Mandrake Asks for Support 555
Many people wrote in with this news: "Mandrake Linux today reports having a short-term money crunch. They call for users to become members to help float them through the short-term viability issue. Membership dues are the preferred method over budget/project cuts."
hmm.. (Score:4, Insightful)
From the page:
Window$? Very unprofessional.
Trademarks are copyrighted? What does that mean??
Well, anyway, I hope they don't go under, as I was thinking of switching from Red Hat to Mandrake on a new P4 (I always buy my Linux distros to support the companies, and so should you).
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll probably do it. (Score:5, Insightful)
FWIW, I first installed an early 5.x of Red Hat but got ticked when it didn't work with my sound card. It took me about a month to learn everything I needed to get sound working. After that, I muddled along with Red Hat for a while, but Mandrake came along and really added some value to what Red Hat had done, IMHO. The install recognized everything and even got X working properly. It also helped that the distro included more up-to-date packages (esp. of GNOME and KDE) and the -- probably worthless to me in the grand scheme of things, but still a factor -- pentium optimizations.
Best of all, I think they've kept up their end of the bargain. They consistently provide a really good distro with up-to-date packages. They've done a lot of work on getting Linux to recognize hardware more seemlessly.
Yep, all things considered I think they're worth $5.
Time to rethink strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems to be a losing proposition, in the end. Begging users for handouts? Will Mandrake move to the public radio-method of fundraising? "Hi, your boot is interrupted this week to ask, 'User, do you enjoy Mandrake enough to pay $10 a month, or $20 a month? Become a member now, and we'll throw in a Signature Logo t-shirt, signed by RMS'"
This is where normal businesses say "what we're doing isn't working--let's try something else". Mandrake (or any Free Software-based business) doesn't have to show massive profits, but it does have to keep the doors open.
Selling the CDs don't work. Too easy to download ISOs, too easy to simply compile new apps. Selling services works, but only to a select few. RedHat may be able to get away with it, but isn't Mandrake a French company? Too far away, conceptually if not literally.
What is Mandrake's raison d'etre? A desktop-friendly Linux, if I'm not mistaken. Mandrake used to be a rip-off of RedHat, before it matured.
If Mandrake can cut costs by returning to that model--a "wrapper" around a RedHat install that caters to the needs of a desktop user. It can leech off RedHat for the hard stuff, and focus it's energies (and money) on keeping the doors open.
I hate to see them die, but duplicating effort can kill a small company. Unless Mandrake decides to finance the nerds with MandrakePorn. That, I understand, is doing okay.
What's that? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not a charity! If you want to help Free Software, give to the FSF or SPI (www.spi-inc.org aka the debian foundation).. They will even give you tax deduction.
Giving Mandrake Inc. money is just throwing it out of the window! If they can't make money as a for-profit company, well they should and they deserve to go bankrupt. At least, its all free software and someone else can maybe pick it up and make a business with a serious business model.
Please stop that non-sense! If you want to give, give to a charity!
Why We Should Support Them (Score:3, Insightful)
I've noticed a few people posting saying that it is a bad idea to 'come crying to the users for money.' I see it a diffrent way all together. It seems that they are asking the community in which they have dedicated time and development to for some support to continue their work.
Re:Why pay for something that you alreadt\y own? (Score:4, Insightful)
The $5 a month isn't paying for something you already 'own', it's supporting open source development. Think about it. Mandrake releases their code under the GPL. However, if they must lay off their coders, then how will they continue to contribute to the body of GPL software? The answer is easy. They won't.
You're not paying for the code. You're paying for the developer's time, the machine, and the building in which he/she works. While the result is free, the development is not.
For years, the Open Source community has been releasing free code to the masses, many of whom do not, or can not contribute. Well, this is your chance. If you've never submitted code, artwork, documumentation or even a bug report, THIS is your chance to help support the community which has given you so much.
Mr. Anderson, this is your wake up call.
I'm not sending them anything (Score:5, Insightful)
And if Mandrake ultimately ends up surviving, by measure of donations/contributions, I'll judge it as a feasible example of a charity case. Because it seems clear that Mandrake is not going to survive on the merit of the saleability of its products and can only survive by appeals to the goodwill of the open-source community. But the long-term problem is (and it IS a long-term problem, not a short-term one as the source post claims), the community only has so much pocket change to give to so many panhandlers. There is no reason to suspect that a bit of cash here and now is going to somehow change the fundamental, underlying economic reality that there aren't many people willing to pay for software which by rights they don't have to pay for.
Re:Why pay for something that you alreadt\y own? (Score:1, Insightful)
That's a good point. Why should I give money to PBS when I can watch their shows for free? It's not like they'll block my access. Why do religeous wackos give money to their churches? It's not like they'll get thrown out if they don't pay.
There is no possible sane reason for giving them money.
