Jump to content

Open Suse, whither Mandriva?


steppenwolf1984
 Share

Recommended Posts

for the record, suse has always been open source. suse has not always been free download. but even then you could say its free. suse provided the live cd "suse eval", and the ftp installs. both of which are free. suse also made 9.1 pro freely available on its mirrors and 9.3 pro is on the mirrors now. YaST has gone open source (its like the mandrake control center). so other than flash and adobe, very little is closed source. most of the closed source are from demos. perhaps mainactor.

 

You hit the nail on the head, though it was more of a comment and a personal pet peeve. Amused to see everyone so riled up actually. The marketing , or the tone of the marketing is -imho- a bit off. With such a great distro, most of the Mandriva sites shouldnt lead to "benefits for members only" type promotion. A healthy balance that incorporates the PLF and the Cooker projects would reinforce their open source stance...and like arctic said, the general view of suse was that it was aimed at a corporate audience with little attention - in their promotion - to the community which ranges from corporate to individual hackers. Another great distro but it runs slower than Mandy does - at least on my machine - hence I use Mandy.

 

Seems alot of posters though, are stuck in a world of absolutes and If you dont like it leave mentality...THAT certainly belongs more to the M$ camp. Complain about M$....naw, let em stew in it. I would have to care about M$ first....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 34
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Ok, I've read all the posts in this thread, and I still don't understand:

 

What exactly is it that you're upset about steppenwolf?  I'm not trying to be obtuse, I just can't figure out exactly what you're issue is, or rather the purpose of your post.

 

Are you complaining about Mandriva's advertising?

 

 

In a word, tyme, yeah....its a blunder imho to be practically begging for money as some have noted. I dont complain about M$ because one, most people know about them and two, I would have to care about M$ to invest energy in critiquing them. Ive seen people I know head towards linux lately and many have come up with the SUSE and Mandrake are too corporate, kind of slam. I wouldnt go that far. But it is a critique being leveled by people who should be drawn to Linux and open source. Not because its free as in free beer but becuase its free in a wider sense. Newbies I know head for Ubuntu and Mepis, which tells me, given the great user friendly qualities in Suse and Mandrake, something is wrong marketing/ advertising wise.

 

If you care about something, you should care enough to see the flaws and maybe work towards fixing them. Amazing how easy it is to start a flame war if you spend a couple of minutes thinking about it...sheesh. Some people should learn the symptoms of herd mentality and strive to avoid it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Adriano

Calling people you don't know in a forum you're new "stuck in a world of absolutes" "THAT certainly belongs more to the M$ camp" and "Some people should learn the symptoms of herd mentality and strive to avoid it." will get you to a flamewar faster than you can type "how easy it is to start a flame war". Which is why I'm refraining to post something else.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Adriano
You hit the  nail on the head, though it was more of a comment and a personal pet peeve. Amused to see everyone so riled up actually.  The marketing , or the tone of the marketing is -imho- a bit off. With such a great distro, most of the Mandriva sites shouldnt lead to "benefits for members only" type promotion. A healthy balance that incorporates the PLF and the Cooker projects would reinforce their open source stance...and like arctic said, the general view of suse was that it was aimed at a corporate audience with little attention - in their promotion - to the community which ranges from corporate to individual hackers. Another great distro but it runs slower than Mandy does - at least on my machine - hence I use Mandy. 

 

Yeah! Let's publicize cooker for everyone! Stability and low updates volume! Everyone can get on the code! Except that no, it's not stable and implies lotsa downloads daily, and that Mandriva general customers are by definition those that want things solved.

 

Cooker is open, available and very well publicized if you deign to read the mandrivalinux website. I've been there, posted bugs, commented, read the wiki and subscribed to the mailing lists. The people are friendly. But it's intended for interested people, especially developers, not for corporate customers and the "I want linux easy" people.

 

As for being helpful, I don't see you there. You've only stated that mandriva should publicize less and be less reliant on its club, just because it looks like too corporate for you. Guess what, corporate is what pays mandriva's bills and allows them to publish the download ed. for free. Who should they publicize to, the people that won't pay a dime for their distro like you? Sure, it's mind share, and something should be done... but not all the things you request.

