On the heels of its recent acquisition of Brazilian Linux vendor Conectiva and name change from Mandrakesoft to Mandriva, Mandriva will announce today that it has acquired Lycoris, a US maker of user-friendly desktop Linux distributions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Mandriva’s February acquisition of Conectiva SA was valued at $2.3 million in stock. The DesktopLinux.com news item is here, and an associated interview with Lycoris founder/CEO Joseph Cheek is here.
Mandriva acquires Lycoris
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Mandria or Mandriva?
Eugenia: mandriva not mandria…
Lycoris + Mandriva = Lycra maybe?
Lycriva
I just wonder if connectiva feels like just another linux that got swallowed up by mandrake now?
Lycoris was nice, just did not seem to go anywhere….
just alwasy thought lycoris sounded like either a mouthwash, throat spray,cleaning product kind of something
sort of a lysol chloraspetic or something………
Mandriva is terrible… can you imagine mixing it with Lycoris??
– Mandricoris
– Conecticorisdriva
– Mancorlis
Ohhh my… stop aquiring companies and hire a marketing prof…
I wonder if we will finally see an update to SME server which was acquired by Lycoris about a year ago and they did absolutely nothing.
The GPL version is still available at http://www.contribs.org but no real development for a long time.
Have been using various versions on our small network at the charity I work for but it has limitations. Needs an update to Samba 3 asap.
If this means we have one less distribution to choose from , well I like the change…We could do with fewer distros!
Lycoris dropped SME Server. It is now under Ruff Dogs control IIRC. http://www.ruffdogs.com http://www.contribs.org
If this means we have one less distribution to choose from , well I like the change…We could do with fewer distros!
Now that’s a dumb statement… Sure we could all do with less distros. We could also do with less news outlets, less auto manufaturers, less fast food resturants, less gas stations, less cell phone companies, less soda companies (get the idea yet?), less universities, less computer manufacturers, less furniture makers, less lawyers (okay, I’ll give you that one), less hospitals, less auto parts stores, (how bout now? you get the point?) less movie compaines, less indie bands, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Cause we all know, having a monoply (or even an oligopoly) is ALWAYS a good thing. People don’t like choice. Take it away from them, I say!
Linux is not a one-size fits all kind of thing. Its not even a 10-sizes fits all product. Just about every distro fills a need (even if its just to inflate the maintainers ego).
If you don’t like choice, Linux may not be right for you. No hard feelings.
As long as they don’t call it Manlyc.
Mandriva is fine , I hope they keep it , this time and release a press release adressing the fact they are sticking with this warrior name , its so far a winning name taking out two competitors without having to do much , its like they have found an achile and are sending him to win other people army.
Probably François Bancilhon work. Interestingly when all the top Brass at Mandriva where selling there share he whas buying :
http://www.boursorama.com/profil/profil.phtml?symbole=1rPMLMAN-OTC
In my opionion they are giving to much responsability to the new guys that join in , they should be included but not considered to highly , let the make there contribution first before giving them to much of a big role.
do they have a game plan…???
maybe they been feeling very small since Novell grabbed Suse and Red Hat are still top dogs in the dosh sence…..
Break even make profit spend it all… I just don’t get it…
Not as if Mandrake (as it once was was flushed with cash) or so they told everyone…
theres intergration of Conectiva into Mandrake how much more time are they going to want to push Lycoris into the pot..
2007??
Lycoris were always a bit of a waste of space – never quite sure what they were doing, where they were heading or how they were going to use the open source software they were using. They never got involved with the open source software they were using and never seemed to provide any development direction. They were only marginally worse than other companies like Xandros, although to Linspire’s credit they have been getting much more involved recently with Kopete and the KDE boot camps.
I just think companies like Lycoris (Xandros and others) have went about the desktop side of things in the wrong way, so let’s hope that Joseph can really help Mandriva to kick on.
Manlycoriva —mod away—
Lymancorisarivadrake
Yea, didnt they just get done begging for support, I didnt know I was funding the shopping spree, I could of sent my money to a needy soul like paris hilton…
The name won’t be changing again.
There’s already a plan on how to use the Lycoris assets; as the press release said, the main goal is to integrate some of Lycoris’s great novice user features into the Discovery product, which is the version of Mandriva aimed at new and novice users. Conectiva’s technology and expertise lies in other areas entirely, so the two acquisitions are complementary.
Get a press Release from Gael or Bachilon to that effect , “NO NAME CHANGE , WE like our warrior name ;-)” ( Speaking for Mandriva PR ) , its going to undercut all the stupid comment and question people have , Ask them to do an IRC conference to discuss the merger with any Press people who whant to discuss it. Put out a date and Server channel.
