some crappy Rob Schneider movie, don’t. Pocket that cash and send it on to Mandrake.
Do it. Do it now, or your “free” distro (Mandrake) ain’t gonna be around much longer and all you’ll have is the SuSE, Xandros, and Lycoris distros. Then you’ll have no choice but to pay.
So, pay now to the company you support or pay another one later when it’s reduced to rubble.
[Or, switch to Debian, of course :-)]
what are your qualifications and your experience.
IT architect. Nearly 25 years. And ?
I am a standard member of the club, and I purchased the 9.0 DVD set. I really appreciate how easy to use Mandrake Linux is. “urpmi” is really cool. I like the Penguin Liberation Front, which let me easily set up my DVD player.
Mandrake is the distribution for every man. If you are a big server person, then you definitely want Red Hat. But, if you mainly use desktop stuff, then Mandrake is the way to go.
It would be a shame for Mandrake to go down the tubes, when they are so close to break-even. Red Hat, the king itself, only just now made it to the break-even point, and they have all the big server contracts with enterprise customers.
Mandrake got screwed over by the stock market bubble. They never were able to raise much capital, like Red Hat did, when they IPO’d. They were also mismanaged, when they tried to get into edutainment, or whatever it was that backfired. They’ve turned their business around, but they may not survive to see the finish line.
I think people who have downloaded Mandrake for free should consider whether it’s time for them to fork over a few bones, so the next version is available for them to enjoy.
“free” software are university software, or time to time, software from some peoples with very smart understanding of the market AND a corresponding product, as mysql’s one for sample.
And today, with the recent support from India governement, another time this is only a sample, this will be more and more true.
Distro vendor are usefull as packager ( yesterday they were usefull also as provider of cdrom ). This do not makes a strong value, except for paying support to an experienced partner, but this is only interesting, and feasible, for big company.
That’s said, if you like mandrake, and even more if you are glad to pay : pay my friend ;-)))
The main reason is that they use RPM. Any RPM based distro will fall cos they have to compete with Red Had that has a really stable distro for business (business customers is where the money really is) that keeps them on black, and now is going to take the desktop but they are not in a hurry. Mandrake will never reach the business customer because of stability and resources and they are not that far away from RH on friendly use now. They are death.
However the Debian based distros will succeed cos they have a strong community base taking care of stability and security (the debian stable release) while they can concentrate in tricks and friendly use with less investment. They can be as cutting edge in those aspects as Red Had and still provide a trust worthy distro for business customers.
My 0.02€
“The distro advocating by every Linux trolls have some financial problems ?”
Boy, you sure do have a firm grasp on the obvious. You, my friend, have a gift.
“Just regarding how numerous are those trolls, i’m sure they will quickly save their precious mandrake$ ;-)))”
How hyporitical it is of you, Xavvy, to accuse others of something you yourself are more than guilty of. Please, stop throwing stones, Mr. Sinner. Your behaviour is a classical manic-obsessive trolling, as anyone can see. Whenever there is a thread about Linux’s problems or shortcomings, one can bet their annual income that Xavvy would show up and say something that would contain the word “outdated,” the phrase “it’s rock!” and some horrid grammar.
Yes they are a business – but they contribute _all_ their code back to the community unlike most others (except of course red hat and debian among the big ones)
The old saying rings true in this case: “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”
They ain’t going to get people to fork over money the second time around, especially since existing club members are mad that they were the first ones to be charged their credit cards for advanced copies, but they received their copies later than everyone else — even after retail stores started selling them.
http://www.linuxandmain.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=…
Mandrake Linux is the best distro. They are very close to breaking
even and then they will be profitable. The time has come for
the people that recieve so many benefits of Mandrake to put up
some money to keep them going. The people will put up or
the distro will fail. It is now up to the people. Mandrake Linux
is the distro of the people. i do find it interesting that there
are so many negative comments about Linux , especially
from people that use other brands of Linux. Thats life.
