Submitted by 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.”
It’s nice to see one of the “major” distros besides Ubuntu and RedHat taking a stand on this one. Kudos to Mandriva.
Edited 2007-06-19 19:03
I don’t see it being wrong for a Linux developer to pay Microsoft to legally use their codecs, etc in Linux software. Though I find it appauling for Microsoft to openly imply this is for code protection claiming with out proving Linux distributions use Microsoft code. Why doesn’t the USA DOJ (Department of Justice) step in to stop Microsoft until they can actually provide evidence of their code being used in the Linux kernel and Linux software.
Just modded you up for that.
“I don’t see it being wrong for a Linux developer to pay Microsoft to legally use their codecs, etc in Linux software. Though I find it appauling for Microsoft to openly imply this is for code protection claiming with out proving Linux distributions use Microsoft code. Why doesn’t the USA DOJ (Department of Justice) step in to stop Microsoft until they can actually provide evidence of their code being used in the Linux kernel and Linux software.”
Microsoft has not said anywhere that Linux is using Microsoft code. What they have implied is that Linux may violate patents that Microsoft holds. Patents and code are not the same thing.
Linux doesn’t use Microsoft’s code.
If Microsoft wants to charge Linux users for Microsoft codecs, then Microsoft should offer said codecs for sale to Linux users.
Currently, Microsoft doesn’t offer anything for sale for Linux.
Now, since Linux doesn’t use Microsoft’s code, and there is no code from Microsoft for Linux on offer for sale, what exactly does Microsoft possibly imagine any Linux user should pay Microsoft for?
This is the question.
Even Microsoft murmurs of “interoperability” are all about “you do the work to code our formats on Linux and pay us for your efforts”.
Never does Microsoft offer to do anything for Linux, other than let Linux users pay Microsoft.
Thanks, but no thanks Microsoft. I’ll skip that deal if you don’t mind.
I don’t use Mandriva. However, a statement like this makes them sound like the kind of company that I’d be interested in doing business with if the opportunity should ever arrive. Good for them.
Well, you’ll have to sell your soul to the Mandriva Club.
Without being a member, you’re just loitering.
Please explain what you mean by this.
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.
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.
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.
Well let’s just say that “corporate police” was a little strong-handed.
I don’t mind criticizing companies, but your specific complaints about the membership club were greatly exaggerated in my opinion. And then, when someone who actually became a club member posted to say he didn’t really see a difference, you launched into a textbook ad hominem attack, calling him a drone and saying he had been brainwashed.
“Ooh, someone who contributes financially to a FOSS project, let’s deride him!”
Yeah, right…
And what did I exaggerate?
You’re saying “greatly exaggerated”, well, be specific, what did I exaggerate?.
I said:
– No iso’s when new releases
– Special forums for club members
– Updated packages (KDE, X) for club member only
So where am I exaggerating?
And the someone’s comment was idiotic, since he didn’t notice difference afterhe paid up!!!
Does that make sense to you?
Ofcourse, after you pay up you have access to everything!
And the one month he took he was just a noob getting to know the place, so therefore no difference.
So, he posted an idiotic comment trying to downplay my statement and I’m the one doing wrong.
Crazy logic.
Here you go:
“One couldn’t get anything without being a club member.”
False claim.
“And if people asked for something they were harassed and humiliated to no end because they weren’t in the club.”
Blatant exaggeration.
“Couldn’t download new releases, couldn’t get updated packages like KDE, X etc. because those were only available to club members.”
False claim.
“Kind of like racial segregation.”
Exaggerated *and* offensive to anyone who’s ever been the victime of racial segregation.
It wasn’t idiotic at all, he simply related his own experience, i.e. he didn’t notice any differences between the treatment he received *before* and *after* becoming a club member.
He posted honestly about his personal experience and you lashed out against him. You are indeed the one doing wrong.
There is nothing logical about your ad hominem attacks and exaggerations. They are, in fact, logical fallacies.