Why is this not up on MandrivaClub yet ? You also need to tell and ask ( interview on Club ) who Joseph Cheek is , not to me to the people who dont know what the guy can do and why he is such a great acquisition. ( if you dont know yourself its really worth a read on it ).
Dont take my comment personnaly , I just know better , but cant comment or communicate properly 😉
Lyndriva
I hope someone convey this to Mandriva Management : Next company to get :
Yellow Dog Linux
Think about it you now have the the #1 + #4 + #20 on x86.
There are fewer distribution in PPC and Apple is dropping the Power PC architecture and the only one delivering PPC hardware is Yellow dog , now that , would be impressive.
Next could be :
holonlinux
http://www.holonlinux.com/
To keep improving the PPC offer …
after :
http://pld-linux.org/
then you can get :
http://www.sysresccd.org/
Just thinking out loud 😉 , we never know who is going to be next , could be Turbolinux too …
I didn’t realize that Mandrake was such a big company. I have used Mandrake in the past and always end up changing Distros. I feel that Mandrake was to buggy for me to use seriously.
the name may be a challange but i think its a good thing that one of the bigest desktop distros is acquiring lycoris. i cant weight to see what this churns out, however dumb the name ends up being.
There may or may not be another name change.
I believe the largest reason for the last name change from Mandrake to Mandriva was a lawsuit over the former.
With the advent of 2005LE, I personally like the Mandriva product. I rank it up there with Linspire and several other distros.
Mandrake was already an awesome desktop oriented distro. I have Mandrake 10 powerpack, and it’s delivered the best overall desktop Linux experience for me, by far. I’ve tried Red Hat 9, Fedora Core 2, Mepis 2003, SimplyMepis, Ubuntu, Kanotix, Knoppix, Linspire, and SuSE live. Mandrake has beat them all in the overall desktop experience.
Now with the acquisition of Connectiva, they can only improve with the integration of Synaptic and Smart, and gain South American business. And with the new acquistion of Lycoris, they’ve gained more newbie friendly features, a software warehouse technology, and 20,000 strong user base.
I’m looking forward to Mandriva 2006, and subsequent releases.
Despite my initial reservations about the new name, I have great confidence that Mandriva will continue to grow and thrive.
And as for the new name – the juveniles at OSNews and slashdot need to grow up – all that “man-dribble” stuff is just stupid. If you’re an intelligent adult with your mind out of the gutter, the name Mandriva isn’t too bad, and even catchy.
How about Manticore? This would provide for the development of a whole new distribution theme containing no “Mandrake-the-Magician” revenants.
A while back Lycoris touted development of a PDA and tablet PC OS but they never delivered. I wonder if Mandriva will develop this? These are two platforms where Linux needs to make an inroad.
They also should be concentrating on getting their products to the U.S. faster. Everytime I see a Mandriva product on the shelf here, it’s at least one version out of date. I went to Borders this weekend and they’re still selling Discovery 10.0.
hopefully the longstanding issue of mandrake’s terrible aesthetics, designs, graphics and themes will now improve, if only a little.
I agree. And would people stop with the stupid new name posts. Its not that funny and its getting old. Anyways, Mandriva makes a great product, one that brought me into Linux, and I think it deserves much more respect from OSnewsers and /.ers than it does.
One big looser distro + one looser distro + one looser distro = tripple looser distro
I used to run Madrake when it was 8.1 and 8.2, not bad but then the 9.0 turned out to be rather low quality and buggy.
And their stupid Mandrake Club and constant harrasing to join the club and pay up turned me off completely and I switched to Slackware and never looked back.
I hope Mandriva isn’t in another bancrupcy by next year.
I don’t understand why would any Linux distro need to acquire another distro. If they have half decent developers then they can come up with the features they need themselves.
It just doesn’t make any sense.
The money they spent on the acqusitions could’ve been used to hire good developers and provide jobs for people.
Its not Slackware your talking about Mandriva is really “distributed” in many languages worldwide and actually “sold” wordwide too , Unlike Slackware. Before you rstart your lies that Slackware is a big distribution , it sthe oldest distribution still in action ( almost dead ), with the least number of user of all the distribution with more then 5 years.
Conectiva whas far from a loosing distribution either they where one of the best offer on the Latin american side of the world.
Lycoris is a company in my opinion that whas hindered by its developemnt decision ( closed to only a few ) and choice of license ( not the GPL )just Like SUSE whas.