 

And now to my favorite: put up or... Have you posted bugs? Have you tested betas? Have you contributed in any positive way to Mandriva's development? Because those are things that are very much possible, available and open. In any case, AdamW here does some PR for Mandriva. If you have good suggestions, he'll possibly take them and make them be heard (your last suggestions don't seem good to me, but of course, I ain't him).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah! Let's publicize cooker for everyone! Stability and low updates volume! Everyone can get on the code! Except that no, it's not stable and implies lotsa downloads daily, and that Mandriva general customers are by definition those that want things solved.

 

Cooker is open, available and very well publicized if you deign to read the mandrivalinux website. I've been there, posted bugs, commented, read the wiki and subscribed to the mailing lists. The people are friendly. But it's intended for interested people, especially developers, not for corporate customers and the "I want linux easy" people.

 

As for being helpful, I don't see you there. You've only stated that mandriva should publicize less and be less reliant on its club, just because it looks like too corporate for you. Guess what, corporate is what pays mandriva's bills and allows them to publish the download ed. for free. Who should they publicize to, the people that won't pay a dime for their distro like you? Sure, it's mind share, and something should be done... but not all the things you request.

 

And now to my favorite: put up or... Have you posted bugs? Have you tested betas? Have you contributed in any positive way to Mandriva's development? Because those are things that are very much possible, available and open. In any case, AdamW here does some PR for Mandriva. If you have good suggestions, he'll possibly take them and make them be heard (your last suggestions don't seem good to me, but of course, I ain't him).

Would love to talk with someone from PR. Perhaps I should be more involved specifically with Mandriva but right now, I test and submit bugs mostly for Open Office and Mozilla. Word processing is something I have to use way too much, so Im likely to hit snags and stumble on bugs.

 

I will repeat in plain English for those who insist I like to download free stuff. I WOULD LOVE TO BUY ALL MY LINUX GOODS IN A BOXED SET... but they aint here. Downloading via someone elses DSL, which really doesnt run anywhere near the speed its supposed to either, is one of the few options here. I did see a boxed set for SUSE the other day in a shop. It was somewhere around version 6 gathering dust. The salesperson wasnt quite sure what it was. Traveling to Cairo last month I found Slackware 3.

 

Buying is the easier way. But bought or not is not what makes one eligible to comment. Nor is whether one is a programmer, or not. The post was an issue of PR and marketing, not whether they should charge money. They should, they do and its a very reasonable price. But the marketing strategy throws people off sometimes, and that is something that I thought required a dialogue....I've had to tell people that Mandriva does offer the free route, via downloads, and other outlets, because they thought they had to buy everything. That was a result of what they saw on websites and from the distro itself. I think the ad-itude (as in advertising style) is what turned many people off Suse. It may turn people off Mandriva. What Novell just did with OpenSuse was , in my opinion, a great marketing move which does not imply that everyone now work for free and don the sandals and sackcloth. Offering a variety of options, price ranges and public formats is not a call for everyone to sign up for the cooker project...and hoping that the more corporate side be toned down is not calling for anyone to file bankrupcy and just give it all away. To infer one from the other displays an abiltiy to win arguments through intimidation tactics designed to castigate the person, not the idea, and thereby render all further discussion fruitless.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did see a boxed set for SUSE the other day in a shop. It was somewhere around version 6 gathering dust. The salesperson wasnt quite sure what it was. Traveling to Cairo last month I found Slackware 3.
:lol: wow, those are really old...
I've had to tell people that Mandriva does offer the free route, via downloads, and other outlets, because they thought they had to buy everything.
in germany, most people think that linux costs you at least 100 bucks because they only see suse pro offers in stores. sometimes you can find fedora, knoppix or mandriva in magazines but those magazines are read almost exclusively by those who use already linux.

