Is it curtains for Mandriva..???

{BBI}Nexus{BBI} · 09-16-2010, 02:28 PM

Quote:

This is a message from LuismaGo, from Blogdrake.net:

"I think we are going through the hardest part in the life of Mandriva, even harder than when Mandrake broke and the Club had to be brought up. At least, there was no desktop distribution that could meet Mandrake during that crisis, and the Community (yes, with upper "C") responded in the right way: supporting Mandrake economically when the Club was created as a financing method.

Now there is no possibility of economic recovery, if we consider the rumors coming from the company itself. Mandriva company has made several moves all over the place: the purchase of Conectiva, using a weird name to the distro, buying Lycoris, changing the names of the releases, switching to an annual release, firing Gaël Duval, switching back to two releases by year, believing that Spring happens at the same time in France and in the rest of the world, dissolution of the Club, giving diversity of versions of the same distribution that confuse users (One, Free, Powerpack), major restructuring changes like the one that made Adam Williamson leave, many CEO changes, payments suspensions, company bankruptcy and main developers fleeing the company.

The current situation is that the distro is abandoned by the company until the next board meeting decides what should be done about it. But even if the decision is made to move forward with the distro there is one problem: the developers have left.

I think that none of those that belong to the communities have now the same knowledge of how developments that were done by them work, and although this can be fixed (the source code is there to be studied) it takes time, and it may take a long time. We need them if we want to create the Community fork of Mandriva, so here are the two possibilities that can co-exist:

1.- Mandriva-company creates a foundation, just like Fedora, and gives the Community certain tools to enable the development of a base that they can later polish and then use it for their servers distributions.

2.- The community continues on its own and creates a distribution, following the CentOS model, identical (or almost) with the Mandriva-company one but with another name. This would be the fork, strictly speaking.

Although the first option seems easier due to the support in infrastructure received by the company, we have to bear in mind that without the current developers, who obviously won't cooperate with the company that kicked them off, the base distribution will be very poor and can take a long time to go back to the level of the current distro, and the level could even get worse instead of improving.

The second option is more feasible but only if the current developers have a job that allows them to cooperate as part of the community and open the path so that the community gets involved as fast as possible.

Anyway, both options need the Community to get involved in the development. The first thing to do is to change the concept of Community. It should not be a simple "alliance" between MUGs or separated groups. The Community should be all of us, the users of the current Mandriva-distro, some more active than others, but not separated in independent groups. We all know that not everybody can, want or know how to cooperate, but that level of involvement is not necessary. All that's necessary is a critical mass that will be involved in development, translation, tests and bugs hunting or just propaganda.

We have to forget about MIB, MUD or BDK-packagers. Now we can't go on our own. Now all the participants of these projects have to stop being a complement to the packages that Mandriva provides, but they will have to provide the packages that Mandriva provided, and not separately but as a single one homogeneous Community. Therefore a key aspect is to count on the help of the current developers who left. Their leadership and their knowledge is what that can unify all this. And, of course, there is still a lot to discuss about how to finance all this.

I finish with a third option: the current developers of Mandriva end up working for another distro and they integrate the MCC and all the Drakes in it. I think that the solution here is pretty clear for all of us."

We are interested in the views of all of you to act accordingly.

I sincerely hope an acceptable way forward is found, even if it means forking.

ofaring · 09-16-2010, 08:04 PM

That is unfortunate news. Mandrake was the first distro I used which allowed me to get my feet wet without completely overwhelming me with the sheer amount which had to be read and learned. It was a phenomenal distro in its day.

msdobrescu · 09-17-2010, 02:14 AM

Yeah, I moan too...

nigelc · 09-17-2010, 04:55 AM

I really like Mandriva It seems to be much better than Ubuntu.

msdobrescu · 09-17-2010, 11:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nigelc

I really like Mandriva It seems to be much better than Ubuntu.

I have tried Kubuntu. In two hours it was broken. Also a friend has this experience after a month with Ubuntu. They crashed unexpectedly, with no recovery possible. They were both used as servers and let to perform. There was no setting up in progress at the crash time. Then whyyyy??

Mandriva still stands up.