This is way off-topic, btw. I’ve wasted enough time with you, and I won’t respond any further, except to mod down any further off-topic comments.
The Mandriva forums at http://forum.club.mandriva.com/ are open to all and have been for, um, a couple of years now, I think. Prior to that, the situation was that non-Club members could read all forums but only post to one.
“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.
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.
There’s nothing shady about private/exclusive forums. A tad elitist, perhaps, and ultimately not very useful, but it’s not anything to get all excited about.
I do agree with Soulbender: people with axes to grind are indeed quite boring – and off-topic. Can’t you at least recognize that refusing to subscribe to Microsoft’s protection racket is a noble move on Mandriva’s part?
“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-
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.
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.
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.
About 2 years actually
I really didn’t dispute anything you said (apart from the insults), just gave my own experience. No need to attack me.
Uhh what?? I was hangin around on the Mandriva forums for about a month before paying for a club membership. Care to guess exactly what changed when I became a paying member? Not a damn thing. I’ve not seen anyone treated any differently whether they were a paying member or not.
Wow, it only took them a month to turn you into a drone!
Used to be that people were harrassed for many months untill they paid or were driven away to use another distro.
Good for you. Now you’re all paid up, fully licensed, club member. Cloned, brainwashed and ready to obey every order.
Go away, troll.
We now we see the line up:
For freedom, against intimidation and monopolization
Red Hat, Ubuntu, Mandriva and of course Debian.
For capitulation to corrupt monopoly power. Those who try to get an immoral edge for their own product together with lots of money being thrown at them to persaude them to compromise their principles.
Novell, Xandros and Freeepire
Well at last we now know where the major distributions stand, only Turbolinux has still to show its hand.
Edited 2007-06-19 19:03
I think it’s safe to assume that you can add:
Gentoo, Slackware, Damn Small Linux, Puppy, Arch, and Vector Linux
on the “For freedom, against intimidation and monopolization” list even though they haven’t (and likely won’t) make a statement.
That leaves TurboLinux, Red Flag, MEPIS, Mint, PCLinux, and CentOS on the fence.
I forgot to add. Kudos to Mandriva for taking a stand.
Edited 2007-06-19 19:15
I expect that CENTOS (and other Red Hat clones) will align firmy behind RedHat. None of them are commercial distros so why would Microsoft go after them?
As their source code is identical to RH then to sue them is if effect to sue RH.
IF I were in charge of a distro like Centos and Microsoft came a calling, I would close down, wait a week and start up again under another name. With no (visible) assets MS could not gain anything by threatening (and that is what is is IMHO) community efforts like Centos.
I don’t use Mandriva (I’m firmly in the Centos/RH camp) but all I can say to the Mandriva folks is well said.
“Put that in your pipe of war Microsoft and choke on it”
We are seeing the Linux world sorting itself out. IMHO, this has been due for a while. If I were on the BoD of the companies that have signed up with MS, I would actually start to get a bit worried about how much longer I would be in a job especially, if there is a shareholder revolt at the diminishing share price and dividends.
Which completely misses the point that these agreements, for whatever they’re worth, are covenants not to sue customers, it really doesn’t matter if CentOS is using RH code or not. Novell, Xandros and Linspire could still be sued by Microsoft. And frankly Microsoft could be sued by Novell. The agreement changes nothing there, other than to underscore the point that MS would have zero interest in partnering with freely distributed distros like CentOS, Ubuntu or Debian.
As much as the community would like to believe this is a war Microsoft has levelled directly at them, linux and FLOSS in general, the fact is that the community and non-commercial distros are irrelevant to MS; this is purely about trying to strategically undermine Red Hat’s dominance in US datacenters. That’s all it’s ever been. As they’ve done before, they chose to partner with #2 in order to battle #1. In fact they’d probably be trying to drag Sun into the fray as well if they didn’t already have cross-licensing agreements in place with them.