…switch to Windows XP Pro. I think the company that makes it will be around awhile, what with $38 BILLION US in cash.
I laugh at and pity the fool using Mandrake.
Futile.
>>>The time has come for the people that recieve so many benefits of Mandrake to put up some money to keep them going.
What benefits? The existing Mandrake members are complaining like hell about the so-called membership benefits.
>>>They are very close to breaking even and then they will be profitable.
They are not even close at all if you consider that they need to have a charity drive to get to this point.
I’ve always downloaded them all for free. Then one day I realized I’m paying $50.00 a month for DSL. A new linux distro. comes out every 4-6 months. I can buy the boxed version of 6 major distro’s every 6 months and still break even and financially support all the companies too. Well, I probibly won’t get rid of my DSL, I enjoy it too much….but the point should be well taken that most distro’s cost less than the DSL we’re paying to download them.
>>>>A new linux distro. comes out every 4-6 months. I can buy the boxed version of 6 major distro’s every 6 months and still break even and financially support all the companies too.
RedHat and SuSE are geering for a release cycle of 18-24 months, so your math solution will be be better.
Red Hat actualy turns a profit. http://news.google.com/news?q=cluster:www.crn.com/sections/Breaking…
Not much of a profit considering that they have $300 million in the bank. Even if they get only 1% in interests, they would have made $3 million. Instead they made $300K in proficts.
I’ve tried a lot of distros including the latest Red Hat, SuSE, and Slackware. Slack is the only one that could possibly entice me away from Mandrake, but they will have to do much better than Slackware 8.1 to do it. Mandrake is very newbie friendly and works great for CLI fans.
Mandrake also has something that no other distro has………..The Club. Yes, Mandrake Club is for helping to financially support Mandrake. And that support makes the distro get better and better with each release. I joined in December, 2001 and just recently renewed my membership.
There are a lot of benefits to being a Club member. Among them are:
– A multi-lingual forum. Yuo can get help or help someone, praise or complain, make suggestions about Club or the distro………and MandrakeSoft listens to us.
– Commercial software available only in retail packages is available for download to members. Over 130 apps last time I checked.
– For Silver+ members, StarOffice 6 with a complete license is available.
-We get discounts at MandrakeStore and MandrakeOnline. The club also negotiates discounts with third parties on behalf of Club members such as Win4Lin, Yopy, TransGaming Kohan, and several others.
-We have our own list of download mirrors and we can use the Mandrake Software Manager with these mirrors, which solves all the dependency headaches.
– And best of all, we directly influence the direction of the distro.
– We have a RPM voting system where we request and receive new custom packages.
Denis is constantly adding things to improve the MandrakeClub site and bring us even more benefits. We have something that NO OTHER Linux distribution can offer and I think $5/month for a standard membership is a bargain. Mandrake Linux is not just the distribution I use, it’s MY distribution. The CEO of MandrakeSoft visits the site and answers our questions. It much, much more than buying a box with CDs in it. With Mandrake, it’s personal.
Mandrake has been my distro of choice for almost 2 years and I can’t see anything that is going to change that.
…switch to Windows XP Pro. I think the company that makes it will be around awhile, what with $38 BILLION US in cash.
For less than the price of a single copy of XP pro we can keep Mandrake alive
I laugh at and pity the fool using Mandrake.
Well, I would consider the person who starts the insults before it’s over the fool. Even if Mandrake falls (I think the community will save it though) Linux still has a very high chance of taking out Windows.
Please Borg_Child, wait till the dust has settled. Insulting someone based on something you can’t be sure will happen is very foolish. I say we have a good chance of seeing Microsoft fall, even if it isn’t in the next week.
Futile.
I think not, I can always switch to Red Hat or Suse for compatibility!
But if Microsoft falls, then where do you go? All my programs, scripts and documents will work seemlessly on other Distros, but you’ll have no such luck with Microsoft.