Mandriva never whas in bankrupty , it whas in judicial redressment thats two step above Bankrupty.
Why would a distribution acquire another distribution ? its simple to acquire code and developper they dont have in this case some closed code which knowing Mandriva past they will free as in a GPL ,and Joseph Cheek ( I hope they get him for 10 years ).
It makes a lot of sense when you know what your talking about , it doesnt when all your after is spreading fud and lies.
Ho yes use your real name or get a nick , it easy to do if you got a brain.
i wonder what will happen to sme server, because lycoris owns it from what i remember. maybe the sme server stuff will get merged into mandriva’s server stuff.
didn’t see the other comments sry ;-(
heres some anagrams of “mandrake conectiva lycoris”
I picked the nonvulgar ones that made slight sense. Enjoy!
INCONSIDERATE CAVALRY MOCK
VALEDICTORIAN SMOKE CAN CRY
CONSERVATORY ACID LAME NICK
VALEDICTORIAN ACME CORN SKY
I mentioned this earlier.. go read back a bit.
I’m almost sorry to see this happen. Lycoris really had a good idea going. They were pushing for a small easy to use version of Linux that the average person could use, and I think they were making some great progress. They didn’t swamp the user with 20 versions of the same programs, and it had a really good UI with KDE 3.2.
It’s just a shame that Linux can’t catch up with Windows, since there’s still no standards.
People don’t want to have to compile programs or go to the command line to fix driver issues.
Until Linux is as easy to use as Windows, with the same kind of 3rd party and hardware producer support, it will be a niche market.
I would love to be able to ditch Windows completely.
It’s not on the Club yet (will be in about five minutes) because everyone in Paris is asleep and I didn’t have admin access on the new Club until about an hour ago, heh. Everything’s been a bit shaken up by the new authentication system.
There are too many Linux distros out there, not that I
don’t like choise, but if you see it from a business perspective it makes lots of sense.
Costs for marketing, testing, bugfixing, packageing etc will be split on more customers. This means that the company have a better chance of surviving in the long run.
The fact that we get one distro less, is not going to hurt anyone. After all the source is free, so if some importent need is blocked by this merge, we will probably be seing some new distro filling that need very soon.
I hate to sound like a troll, but I hate Mandrake/Mandriva with a passion. I liked Connectiva and Lycoris, and now they’ve been baught out by a company which has made endless mistakes in all their new product lines and in following marketing fads such as custom unified themes (Galaxy is so effen ugly imo, and with the difference in button ordering between GTK and every other X toolkit its no use trying to make everything look uniform anyway).
I used to like Mandrake up until version 9.2, the advertisments during the installer were tolerable; but when they started cutting back on the CD software, nagging people to join Mandrake Club and especially when they came out with that joke of a Discovery edition which cost more than the free download edition and yet has much less software I had had enough. Right now a version of Mandriva that’s even worth buying custs almost as much as Windows XP professional edition (USD $240 for Mandriva PowerPack Edition, ~$299 for WinXP Pro). I know Mandrake PowerPack edition has more software, but it needs to include that extra software if they are going to charge for a subscription to the Mandrake Club to get access to a lot of the software people are going to want, that huge price tag is absolutely unjustifiable, SUSE costs less and is a better product.
I know some people like Mandrake, and I don’t mean to offend those people by speaking my mind, but I won’t lie to defend the second worst distribution I’ve ever layed eyes on.
I hope Joseph Cheek and whoever was in charge of Connectiva get strong positions in Mandriva, maybe they can fix the mistakes that company has made over the last few years.
As I recall Mandrake had to change its name eventually because of some court case with Marvel comics over their “Mandrake the Magician” comics. Some people have probably forgotten about this, but they had to change their name by a set date as agreed upon in the settlement between the two companies. That would be why they changed their name when they purchased Connectiva.
Well, you _do_ sound like a troll.
Point one, the number of packages on the free release has decreased exactly _once_ – I forget the version, but we once went up to 700MB CDs for a release, had lots of complaints from people who prefer 650MB, and went back down for the next release. Aside from that, it’s been the same or higher with every release (we went back up to 700MB images recently).
Point two, the Powerpack costs 80 Euros. It’s the Powerpack+ that costs 199 Euro. If you’re saying the Powerpack isn’t worth buying, I’d dispute that.
If you subscribe to the Club you can download versions of each release equivalent to the boxed versions you can buy, so there’s no need to pay for the boxes as well. You don’t have to subscribe to the Club to buy a box, or buy a box to subscribe to the Club, and if you buy a box you don’t have to subscribe to the Club, so I’m not sure what you were trying to imply there.