Whether it’s an intelligent or meaningful strategy would have been questionable, and this likely would have been dismissed as yet another “FUD-attack” against linux, until the community decided to pipe up and validate it for Microsoft with a level of publicity in the mainstream media that their marketing department could never have accomplished on their own. Then the FSF goes on to say we need v3 to prevent Microsoft’s ability to selectively indemnify customers without indemnifying everyone, which has the nice side-effect of validating Microsoft’s stance that linux needs indemnification because of IP claims. I’m sure Red Hat is grateful for the community’s support as they all continue to download freely distributed copies of CentOS, while Red Hat’s paying customers wrestle internal battles and legal pontification with squeamish executives.
Squeamish executives and concerns over compliance requirements will often win out over rational discourse and principled intents. Red Hat’s anti-patent stance carries far more weight with the community then it ultimately will with corporate purchasers, and the longer the community keeps this issue alive and generating buzz and continuing to fuel the MS FUD machine, the harder you’re going to make it for Red Hat to stay their course.
The really sad part about this is that Microsoft’s agreement with Novell could have instead been spun into complicit acceptance by Microsoft that linux has credibility. I think it’s noteworthy that MS has finally been forced to confront the fact that linux cannot be easily dismissed and is, in fact, become more and more commercially viable, a move that Ballmer has taken extreme measures to evade and deny over the years. In fact I don’t doubt that was Microsoft’s biggest fear, and the reason Ballmer came charging out of the gate right away about IP licensing to deflect that fact. It’s Unfortunate that what could have been an opportunity for positive marketing spin at Microsoft’s expense has been lost for the sake of some ultimately self-indulgent tub-thumping.
From what I read in the PCLinuxOS forums (by Texstar and other devs), you can bet they will NEVER sell out to MS. And remember it’s a community distro, not a commercial one. That’s not to say the others are more likely to, I’m just talking about the one I’m most familiar with.
And don’t forget Red Flag linux. That one is on fire in China. Very doubtful they’ll sell out, since even assuming the Chinese believed these claims, they’d probably not care the slightest about infringing.
There’s also Oracle Linux to consider *snicker*. But actually, I bet that’ll be the next one to join the Dark Side, obviously, since they’re struggling to provide some perceived value over Red Hat or CentOS.
Edited 2007-06-19 19:17
This is exactly what they want. Divide and conquer. the “Line Up”. These distributions against other distributions. You guys are just feeding exactly into what Steve Ballmer wants. He is probably reading this right now, and smiling. Posting comments like this is pro-Microsoft
Companies are suppose to fight. Linux companies can come and go, and it doesn’t matter to free software. What is a problem is when code cannot be shared and reused. By fueling the patent FUD, these companies are threatening that. It’s time for the community to divorce these companies like cheating wives. There are better women (companies) out there.
Edited 2007-06-19 19:25
Exactly!. This what Microsoft wants, and what it’s good at. I fear this is the beginning of the end for somebody.
I’m telling you people, Microsoft has this all planned out to work in their favor. If I were a betting man I’d put all my money on it.
People like me and airwedge1 are going to be the ones saying “I told ya so!”. Just look at the things Microsoft has done in the past to destroy a company, this is right up their ally.
Exactly!. This what Microsoft wants, and what it’s good at. I fear this is the beginning of the end for somebody.
I’m telling you people, Microsoft has this all planned out to work in their favor. If I were a betting man I’d put all my money on it.
People like me and airwedge1 are going to be the ones saying “I told ya so!”. Just look at the things Microsoft has done in the past to destroy a company, this is right up their ally.
While you make a valid point, I think the players are significantly different than what they were when MS last pulled this sort of crap.
Actually, posting comments like this is not pro-Microsoft. We did not make the “Line Up.” Novell and every other company that signed the contract divided things. Balmer was laughing the second Novell signed the contract.
Oracle Linux? Ellison hates Microsoft with a passion. I seriously doubt it’d join.