I have asked things on their forums. At least 2 people resnded to me in the first day on Mandriva's forums. Ubuntu's forum was silent for days. After two weeks somebody answered. I have forgotten the question then...

But it is true. Ubuntu has more support materialized as tutorials. This is great for newbies. They are more aggressive in promoting their software.

Concerning the crashes, I am sure Ubuntu can do the job. I hope it was an accident in our case...

ernie · 09-18-2010, 11:12 AM

Based on a post I saw on Planet Mandriva, there is (or will be) a fork established in the coming days, named Mageia. See the Web page if you are interested. It seems that many of the Mandriva developers are involved, so maybe our favorite distribution will continue, even if it has to be with a new name . . .

{BBI}Nexus{BBI} · 09-18-2010, 11:31 AM

Thanks for the update ernie.

I like the tone of the language being used. If all their expectations are met, this could be the best thing that could have happened for Mandriva users.

eveningsky339 · 09-18-2010, 11:32 AM

PCLinuxOS lives on, but it's such a heavy fork of Mandriva that it's not really a fork anymore.

{BBI}Nexus{BBI} · 09-18-2010, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eveningsky339

PCLinuxOS lives on, but it's such a heavy fork of Mandriva that it's not really a fork anymore.

Historically yes, PClinuxOS was forked from Mandriva. However, it now stands on its own two feet. I doubt the demise of Mandriva would have any bearing on the continued existence of PClinuxOS.

floppywhopper · 09-18-2010, 08:30 PM

Started off with Mandrake 9 and have stayed with it ever since
I'd be sad to see it die
the only KDE distro to come close IMHO is PC-BSD
and that still needs a lot of work

personally I favour this option

Quote:

2.- The community continues on its own and creates a distribution, following the CentOS model, identical (or almost) with the Mandriva-company one but with another name. This would be the fork, strictly speaking.

I would also like to see a move away from RPMs to Debian
sort of like Debian with KDE, the MCC, the Mandrake installer and without all the Debian fuss about "free" software

floppy

{BBI}Nexus{BBI} · 09-18-2010, 10:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by floppywhopper

I would also like to see a move away from RPMs to Debian

Why? What's wrong with it remaining an RPM based system?

damgar · 09-18-2010, 10:47 PM

I was just reading the new fork page after reading a post in LXer. It's kind of sad in that Mandrake was the first linux I ever tried (failed miserably) and Mandriva was the first one 10 years later when I finally switched. I don't run it anywhere at present, but I always really liked it. I hope that the fork goes well. I really feel that Mandriva was probably the distro I felt most comfortable recommending for new people to try out.

Drakeo · 09-19-2010, 12:05 AM

It went down hill after Gaël Duval, was permanently laid off. They threw away the foundation the vision how long can you pump out packages with out a mission.
Mandriva is a rock solid distro that has so much going for it. If the fork does not have the man in it then it is just lost.
one of the best thought out hardware configuration gui I know. sad to see it go away.
Or does it really go away.

ernie · 09-19-2010, 12:57 AM

I have been a Mandriva user since Mandrake 6.1 (circa 1998), and it has worked well for me with nearly all releases (strange luck for me - huh?), but if Mandriva is in such poor financial shape today, perhaps a Community based fork is the best thing for all of us. Even though the MCC utilities have been my primary excuse for remaining a faithful Mandriva user, I think the community has been the real reason for my faith and commitment. If the Mandriva Community becomes the Mageia Community, I suppose I will become a Mageia user as well. After all, it is the Community (yes, with a capital 'C') that really makes the distribution, not the name (Mandriva proved that when they did the name change from Mandrake to Mandriva). I await news as it becomes available with great interest. . .

Cage47 · 09-19-2010, 09:49 AM

I started using Linux for full-time use in 1999 with Mandy 7.0. I only recently lost my cd. It was the tools that kept me a lurking fan. even if I haven't been a user since the whole Mandrake-Conectiva deal. Mandrake 10 was my last production use version. I used 2006 for a couple months while testing out debian.

I think the fork would be a good idea if they can get the distro back to where it was when Gael was at the helm. Actually it would be nice to see him return to the developers list. Personally though, PCLinuxOS seems more the way to go. It's ALREADY based off Mandriva. Why not focus the resources there?