The Discovery edition is aimed at new and novice users who want the simplicity and assurance of a boxed product with some documentation. If you’re a slightly more advanced user who’s happy to use the free download version, just USE IT and stop moaning already! No-one’s forcing you to buy it, and the people who do are generally happy with it.
and final point, Marvel does not own Mandrake the Magician. That would be Hearst Holdings, Inc. and King Features.
Mangina.
Ok, in all fairness you’ve pointed out some mistakes I’ve made; but I should point out that if you don’t agree with someone its easy to see their comments as trolling when it isn’t necessarily.
I know Mandriva lets club members download versions that would otherwise have to be purchased, but the only way to pay for that subscription where I live is to order it online with either a credit card (which I neither want, nor have) or with money orders from the post office. Plus I much preffer getting a nice boxed product with a Cd and manuals when I pay for something.
Another point worth making is that some software RPMs only seem available through a club membership. Correct me if I’m wrong, but even if I buy a boxed set I’ll still have to be a club member to get these packages.
I don’t see the current discovery edition as justified. If Mandriva is going to give the download edition away for free and charge money for the discovery edition, then why doesn’t Mandriva just add the proprietary drivers and plugins to the Download edition and sell that as the Discovery edition?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not just shooting out libel against Mandrake, I’ve just had a terrible experience with every version starting with 9.2. Assuming Joseph Cheek has some influence on Mandrake I might consider trying it again.
BTW. I can’t quite remember any more, but what versions of Mandriva include GCC, KDevelop and Qt designer on the CDs?
Do any of the ones available for purchase right now include the KDEaddons packages on the CDs or do those still have to be downloaded?
I’m a SUSE user myself, but this is a gutsy move. A distro that strives to stay on the cutting edge, although a little buggy. Combines it’s resources with a distro that is very windows-like and quite frankly,(just my opinion), a very gorgious looking desktop. Who knows, maybe a true windows replacement for joe-sixpack or a distro that even Michael Dell would consider putting on his boxes,(something that has really never been done in a major way). I guess we’ll see.
MAN-DRIVA?
OK…
Acquiring companies that are selling the same product is kinda weird, the only difference is the network of shops that each company has.. that’s basicly it.
Is it just me or can people not create an efficient network of shops anymore? Are colleges in europe really not good compared to american colleges??
You acquire for the brand and distributing network… Mandrake is acquiring, getting rid of all the brands and making one new one… but keeping the network of shops.. I mean come on they’re all open source. .. open source linux companies pop up all over the place all the time anyway, others will easily take their place. oh, but what matters more about a linux company is their BRAND
Form your own network and get a better marketing name!
YOUR WASTING INVESTORS MONEY!
Mandrakesoft oh, wait, mandriva, is simply retarded.
Debian has more marketshare than mandrake and they’re not even marketed commercially.
By acquiring mandrakesoft could
1) retain strong brands known around the world
2) retain a network of shops and distributors
3) combine marketing forces and market the brands as seperate products, (Mandrive Connectiva Linux, Mandrive Lycoris Kinux, etc..)
They successfully got rid of all of the brands nearly and what? what’s different? are they going to just acquire the website and the list of distrubitors?
They should do it themselves, they totally wasted money
What company goes around and does this? I’ve never seen a successful company that has done this.
By Bruiser (IP: —.chvlva.adelphia.net) – Posted on 2005-06-16 01:29:48
<snip>
It’s just a shame that Linux can’t catch up with Windows, since there’s still no standards.
<snip>
————————–
Linux is a lot more standards-compatible than Windows where it counts most – in interoperability with the world at large. For instance, Internet Explorer cheerfully ignores large chunks of the CSS standards, while Firefox and Mozilla stick closely to them. Frontpage creates non-standard HTML, Quanta Plus doesn’t. And so on and so on.
———————
<snip>
People don’t want to have to compile programs or go to the command line to fix driver issues.
——————–
It’s been a long time since compiling programs was necessary. Get any distro based on Debian (Mepis, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, for starters) and use Synaptic. I think RPM based distros are a horrid mistake, but even they long ago ceased to require compiling anything.
——————-
<snip>
Until Linux is as easy to use as Windows, with the same kind of 3rd party and hardware producer support, it will be a niche market.
——————
Linux *is* as easy to use as Windows for a lot of computing tasks (web browsing, email, and CD burning with K3B, for instance), and easier to use than Windows in many cases (almost all the Linux distros I’ve used lately autoconfigure when plugged into to an Ethernet network with a dhcp server during installation. No version of Windows I’ve ever used does that.).