...oh wait... unless I want them to survive.
Goddam, you think there just might be a strategic objective behind giving them money? An ulterior motive that goes beyond merely getting this month's edition on CD?
It's like, spending money in order to make the world more like the way you want it to be. It's like getting something for something. What an alien concenpt!
come on (Score:4, Insightful)
And a few reasons why users of said company's products might have an interest in seeing that company survive.
Especially when said users have probably been using said product for free.
Personally, I've been downloading new Mandrake ISOs for 3 years now, and I'd much rather donate than buy a boxed version of the distro. More of my $$ go to fund development that way.
I hope the Mandrake employees (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know, it seems odd to me for a publicly traded company to post a notice like that asking for financial support in the form of donations. That seems like it would panic the shareholders and hurt them even more in the long run. The sensible thing would be to lay off those emplyees not contributing to the core of Mandrake's business and save some money in those non revenue generating areas.
Re:I've joined (Score:2, Insightful)
That is one of the reasons to donate, to pay for some of the coders/hackers (and yes, I'm useing the term hacker in the sense of one who comes up with a creative solution to a problem) that add to the communal body of code, who, without this paycheque, may have to explore other places of emply, many of which will be less willing to make such a donation of an employee's paid time to something like this.
you just dont get it do you? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is their business. They offer a service, no diffrent than AOL or your local cable company. Its more similar to a very good magazine.
You subscribe to them, they offer you a community, and plenty of benifits, also you help with the development of Linux Mandrake.
Basically they are offering us the choice. We can subscribe from our own free will, or with Mandrake 9.0 they will just force you to subscribe to download it like Lindows and Suse and others.
They are giving us the choice to tell them how we want them to run their business, if you dont subscribe then you want them to run their business more like a Redhat or Suse, and sell to corperations and OEMs and not offer any free services, because a company in the red doesnt have the money to offer a free forum, mandrake expert, mandrake community pages, and so on.
It's high-time for some Linux consolidation (Score:2, Insightful)
I hate to see an outfit like Mandrake go, but we have too many distributions of Linux. They're all using the Linux kernel, but the differences between them make third-party product support nearly impossible. Each distribution is dividing finite developer resources. To what effect? The value of choice is hopelessly overstated if, by "choice," we refer solely to choosing among the decisions of capricious developers (where files go in the file system, what desktop to use, etc.). There is no "value add" in such things.
Yes, I think Mandrake suffers from the "it's pretty, but doesn't really take us anywhere" problem. In my experience, both RedHat and SuSE make products that are as usable as Mandrake, but with real reasons to use them. RedHat has nearly universal support from third-party vendors. SuSE is doing a nice job on enterprise functions. (In contrast, Mandrake's "upgrade" from 7.0 to 7.1 left me with a completely unusable system.) Perhaps it's time for Mandrake's efforts to get rolled into one of these other distributions.
Re:Plex86 (Score:2, Insightful)
BTW I love mandrake for starting new linux users on. I would be more than willing to send them some cash if they post the salaries of their management. Also id like to know what it is each one of the managers actually do.
If it appears they are worth their salary then I would feel the money is well spent, then id send them some money. The thing is ive worked to many it jobs were the engineers/programmers dont make enuf while some people in management make hundres of thousands a year doing nothing, and dont forget their bonuses etc.
Re:I've joined (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me tell you, I have had the most mind-bending troubles setting up and administering WindowsNT and Windows2000 servers (I really am not a network admin, so admitedly much of this could be due to my inexperience), but I was able to set up a decent, reliable Mandrake server the first time I tried to. Keep in mind that the applications I'm speaking of are not under a heavy load, nor are they mission-critical (I leave those machines for the real network admins to work with).
-Sou|cuttr
Re:I've joined (Score:2, Insightful)
They're just a bit more successful than opensource groups because they *require* the money while opensource groups "suggest" the donation. It's like the museums that have suggested donations and there are always jerks who say "Well I pay taxes." without stopping to think that "wait a minute... I enjoy this art, I should contribute".
-Sara
Re:I've joined (Score:2, Insightful)
It was mentioned in an email from Mandrake. I opened a browser to go see about joining, and saw this story here
That said, Mandrake is my fave desktop distro. I've had many barely tech literate ppl use my PC & have no problems navigating. I use Slackware for servers, but that's mainly because I like to go barebones for servers. Desktops are where Mandrake shines, though.
Re:Weed the Herd ! ! ! ! (Score:4, Insightful)
As others have pointed out, Mandrake makes significant contributions to the Linux world. Mandrakes DiskDrake partitioning utility (for example) is better then some commercial I've seen. And unlike most other distributions, everything Mandrake does is GPL'd (politely correct me if this is wrong. At the very least, most of what they do is GPL'd).
