HIMandrake Charging $1 Per Copy for Trademark Rights?
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HIMandrake Charging $1 Per Copy for Trademark Rights?
Hello,
I recently started selling bundles of Linux distros on eBay. I sell them very cheaply and do not make much of a profit on them at all. In fact I still haven't recouped my original investment.
Anyway, I was contacted by HIMandrake.com aka Heavy Industrials Inc.
They claim that in order to resell the downloaded version of Manrake, that you have to sign a contract with them which grants you the right to use the MandrakeSoft Trademarks and Copyrights.
They have admitted to me in an email that they do not hold the rights to these Trademarks or Copyrights, and claim that they are working with Mandrake to "clean up the internet" because MandrakeSoft is losing money.
However, if you visit their website they have nothing to verify their association with MandrakeSoft other than their own claims. I was sent a cut and paste of an email that was supposedly from the CEO, Francois Bancilhon, in order to convince me that they are legitimately charging a $1.00 royalty in the name of MandrakeSoft.
However this cut and paste had no headers or anything.
Has anyone heard of this company? Is it true that you can no longer redistribute the download version of Mandrake Linux or are they trying to scam people?
I looked on the net and there are plenty of others selling Mandrake on the net.
It just seemed very suspicious to me.
Please let me know if you know anything about this subject.
Yes I have emailed the Sales department at Mandrake, but havent received a reponse. I have seen only scant discussion of this on the internet and a few people said they couldnt get a response to this from Mandrake. If I get a response I will post it so the question can be resolved.
Originally posted by blue123 Yes I have emailed the Sales department at Mandrake, but havent received a reponse. I have seen only scant discussion of this on the internet and a few people said they couldnt get a response to this from Mandrake. If I get a response I will post it so the question can be resolved.
It seems like a scam to me, but I don't know.
Ask them to send you a copy of the legal contract they signed with Mandrake OR a legaly certified note from Mandrake Administration OR any other legal document that allows then to work on behalf of MandrakeSoft, SA.
Give them 24h. to comply with your demands or you will issue a complaint at FBI (or whatever law enforcement corporation deals with this in your country).
Emails (even with headers and all the whistles) are NO LEGAL DOCUMENTS.
But if they don't reply please really issue a complaint. They will understand that your are not joking.
I will forward this to François so he can reply to you.
blue123, you got me interested in what you posted here.
Strange indeed. I checked MandrakeSoft's web site to see if there was any such announcement. Surely one would think that there would be a big press release or something of the sort but alas there was nothing at all. The whole thing smells fishy to me, you're doing the right thing by contacting MandrakeSoft directly and confirming this.
Anyway...I did a little digging and this is what I came up with...
Wow, this just keeps getting better... I found a thread over on OSNews about this very thing. Looks like this has been going on for a little while now. Someone named Jobert on the OSNews forums had posted....
"I called MandrakeSoft and was told there is no partnership with HiMandrake and the owner, Dianne Ursini, is abusing her reseller rights. She's claiming to own the trademark and copyright to Mandrake. She will not be the official redistributor for the US, she's only a reseller trying to corner the market. Pretty sad, really.."
Late yesterday I received a notice from eBay's VeRO Program (Verified eBay Rights Owners. It is eBay's program for Intellectual Property Rights Owners to register with eBay so that they can have auctions removed that infringe on the rights of the Intellectual Property Owner.
The notice stated that I had infringed on Heavy Industrial Inc.'s intellectual property rights and that my 2 auctions would be removed from eBay. It stated that if I relisted these items or any similar items I would be suspended from eBay.
How Heavy Inustrial Inc. aka HIMandrake.com obtained the Verified eBay Rights Owner account in the name of Linux Mandrake, I have not a clue????
So now apparently eBay has sanctioned this company's stance on the GPL software that I was redistributing.
Apparently, somehow, eBay believes that this company owns the rights to Mandrake.
I am still awaiting a response from Francois Bancilhon, or anyone at Mandrake for that matter.
I've been dealing with both Dianna and François (François is the nicest guy on the planet by the way. But Dianna, pure B****) about this issue and we've come up with a solution. I do not like the solution myself therefore I no longer support Mandrake and have switched to a modified Debian distribution that does the exact same thing as the MDK Download edition with the exception that it does not have the MDK installer (I created my own with Debian's PGI), and it now has the ability to detect and install most Winmodems (similiar to what the commercial version of MDK does) but this is the deal.
HiMandrake is a very new reseller and they have been complaing about not being able to compete with those of us who are distributing the download edition of Mandrake. So they started closing auctions on Ebay using what is called a VeRO account. They basically got this account illegally because they wrongfully claimed to be MandrakeSoft. The correct way to go about doing this would have been to have MandrakeSoft get the VeRO account and then ASK if they could use that account. This was the fact that caused such a huge mess and is now being investigated by a lawyer that both myself and some other Ebay sellers have hired to see if something can be done about the sales we lost because of HiMandrakes stupity. But this whole thing was brought about because HiMandrake couldnt figure out how to crush the competition the right way, so they tried cheating, Microsoft style (If you cant beat'm, hide them from the public eye by canceling their items *Insert Bill Gates cackle here*).