Ever gone from a PC with a bare hard drive to one running Windows in 60 seconds? Didn’t think so. Stick a Knoppix, Mepis, Morphix, Vector Linux, Puppy Linux or other Linux live CD in that PC and boot from it, and you’re running Linux in usually under a minute.
I agree that hardware support is not as good as Windows, but it’s been literally years since I had frequent issues with Linux incompatible hardware. Most common hardware just works these days, most of the time…try booting Knoppix and see what happens. Usually Windows installs require hunting down and downloading a slew of drivers, while Knoppix and other Linux distros rarely need any drivers downloaded.
—————-
<snip>
I would love to be able to ditch Windows completely.
—————
What keeps you from doing so? This is not a dig at you, I’m curious as to what is keeping you from switching.
For me Linux became better than Windows with the arrival of Mandrake 8.2. I’ve hardly been back to the Windows world since, except to set up my wife’s computer or once in a rare while to practice with FMS (Flying Model Simulator).
-Gnobuddy
isn’t it this is what many of us wanted for? that linux distro will unite, as we want the linux desktop to suceed?
There was only one developper left at lycoris ??
wow.
Sad!
If powerpack+ is all that dont see anything stopping anyone from making a copy and reselling it, do you? Shhh, that is how i got my 10.1 I think it was – gotta love ebay!
“The only difference is the network of shops that each company has..”
No , Not that I mean your wrong in that the network of shops is not part of what they acquire. Your wrong where you say its the only difference.
Lets discuss Conectiva Acquisition And Lycoris acquisition.
When Mandrake bought Conectiva what did they get:
1) A new name and corporate identity : Mandriva
2) One of the best and recognized commercial vendor in the Latin America space and also worldwide.
3) Developper , artists , Sales Team , Support Team , Some good manager ( if you can survive 6 month in a GNU/Linux market your a good manager in my book exept for some at Mandriva )
4) Some real GNU/Linux advocates
5) A very brillaint community of users.
6) Software code ( server , desktop , smb , others )
7) Some R&D technology , some new and other that no one knew conectiva whas working on.
When Mandriva Bouht Lycoris what did they get :
2) One recognized commercial vendor in the US space and also worldwide.
3) Developper , artists , Sales Team , Support Team , Some good manager ( if you can survive 6 month in a GNU/Linux market your a good manager in my book exept for some at Mandriva )
4) Joseph Cheek
5) A very brillaint community of users.
6) Software code ( arts , server , desktop , smb , others )
7) Some R&D technology , some new and other that no one knew lycoris whas working on.
8) Some closed source code.
9) someone who as shown he is able to make Beautifull packaging.
Thats only the tip of the iceberg in both case.
What I find absolutely ridiculous in your comment is that you assume that GNU/Linux is Open Source first ( Open Source is whats driving BSD it Failed in the 70’s and 80’s and made a comback tied to GNU/GPL , the only viable company they have is Apple and Apple dont do really that much Open Source. ) You also suggest , that all GNU/Linux Commercial distribution , since you wrongly claimed it to be all Open Source , are all the same , and that just changing some art and adding minimal code will make all the distribution be the same and act the same. Your absolutely , tottaly wrong.
They are not wasting Investors money by doing this , they are actually showing the people like you who have no clue what they are talking about that they tottaly underestimated Mandriva.
What is retarded in my view is your baseless comments.
“Debian has more marketshare than mandrake and they’re not even marketed commercially. ”
http://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=independence
You Really dont know much ….
“By acquiring mandrakesoft could ”
MandrakeSoft dont exist anymore. Its Mandrivasoft.
http://www.mandriva.com/company/copyright
“What company goes around and does this? I’ve never seen a successful company that has done this.”
In what world do you live in ? All the succesfull company have acquired other company in order to eliminate competition or like in both those case acquire technology and human ressource and knowledge they themself did not posses or could use more of the same.
Your wasting your time trying to show a mistake when if there is one , its not in the acquisition themself , the deals could be or the implementation or the Management not adapting to new reality , but the acquisition are a good thing.
“If powerpack+ is all that dont see anything stopping anyone from making a copy and reselling it, do you? Shhh, that is how i got my 10.1 I think it was – gotta love ebay!
”
The copyright limitations on some of the commercial software included in the Powerpack+ would prevent that, legally speaking. Also trademark law; you can’t legally resell Mandriva’s stuff under the Mandriva name without permission, so you would have to rebrand everything – like CentOS, White Box etc do for RHEL.