Oh a fight! My money is on Xandros! Surely they will knock out teh Red Hat!!!1
You know why neither Mandriva, Red Hat, nor Canonical will strike a deal with MS? Because these companies are actually doing well (financially or strategically)!
On the other hand, Novell, Linspire, and Xandros are all in financial trouble (note that I’m not bashing openSUSE or Freespire, which can theoretically exist without their backing corporations, and aren’t even covered by these deals anyways).
So MS’s strategy is to take dying Linux companies and with a cash injection add them to its FUD Army of the Undead.
Edited 2007-06-19 19:12
You’re really really overtrivialising large and much more complex matters. Novell were never a dying company, or a company etc on their way out, despite what you might say. They have hundreds and hundreds of Linux engineers (far more than Mandriva and Ubuntu put together).
None of these companies have joined any “FUD army” because they haven’t made any FUD claims (if you think they have, I’d like to hear them). Novell have explicitly stated <http://opensuse.org/FAQ:Novell-MS> that they do not think Linux violates any of MS’s patents, so Ballmer and others in Microsoft can claim whatever they want. Novell have only ever said the direct opposite.
Novell IS a dying company. They’re losing Netware customers faster than they’re gaining Linux customers. They post losses year after year now since 2001 I believe. Most of their Linux revenue this past year has come from the coupons bought by their biggest competitor, Microsoft. If that’s not the smell of death, I don’t know what is.
Frankly, who cares? Unless you have stock in them, I guess. Their “hundreds and hundreds” of Linux engineers will find work elsewhere, since open source programming IS a transferable skill, y’know.
Edited 2007-06-19 21:06
Plus, even if Novell dies, the company won’t actually “die” but the shareholders will break it up into smaller companies, and we may get back an independent SUSE once again.
You know why neither Mandriva, Red Hat, nor Canonical will strike a deal with MS? Because these companies are actually doing well (financially or strategically)!
No Mandirva is not if you read the Distrowatch interview, while things might be looking up for them; Mandirva is not out of the woods financially. So they are not doing it for that reason necessarily.
Edited 2007-06-20 19:47
Nice one Mandriva, if I were in the market for a commercial distro again I’d know where to set sail for.
Despite internal probleme Mandriva have alwaise been on the righ side
Kudos to Mandriva and the other companies that have done the right thing by not bowing to this kind of extortion.
Now I guess it’s time to try Metisse (I actually think it is _better_ than compiz).
Let’s not forget the following additional players that contribute to the community in very very significant ways:
Knoppix, Gentoo, Slackware, K12LTSP.
I think if these additional projects showed their side of choice, MS and the souls it has acquired will have a hard time justifying the deals they’ve made.
Another thing that has to happen is this: Microsoft says it is too expensive to publicly list each and every of the 235 patents it says it has already investigated that it thinks violate its intellectual property, yet if it has already investigated the questionable patents, it surely has summarized what patents are in violation and would therefore be able to release the information anyway in a few pages on a site somewhere.
Isn’t this what SCO had done before it died? Lay down a lot of “you stole this and that but we won’t tell you what”??
Honestly, I’m really tired of the allegations of theft, which is basically what these are.
it’s about time that a major player actually takes position. Way to go Mandriva, even if they aren’t my favorite distro.
and redhat as well shuns MS
http://www.techspot.com/news/25771-red-hat-once-again-gives-thumbs-…
Mandrake/Mandriva has done a lot for Linux…
I can remember cutting my teeth on Mandrake 7….
How many Linux users first used Mandrake? I remember it was ALWAYS the distro to go to if you were a newb and wanted to start out slow (Seemed almost like an Ubuntu of it’s day)
It’s good to see how much the distro has matured, and the whole ***driva thing didn’t really hurt them much. I think a lot of the Linux mind/marketshare is due to Mandriva.
But maybe I’m just being Nostalgic? It seems like 2007 Spring is an excellent release though
Same here. Mandrake 8.0 (boxed set) was my introduction to Linux.
and have a very small market share in the US iirc.
therefor, being locked out the US market because of a software patent issue would not be that big of a problem for them.
remember, its only in the US that the potential software patents of ms have any theoretical bite.