Ok, now all you Linux zealots out there that harp on SuSE, Xandros, Lycoris etc. for not providing 100% free software or 100% free downloads, now’s your chance.
Am I the only one who sees the lunacy of such a statement? I hear this over and over again. How can people spew such foolishness?
Paying for a free distro so I can keep getting it for free???? What kind of dumbass logic is that??? Damn!
Darren
“Paying for a free distro so I can keep getting it for free???? What kind of dumbass logic is that???”
Simple. You don’t pay for it, it will no longer exist. If it no longer exists, it won’t be there for you to get for free.
No pay, no play.
I guess I’ll keep sending money to the mortgage club that I joined so that I can keep living in this free house they gave me.
I’ll bet that if I join a car club, they’ll give me a free car, too.
How can you not see the ignorance in this logic?
I really hope that all of the Linux distros can make it. But, paying for a free distro for the purpose of making it freely available is just dumb logic.
Darren
I found Mandrake 9.0 to be the buggiest collection of software I’ve ever used in my life. I’m trying hard to download Redhat 8.0, since I really want the speed of one of the new distributions using the new gcc, but Mandrake tends to crash so often, it’s kind of hard.
The English language really confuses the hell out of some people. Especially those for whom it is their native language, so it seems. Free is a word with two meanings.
Paying money to keep the distro free (libre, vrij, frei, libero) does make a lot of sense indeed.
It doesn’t have to be gratis.
Jo
“All of hope is they last long enough to get out Mandrake 9.1 so hopefully I will get all that I paid for with my subscription. But after that I doubt I will worry Mandrake any longer. Xandros has really impressed me and if they could get it to join a Windows 2000 domain with the same ease it can join a Windows NT domain it would be ahead of every other Linux desktop distro.”
Well, Mandrake 9.0 can already do that, if you do an expert installation, choose “Windows Domain” as authentication methd, fill in your domain name (in CAPS, small buglet there), and a username/password with rights to join the domain. Assuming you have pre-Windows2000-compatible access enabled on the DC, you should be see all the domain accounts in the KDM screen, and be able to log in (or authenticate any pam-enabled service) immediately. With a little bit more work (cp /etc/samba/smb-winbind.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf, replace workgroup line in the new one) you can have shares and printers working authenticating from the domain, with ACLs out the box on XFS (you need to mount ext2/3 with the acl option to have working ACLs …) and a virtual PDF printer share.
If it’s free : no revenue (except support).
If Linux is not buggy : no need to have support (perhaps need good documentation, do they want to sell docs…)
If linux is not free : few people will choose linux but Windows or Solaris.
If you want to use Linux as good database server, you need to buy an Oracle licence, that reduce the price advantage.
Windows : http://www.tpc.org/tpcc/results/tpcc_result_detail.asp?id=102121601
Linux :
http://www.tpc.org/tpcc/results/tpcc_result_detail.asp?id=102111202
Compare prices. Less than 10% difference.
I think Linux will be hold in the Future by 2 or 3 company that sells Linux, there is no economic sense to give a software for free (with the exception; if you buy the hardware with).
Linux is a lot used in the Web hosting company, because it’s free and because IIS is not enought stable.
Linux is not holded by ONE company, if there is a problem with this system that affect a lot a company, they need to find the responsible…
Open source is a joke, how many people in the world are able to understand at least all the linux kernel. Company will hire very expensive people to modify the kernel for their need (from a free system ?).
If you modify something in a code and a new major version comming out, how to merge you modified code and the “official” code. Answer : rewrite almost all. Ask SAP consultant they make a lot of business with that.
Free Linux is not possible in a long term.
It’s only my advice.
I really have to say: thought as much. Mandrake may once release a good product, now they not only have a terrible product, they also have terrible business decissions. As a aspring businessman, I really had to say that.
The product line itself shows that Mandrakesoft don’t have any target market. Nadda. They have a “desktop” product, they have some server products, and some products in between. No clear business strategy.