i'd see more than only one distro displayed in computer stores next to windows and osx.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Adriano
Buying is the easier way. But bought or not is not what makes one eligible to comment. Nor is whether one is a programmer, or not. The post was an issue of PR and marketing, not whether they should charge money. They should, they do and its a very reasonable price.  But the marketing strategy throws people off sometimes, and that is something that I thought required a dialogue....I've had to tell people that Mandriva does offer the free route, via downloads, and other outlets, because they thought they had to buy everything. That was a result of what they saw on websites and from the distro itself. I think the ad-itude (as in advertising style) is what turned many people off Suse. It may turn people off Mandriva. What Novell just did with OpenSuse was , in my opinion, a great marketing move which does not imply that everyone now work for free and don the sandals and sackcloth.  Offering a variety of options, price ranges and public formats is not a call for everyone to sign up for the cooker project...and hoping that the more corporate side  be toned down is not calling for anyone to file bankrupcy and just give it all away. To infer one from the other displays an abiltiy to win arguments through intimidation tactics designed to castigate the person, not the idea, and thereby render all further discussion fruitless.

 

I don't see in which way I've attacked your person, apart from asking "have you got anything _constructive_ to say? have you done anything to help?" (no, they weren't rethorical questions. Thanks for answering about your openoffice and mozilla debugging). I've "attacked" your ideas, since for me they don't make much sense. As I stated before, the main sources of income for Mandriva are corporate and government buyers, and the club. To me, it makes sense that they market to them, and that they advertise the club. If people aren't capable of reading a button on the site, it's neither my fault nor yours. Yes, I've had to correct people on the issue. It means mandriva could make the download links a bit more obvious. Which they have, recently.

 

Maybe they could do a marketing campaign stating they're grassroots and open and so on and so forth again, but the truth is, they've never stopped being grassroots and open, in a way, and second, who'd pay them? They frankly don't make enough money from boxed sets, so if you want to buy them you have to do it online. If geeks in the third world like you and me don't have a credit card or can't afford the exchange in euros, we can download it and be done with that. They've given me a great distro since Mandrake 8.0 and haven't pretended a penny from me. I can read what "I'm a member of the club or plan to register soon" means. So that's why I don't see your accusations of "selling out" or "corporatization" as valid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't see in which way I've attacked your person, apart from asking "have you got anything _constructive_ to say? have you done anything to help?" (no, they weren't rethorical questions. Thanks for answering about your openoffice and mozilla debugging). I've "attacked" your ideas, since for me they don't make much sense. As I stated before, the main sources of income for Mandriva are corporate and government buyers, and the club. To me, it makes sense that they market to them, and that they advertise the club. If people aren't capable of reading a button on the site, it's neither my fault nor yours. Yes, I've had to correct people on the issue. It means mandriva could make the download links a bit more obvious. Which they have, recently.

 

Maybe they could do a marketing campaign stating they're grassroots and open and so on and so forth again, but the truth is, they've never stopped being grassroots and open, in a way, and second, who'd pay them? They frankly don't make enough money from boxed sets, so if you want to buy them you have to do it online. If geeks in the third world like you and me don't have a credit card or can't afford the exchange in euros, we can download it and be done with that. They've given me a great distro since Mandrake 8.0 and haven't pretended a penny from me. I can read what "I'm a member of the club or plan to register soon" means. So that's why I don't see your accusations of "selling out" or "corporatization" as valid.

Now we are closer to the point. I dont necessarily think they sold out or corporatized but rather, that the IMAGE is more "corporate'. Time was, when, it seemed redhat and mandrake were the only ones putting out linux (unless you were onto it already and going the slack route) From their beginning Mandrake was a distro name people knew. When I switched to mdk via the 10.1 release I was a bit surprised that this image was there -either via the promos or other linux users. But the distro was / is so damn good that I stayed with it. I do think there is a move among the distros to re-emphasize the grass roots side, so perhaps now is the time for Mandriva to say: Hey, we've been there from the beginning! And I still think such an ad/marketing view would be both appropriate and effective now.

 

As for saying "People like you who dont want to pay a dime", I could be wrong but its remarks like that that fall under personal and defamatory. I got a dime, but there aint no product to buy here, so its the download route.