Actually, rather a lot of our users (especially home users) are in the U.S.
well color me surprised
yeah, I guess it is a surprise
I’ve just gone back and looked at sales on some random days this month. In general the ratio is about 1/3 US and Canada, 2/3 Europe. Minus a little from both for the rest of the world. That’s covering stuff that gets sold from the Store site, so basically end-user stuff.
It would very interesting – possibly also bizarre and disturbing – to know Microsoft’s thinking. On the face of it, their campaign of Fudsterism is only likely to attract fringe candidates and/or those badly in need of some funds. It’s all part of trying to tighten a noose around the idea that software should be free and “unregulated” (unregulated, that is, by a corporation which would otherwise control the market by activation routines and the like).
Microsoft still has plenty of shots in the locker. One is trying to tie down hardware makers, as we have seen with Microsoft’s deal with LG. Another is trying to tie down OEMs who are particularly vulnerable to strong-arming. The aim is not to eradicate Linux but to confine it to a harmless sandbox ruled at all times by Microsoft and the corporations.
So don’t crow yet. Mandriva is nice but it’s not really big enough to make a great difference. Imho, Mark Shuttleworth has the right idea. Debian/Ubuntu has three great strengths: first it is non-commercial (and Debian itself isn’t owned by anyone who can be got at); second it is extremely popular; and third it has a great deal of credibility as a completely independent provider.
So long as this remains the case, Microsoft will never be able to do a deal with Debian/Ubuntu. And if they try legal manoeuvres against Debian/Ubuntu, they will bring a shitstorm down on their head because of the sheer size of the install base. As a result, Microsoft’s campaign of Fudsterism will never really work because it won’t be able to coral the two biggest lights of Linux, Debian/Ubuntu and of course the real target, Red Hat.
Microsoft seem to have looked at the Linux market, seen that it is clearly fragmented, and moved in with a crude strategy of divide and rule. What they seem to have overlooked, however, is that the fragmentation applies to only a fairly small part of the whole. Take Debian/Ubuntu, Red Hat, Mandriva, Slackware and Gentoo, for example, and you have just covered a huge, decisive proportion of the market as well as a huge chunk of commercial Linux (even more if you count derivatives like CentOS or Zenwalk). Since Microsoft hasn’t a cat in hell’s chance of getting these distros to sign on the Fudster’s line, with any luck Microsoft will soon decide that a tactical retreat is in order since there is really no way that General Ballmer is going to pull this one off.
Adam from mandriva 😉 tells us many things about that wonderful distro:
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20070618#feature
regards,
glyj
I really recommend reading that link. It is a great overview of Mandriva current and near future. Mandriva [Mandrake at the time] is the reason I became a regular Linux user. I remember buying the book that came with Mandrake (I think it was 5.5). I had previous experience with Slak and others, but this was the first time I saw Linux as a friendly, easy-to-use OS. Ubuntu did not invent the “just works” desktop Linux. This was pioneering work done by Mandriva. They have also always provided easy access to free versions of the OS that were not _weak_ versions. For years I installed Mandrake on all of my company’s servers using the network install from a floppy.
I am a club member, and I continue to support Mandriva even though I also use Ubuntu and BSD on some of my boxes. I have ridden out the dark times with Mandriva, and I sincerely wish the best to the company. I hope to see healthy competition between Mandriva, Suse, Ubuntu, Redhat/Fedora, and others for many years!
And for the record, AdamW has been nothing but professional in his posts in these forums. I, too, have at times generated some criticism towards Mandriva (the Mandriva Update bug!), but his responses have always been informative and not fanboy talk. He has not tried to gloss over mistakes at Mandriva, nor has he hidden the fact he works for Mandriva. I hope other companies (Novell, Ubuntu, Redhat) will have representatives who visit these forums. I enjoy the feedback.