So let’s start with the thing that made Mandrake popular. Their distro was once the cream of the crop. The easiest. Right now, all their rivals have either surpass them, or going to anytime. Mandrake is a non-pragmatic developer, they don’t know how to adapt to new demands. One of the things is the market is demanding for a more integrated desktop. SuSE picked KDE, RH picked GNOME, a host of other smaller distributions picked KDE. These companies integrated their tools and services and applications with KDE.
While on Mandrake, every window manager and desktop enviroment bundled looks like a minimal-change version compiled straight from the CVS. There is little competitive advantage, and whatever competitive advantage left is shrinking with time and competitors make their products better.
So you may say that Mandrake is just supplying a niche. Doesn’t seem very much like a profitable niche to you, no? Mandrakesoft should realize that their ultimate aim is to make profit, not to please a current base of unprofitable users.
Then I go on to Mandrake Club. From what I see, most of the subscribers are people actually wanting to support Mdk financialy, not those wanting features from mandrake club. To the outsider, Mandrake Club gives little value. Instead, Mandrake should have made something like Click n Run out of Mandrake Club, and the Club’s community part be merged with Mandrake Forum and Mandrake User.
Would I suggest Mandrake Club to my mom then? Yes! Now at its current state? Not even over my dead body.
And then their professional image. Just going to Mandrake’s website, it hits me as a unprofessional website. if I’m a Linux newbie finding for the right distro for myself or even my organization, SuSE, RH, Xandros, etc. web site gives a better more pleasant view on the company. Their group of websites is completely unorganized and generally looks ugly.
If I were to hear about Mandrake first from their website, I would have consider it as my first and current distribution (Instead I heard of Mandrake mostly from reviews, and only when I have decided to try it did I go to their web site). Their PR too is terrible.
All these shows that it isn’t pragmatic businessmen giving directions on the top, rather a geek with “I-don’t-care-what-the-market-wants-cos-I’m-right” view.
Three kinds of Linux organizations will succeed. All the rest are doomed to fail.
[a] Enterprise, i.e. RedHat. Companies like RedHat make most of their money from corporate support and proprietary technologies that build on Linux, such as Oracle. They cater to companies who like Linux on its technical merits, but are scared of hacker-built and hacker-supported software. Buying from RedHat makes them feel safer. This also includes companies like IBM, that use Linux to help sell other enterprise-level products.
Joe User, i.e. Lycoris, Lindows. Companies like Lycoris make their money from OEM deals and selling to consumers who are scared of free software, but like cheap software. They don’t care what their computer runs, as long as it works, and as long as a company stands behind it, supporting them.
[c] Nonprofit, noncorporate, i.e. Debian. Debian is not designed to make money, nor is it technically allowed to, based on its charter. People who work on the Debian distro are volunteers. Debian generates most (if not all) of its income from donations, but that’s because that’s how nonprofits work. It’s no different than listening to NPR; people who take advantage of what the community has to offer are asked to give back any way they can, and many do.
Some groups fail to fit properly into one of those groups. Mandrake is one of them. It has lost the enterprise market to RedHat, the OEM market to Lycoris, and could have had the hobbyist market except that it’s corporate – and if someone had to choose between giving money to a for-profit corporation like Mandrake, or a non-profit like Debian, which do you think they’ll choose?
Mandrake is destined to die as a company. The distro may live on, but not for profit. Good riddance.
It looks like I made a good choice going with SuSE, anyway it is a great easy to use distro. I would of not liked geting Mandrake, & then have the company go down.
I’m still convinced I made a good choice going for Mandrake and subscribing to the Club (for the second year now)
A year ago, most of use predicted a shakeout on commercial distribution. But no one would suspect Mandrake would go first. Why? Mandrake had so much oppurtunity, and still have the same opportunity. It is the only distribution I have seen besides Red Hat and Lindows.com and Corel Linux to be mentioned by the main media (i.e. normal newspapers).
So much, yet this company is likely to be the first victim of a shakeout.