[TriLUG] Server: Debian or Mandrake?

[Tanner Lovelace]

On Tuesday, April 22, 2003, at 03:23 PM, Tony Simone wrote:

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> I have a related question maybe someone more knowledgeable could 
> answer:
> what is the future of Mandrake?  No, I'm not asking for a fortune 
> teller...
> :)  Mandrakesoft seems to be flailing about wildly as a company, and 
> last
> time I looked it was in it's death throes.  That said, Mandrake does 
> have a
> dedicated (fanatical???) user base that seems to keep propping it up.  
> I
> suspect that even if they failed, those users may carry it on as a 
> truly
> open project (more like Debian maybe?).
>
> Any thoughts, feedback or knowledge here?  Thanks!

Hi Tony,

I read the Mandrake Cooker list and am a member of the Mandrake
Club, so I hear some stuff from time to time.

Yes, Mandrake is in the French equivalent of bankruptcy.  I, however,
happen to strongly believe they will come out of it a much stronger
company (and fairly soon, I think).  The reason they're in bankruptcy
is historical in nature.  Mandrake started out originally as RedHat
plus KDE.  It wasn't until the first version was released that they
realized there might be any demand for their product.  So, Mandrake
was made into a company and they went to work putting together a
world class distribution.  At some point, they decided that to grow
they should bring in an outside CEO.  This CEO decided that the
new "hot" thing was online education so he poured all their money
into that and even signed them up to long term expensive contracts.
Mandrake soon decided (rightly) that this was insane and they and
said CEO parted ways.  Unfortunately, they were still bound by the
long term contracts that were eating up all their revenue (which,
btw, has continued to grow).  So, after trying a bunch of things
they finally decided the best way to get out of the long term
contracts the CEO had obligated them too was to enter the French
equivalent of bankruptcy.  This allows them to get out of the long-term
contracts that they're not doing anything with anymore and concentrate
on what they do best, the Mandrake Linux distribution.  So, I think
they'll come out of bankruptcy court in fine shape.

Let's say, however, for the sake of argument, that they don't
exit bankruptcy court.  What happens then?  Well, since Mandrake
does all of it's development in the open, with help from the
community, and because everything they've done they've made available
under the GPL, and because they have an active community (between
cooker and the Mandrake Club), I believe that Mandrake could live
on as a distribution run by the community, similar to how Debian
operates.  It certainly would not just disappear into the void.

So, hopefully that answers some of your questions.

Cheers,
Tanner