 

In response to Arctics posting: I had no idea when I bought the magazine with the Knoppix cd in it that it would change everything computer wise. And so many others have picked up on Knoppix, you could say its nothing short of a brilliant coup for the linux/gnu/open source world. Now, in the Mandriva press center, theres a post saying that Mandriva will supply mags with Move cds free, as a kind of dual promotion - for the mag, and for mandriva linux. Thats a great sign, and I look forward to seeing Move cds gracing mag covers. This industry moves too fast though, with Vista on the horizon, the Solaris 10, the Suse announcement.....i thought my post was timely. If the corporate iguana can do it, then so can MDK. And probably better if the mdk distro is any clue...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Adriano

Well, sorry, but your first post in thread talked about suse "starting to be open source" (not a quote). Since they've always sold "open source" (even if yast wasn't, they put money behind KDE and other stuff), how was I supposed to take it but "they make me pay for their product"? I understand your problems on buying a distro, but they're yours, not SuSE's. Personal isn't the same as important. And I guarantee you, the percentage of people that thinks "linux == freebies" and "GPL == nopay" is very high. High enough to make me say that kind of stuff. Sorry if I attacked you on that when you didn't deserve it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, sorry, but your first post in thread talked about suse "starting to be open source" (not a quote). Since they've always sold "open source" (even if yast wasn't, they put money behind KDE and other stuff), how was I supposed to take it but "they make me pay for their product"? I understand your problems on buying a distro, but they're yours, not SuSE's. Personal isn't the same as important. And I guarantee you, the percentage of people that thinks "linux == freebies" and "GPL == nopay" is very high. High enough to make me say that kind of stuff. Sorry if I attacked you on that when you didn't deserve it.

 

Not a problem. I guess everyones getting used to a whole gnu world in different stages and ways. Whether we like it or not, the first concept of open source is the free beer concept. That GPL is so much more, and about more important freedoms, is a part of the learning curve. But the free download side may still be the big seller when people wanna leave the M$ empire...To me, the open source ethic is about many things and one of those things pertains to those who cant afford to compute....not dont want to, cant. The ubuntu move focuses on a economic and linguistic concept of accessibility and theres alot to admire in it. Some of us get nervous when distros seem to go corporate with all the trappings that arctic mentioned, like lack of transparency and ignoring a large portion of linux folks who arent buying the latest enterprise edition. It was seeing SUSE decide to go "more" open source that was the good news. Of course they always were, but all things have degrees. Because of my experiences with Mandriva, I'd love to see them come out on top. Peace...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree that marketing is the largest issue that Mandriva deals with, or for that matter, linux in general. Take a look around. Can you find any Windows 98 or Windows ME products in store? No, you won't because Microsoft marketing does not allow old product to stay in retail. Hot product, maybe, but not legitimate retail. That is a marketing issue. Mandriva 10.1 should bw trhe only older version at retail. But it isn't, when you can even find it at retail!! And I'm in the US!!!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree that marketing is the largest issue that Mandriva deals with, or for that matter, linux in general. Take a look around. Can you find any Windows 98 or Windows ME products in store? No, you won't because Microsoft marketing does not allow old product to stay in retail. Hot product, maybe, but not legitimate retail. That is a marketing issue. Mandriva 10.1 should bw trhe only older version at retail. But it isn't, when you can even find it at retail!! And I'm in the US!!!!!

 

The older versions in this part of the world, the Middle East, have a lot to do with retailers having NO IDEA what they are selling in addition to a lack of follow up perhaps from the distros. Its still underground here compared to the States. You can find RH 5 thru FC 3, next to Caldera Open Linux 2.... a collectors dream. Anyone want Slack 3, or Suse 6?

 

I dont know what is happening now in the States retail wise, so I have no idea about the latest editions and availability. I know in some of the Linux books, the Garrelts, I think (Intro to Linux: A Hands On Guide, but dont quote me) she warns that a lot of retailers and mail order houses like to unload older versions on the unsuspecting, to get em out of the warehouse.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't stand to stay out of this.

Briefly I don't care about the commercials until they are so easily removable like now. What Mandriva really lacks is the Linux feeling (I don't know if Steppenwolf called that "too corporate"). Mandriva could be more open without loosing a dime.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What Mandriva really lacks is the Linux feeling
i have read that several times now in different forums and still, it is unclear to me what people define as "linux feeling". is that something like "it is only for geeks and complicated and that is cool because it makes me feel superior to others" or what? :unsure:
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share


×
×
  • Create New...