HiMandrake is charging every person that sells a download edition $1 per copy sold. Since most of us sell this for $5 or less on ebay, the $1 charge will more than likely drive the price up on ebay which in turn is going to make Mandrake the most expensive Linux available on ebay. $1 seems pretty small, but when your dealing in cents as the profit margin, its huge. Someone who sees a debian listed for $5 and a Mandrake for $6, which do you think they are going to try out if they both appear to do the same thing? My guess is that they will go with the $5 version 1st unless they actually know more about linux and know the differences and already know which one they want. This is a bad thing I think, but who knows, maybe I'm just ignorant in the ways of business.
What I dont understand is, why cant we pay MandrakeSoft this $1 instead of HiMandrake. We've NEVER EVER had to do this before, and MandrakeSoft has NOT announced this as a new policy. So I expect to see this coming as an announcement very soon. Directly after that, these forums are going to be FILLED with "MandrakeSoft sucks!".
Read it and contact the guy (lancelight) from MandrakeClub. Sue the guys or force them to show the so-called "Contract Agreement".
By the way. They (Mandrake) can force you to not use their name and logo like the Red Thing does. And this makes some sense because they cannot certify the quality of your "Download Edition" CDs
Anyone seen the HIMandrake website? They even have their own certification and solution provider programs! ROFLMAO. This can't be good for Mandrake's reputation and I'm surprised they haven't put the brakes on it yet. BTW, for a nominal $1,500 charge, I'd be glad to certify anyone here a BMCSE (BYEMandrake Certified System Engineer) and make you an ABMPSP (Authorized BYEMandrake Platinum Solution Provider.)
Originally posted by Crito Anyone seen the HIMandrake website? They even have their own certification and solution provider programs! ROFLMAO. This can't be good for Mandrake's reputation and I'm surprised they haven't put the brakes on it yet. BTW, for a nominal $1,500 charge, I'd be glad to certify anyone here a BMCSE (BYEMandrake Certified System Engineer) and make you an ABMPSP (Authorized BYEMandrake Platinum Solution Provider.)
I too noticed that, I did a little digging and it appears that the all of these domain names himandrake.com, hilinuxstuff.com, etc were only setup towards the tail end of last year (around October or so). The "parent company's" domain name as I can tell seems to be heavyindustrial.com it was setup May of 2002. I don't know about anyone else here, but it appears to me that this outfit has some sort of "Mandrake Linux land grab" mentality. It'll be interesting to watch how MandrakeSoft handles this. Of course if you're bored check out the hilinuxstuff.com site.
I can't figure out why MandrakeSoft hasn't said something before now if himandrake has the right to charge "royalty" payments on the download version of Mandrake. I guess Mandrake will go the way of RedHat, oh well time to go find another distro.
I've been searching the Internet over the past few days and have yet to see anything anywhere on the Internet or on MandrakeSoft's site that says HiMandrake can collect "royalty" payments. However, if you really wanted to...you could beat HiMandrake at their own game by becoming a reseller or a distributor yourself -> http://www.mandrakesoft.com/partners/distribution. HiMandrake is probably just beating you over the head with their "reseller" status or whatever it is. I don't believe Mandrake distributors or resellers have "exclusive" right to sell any Mandrake Linux edition as stated on Mandrake's parnter site, partners have basically non-exclusive right to...blah blah blah -- of course MandrakeSoft could have made up special rules just for HiMandrake....but I kind of doubt it. However only MandrakeSoft knows the answer to that and until they say so. I noticed that even linuxcentral.com is selling the download edition, of course they're listed on MandrakeSoft's site as being a retailer. Anyway, keep at it you'll eventually get an answer.
Well blue123, I think I may have found your answer. It'll probably be easier to become a Mandrake partner (i.e. reseller, distributor, etc) to sell Mandrake's software to beat HiMandrake.com at their own game. Not only that, but you would be able to purchase good quality mastered CDs from MandrakeSoft at lower prices. If you haven't already, you may want to check MandrakeSoft's partner benefits page -> http://www.mandrakesoft.com/partners/benefits.
Of course as someone else said earlier in this thread you could remove all mention of Mandrake (i.e. logos, trademarks, etc) and create your own distribution as Mandrake did when they branched from RedHat.
p.s. I hope at some point in time that MandrakeSoft will shed some light on the HiMandrake claims so we'll know if the claims themselves are real or bogus.
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Hmmmm, strange it is indeed. Never heard of that.
Contact this guy...
I guess Mandrake will go the way of RedHat, oh well time to go find another distro. 