As for all of the other distributions, while some may be less relavent then others, they all contribute in one way or another. At the least, they come up with new ideas, some of which may eventually find there way into the big distros.
Don't support them if you don't want to, but if they die, all Linux users will directly or indirectly suffer as a result.
Re:So this is a 'pay off the lawyers' plea? (Score:3, Insightful)
So the cash crunch isn't solely due to the name thing.
What I am particularly horrified at is the poor quality of the financial data presented on their web site.
I'm not surprised that they are reduced to begging for money: I wouldn't lend or invest money with them based on those shoddy disclosures.
This is a tiny company with about 100 employees and a few million dollars in sales.
Let's face it, when a sound business is facing a temporary cash crunch, short-term financing is available. That they can't get thaty financing is a signal that they are not a sound business, whatever the quality of their coding might be.
Re:I've joined (Score:2, Insightful)
Dont be blinded by marketing tricks. Also consider open source a service, like any service, you should pay for it.
If you like a good magazine, sure its in a library or store and you can read it, but if you want that magazine to come to you every month and you want to support that magazine, you buy a subscription. Mandrake is a service.
The Sickening Reaction (Score:4, Insightful)
I see so many people on here commenting that they dont use mandrake so they wont join, or that they downloaded the software and its free so they wont pay, or even some claiming that corporations they have encouraged to use Open Source should pay.
What sort of hypocrisy do you function under?
Your money goes to helping a company survive, its $5 dollars for christs sake! If you think that the company is in trouble and that doesnt affect you then youre dreaming, what about Loki and the many other open source companies that have gone under, did they affect you ? what will ?
The attack on corporates is even more laughable as im pretty sure in 99% of cases they are the ones who actually purchase boxed software and DONT download it, thus they have already contributed more than you have.
The fact is this should scare all of you - open source is not at this moment in time a viable business plan and that means its dying and the pace is accelerating. Invariably it means that Open source will once again retreat to the dedicated coders and the academic arena and that will mean the death of Linux in corporates and home user environments.
Donating to mandrake is supporting the movement you are part of. I have just joined even though i now use exclusively MS OS'es (issues with some things OSS and Linux wont do NOT a philosphical anti linux position) becuase i think this is something worth saving - there has to be an alternative and its time you all draw a line in the sand.
Support Open Source or find another crusade - anything else makes you a hypocrite of the worst type as you wont put your money where your mouth is (and your heart is supposed to be).
Re:I've joined (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't quite work to compare opensource software to magazines, however. Who pays for magazines these days? Most people I know get the professional discount and the magazine either goes out of business or gets the money from selling advertising.
If you use the software, pay for it. If you don't then revert to whatever came with your computer or go warez-ing and contribute to the declining liberties of the internet.
-Sara
Support those who enrich the world (Score:5, Insightful)
I am no longer running Mandrake on any of my computers, but it was the best distro I've come across (only missing apt-get). The installer eased me into the world of linux, diskdrake is lightyears ahead of fdisk, and the command center is sorely missed in other distros. I never would have been able to learn linux without their help. An encrypted filesystem might be enough to convince me to upgrade to a supported video card and give Mandrake a fourth (lifetime... the other three have been given away) computer.
Mandrake, and community software, are like public television... They do philanthropic deeds for many people, but philanthropy is never profitable. They need money? I own a box set, and I haven't had an income in 5 months, but Mandrake is worth it to me. Count my Donation.
Stupid business (Score:2, Insightful)
Have they did *everything* in order to survive as a regular business? Certainly not.
A business entity like theirs have mainly three departments: marketing/sales, development, and support.
Marketing & Sales Dept. shall remain where is located (i.e., France). After all it is the core of the company. No comments to be made about them
But...
Support Dept. and also Development Dept. employs most of the 100-member crew of MandrakeSoft, while still being located in France. That's hardly a sound business decision, since moving out those operations in a lower-cost country will save them lots of badly-needed funds. I'm Romanian and I cand say having an excellent Linux dev here cost about 800 US Dollars all taxes included!!! We have high-speed Internet, we have PCs, we have everything an IT company might need. And the same conditions (costs may vary) can be found in Bulgaria, Russia or Ukraine. Same conditions but almost double the salaries can be found in Hungary, Czech Republic or Poland. Same conditions as in Romania/Bulgaria/Russia/Ukraine can be found in India but the travel costs will be rather big.
My point is any intelligent company shall try pro-actively find lower-cost resources, and MandrakeSoft do not run their business this way. Most of their running costs come from Development and also from Support, which can be confidently moved out in Eastern Europe (where English literacy is bigger than in Western Europe, BTW).
Siemens, Alcatel, Motorola, Microsoft are doing R&D, Development, Support in Romania (I'm insisting on Romania simply because living there I know it better). Why MandrakeSoft are not willing to behave like a responsible business?
Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now on one level you are correct. Free software can and may be maintained and passed along to whom-ever. One person stops working on a project, another can and will take over if the project dictates it, and / or the project deserves it.
BUT,
A project as large as Linux Mandrake, to think that they can just shut their doors, and someone like yourself can just step in and pick up where it all was left off, the projects, the production, the distribution on a project of this size... you're dreaming.
And to not support a project that has given so much to the Linux community? We all like free "as in beer" software. I like to use the code and learn from it... But you need to think bigger. Think past your own dorm room... Or office in my case....
Don't we all want Linux to grow? Hasn't Mandrake done so much for the Linux Desktop community? Yes, and yes!
If we let a project such as this fail, because you can't scrounge in your cushions for $5, even for just one month of dues, then what exactly to we stand for?
I can make free software, you can make free software, but even together we could not make Linux Mandrake.
Free as in beer is great, but we all need to support what we love. Either in $$ in times of need, or bug reports to make it better, and if you're too cheap to do both, at least recommend it to your friends.
Until I get a call from another company asking if they can send me the document in kword.... I'm going to give support, and push others into supporting them.
Finished Ranting... Back to my Coffee....
Re:Time to rethink strategy (Score:2, Insightful)
These are bad times. And people and companies are getting caught in unlucky positions financially. Business is about risks, yes. Mandrake is in a short-term cashflow crunch. This is a real bitch of a position to be in so don't discount it as poor management or a flawed business model so quickly! It happens. Period.
Now, these are hard times financially for everyone. I've seen it suggested here that they should issue stock. I'm not sure why they don't, but I'm not involved in a public company myself so I won't second guess them. Perhaps that is a Plan B. Afterall shouldn't we support them first?? My point is that you can get caught in a cashcrunch when you conduct business in the real world of running a business. And you can call it unlucky .
No, your personal financial situation is not a fair comparison. It is no where near the same thing. I hope anyway.
Since 9/11 and the 'recession' banks and other lender are not eager to lend money to cover cashflow. Mostly becuase they were also caught with their cashflow down or are exposed to more loss than would be normal.
Don't be so hard on Mandrake. If one of your friends needed $20 till payday would you cover it? Sure you would. I'd hope so. I hope that Mandrake's msg is upfront and that their future is bright. In the mean time if they need $20 till payday I'm there for them.
The real point here... (Score:2, Insightful)
Mandrake is not begging for money...they are requesting that users enroll in their membership service which (as I understand it) supplies tech support. This is a far cry from "I'm bleeding, give me money, please", which is how this request is being portrayed. It makes perfect sense for Mandrake to go to its user base and ask for help before turning to more draconian means of freeing capital.
The reason this makes perfect sense is because if they have to start killing projects or trimming the work-force, it is the user base that will suffer. Oops, no more diskdrake. "Hey what happened to drakconfig?"
Open source software is not about getting something for nothing. The "Free" refers to freedom, not $0. That doesn't mean its a crime to dl your distro for free, but why not reciprocate with patch submissions, ideas, or, giving $ where you can. I think that's what it's about.
If we as Open Source advocates don't pull together, we will be split apart. Heavy hitters with virtually unlimited resources are training their gun-sights on the community.
Supporting Mandrake (Score:2, Insightful)
I figured that I would be spending lots of money not only for the windoze OS but for the antivirus products and other crap required to keep it running. At that point, joining and, for that matter, buying some stock is enlightened self interest. Someday I hope to contribute to open source but for now, I will contribute money for true value received and feel good about my investment and what it will give me in the future.
WindowsXP instead (Score:1, Insightful)
have to recompile my kernel when I want to install an ethernet card, it
automatically detects it and installs the drivers no matter who the
manufacturer is. Dual monitors? No chore with windows, get two video cards,
two monitors and it's set up! I don't need to edit config files with editors
that are 20 years old, and show it. Intellimouse custom buttons? Piece of
cake, with my Intellimouse software.
You want to run games? Great! Choose from an array of tens of thousands of
games that run great under DirectX and the NT subsystem. Stability got you
down? Not in this version, I have had uptimes of over a month (and then the
damn power goes out). Good internet browser? No need for Kommunist shit,
you've got the great Internet Explorer 6 a click away.
Doing some development? Nothing but the best for Windows users, choose from a
suite of Visual Studio products that suits your needs, with one killer IDE.
Or, pick up a beta edition of Visual Studio.NET if you have 200 megs of RAM
to spare! You Linux faggots can keep rooting for your piece of shit operating
system that Windows 3.1 tops in terms of compatibility, all the while
hindering your experience for something else you could be doing, while I use
the operating system of choice (or by default) for over 200 million others in
the world.
Anti-Microsoft zealots piss and moan all you want, but your queer little OS
won't be the reigning desktop champion anytime soon.