Mandriva on the Decline?

[Gowator]

I'm pretty sure mandriva provides paid support to Businesses.

Yes it does but how many/much?

The bottom line is many businesses opt for Suse or RH because it is supported by the SW vendors and the software they support costs many times the price of either.

Of course this is down to relationships between RH, Suse and various SW companies, perhaps Oracle being the most important on the server side but I think it is also to do with the image of Mandriva.

 

Also, the club membership gives you more than just support - you get new releases sooner, and based on your subscription level, you might also get a better version (i.e. PowerPack) as part of the subscription (instead of buying it seperately). There are lot of things that come with a Club Membership aside from just support.

True but are these things people want to pay for?

I think ADSL2 has maybe helped this but I remember when I was on dial-up I preferred buying the box-set than spending a day or two downloading. Overall however I think gannin sums it it pretty good.

I know there are some exceptions to this, but basically, the majority of Linux users are one of two types of people. Either they are tech people like us, where if they have a problem they either figure it out themselves, or ask about it on a message board, or find the answer on the Internet, or they're someone that knows a regular Linux user, and that regular Linux user convinced them to give Linux a try. In that case, if they have any questions, they'll just ask the person that convinced them to try Linux.

 

Either way, offering paid support to home users for Linux is not really a viable solution. The only viable solution, as has already been mentioned, is to give paid support to businesses.

 

Yes you are correct that club membership offers more but what does it offer that you couldn't get on one hand with a one-off payment for Suse (for the user who wants that sort of distro) OR conversely from a free distro without delays on releases for non-fee paying users.

 

The problem is it is companies that are most likely to want to subscribe to a fee-paying type arrangement rather than individuals and I just don't see how they can generate sufficient revenue AND keep the community feel of a club. The two seem to be working against each other.

 

In many ways the club feels like a tax and many users I guess will not renew and the vast majority will never join. I think the binary driver issue and early releases actually make this worse not encourage people to keep membership because at least for me it feels like being held to randsom to be in the club and that does nothing to help the community feel.

 

The overall feeling mandriva gives me contains "too many fingers" or "too many cooks" ...

If you take a magazine there are magazines exist on articles alone and others selling professional ads and yet others more for individuals selling private ads and small business ads.

 

The private ads type get very few big advertisers just because they don't suit the image of Dell or whomever and the more expensive almost ad-free ones only have limited ads and rely on subscription ..

Many coprorations probably own all three types but they don't mix-em or cross brand them. They don't draw attention that the same publishers of shiny/glossy linux-ads-today (made up) is also publishing the black-n-white penguin weekly ...

The large corporate advertisers largely would probably pay not to have a black n white ad in a techy mag because it affect their image negatively.

 

Mandriva seem to be trying to pay all fields at once. It doesn't seem viable to me because they tarnish the professional side with the bleeding edge issue and noobie friendly issues.

 

Imagine being a water company and selling 3 brands of water... mountain spring in a small designer bottle for the chic consumer, country lake in a big bottle to take home and pure n fresh which they put through your taps.

People might be happy buying the more expensive products unless mountain inc suddenly decide to let the customers all know its the same water from the same spring just being sold at 3 different prices and if you refil your bottle from the tap you get the same water.

 

A smart company could market these seperatly as three different entities but as soon as they draw attention to being the same company who is going to carry home 5 gallons of "coutry lake" when they know it is exactly the same as they buy from the tap. Those using the designer "mountain spring" will no longer feel its trendy etc.

 

Now take your club edition, its like getting the stuff in "country lake" edition. you get a bit of extra that you would get anyway but are paying extra for it. The server/enterprise customers suddenly see they are getting a nice bottle once its empty but that its the same as their tapwater anyway...but mostly the problem is the IT dept need to answer to finance as to why they were paying a premium for the same old product.

[tyme]

Yes it does but how many/much?

...

True but are these things people want to pay for?

don't know and don't care :P i was just clarifying things for a previous poster.

[Gannin]

When it comes to Mandriva's club model, I think the thing that I question most is only letting club members contribute. I think having a more open contribution system like Fedora is a lot more helpful to a distro.

[dexter11]

I know there are some exceptions to this, but basically, the majority of Linux users are one of two types of people. Either they are tech people like us, where if they have a problem they either figure it out themselves, or ask about it on a message board, or find the answer on the Internet, or they're someone that knows a regular Linux user, and that regular Linux user convinced them to give Linux a try. In that case, if they have any questions, they'll just ask the person that convinced them to try Linux.

This is true yet, but it doesn't mean it will remain true forever. So let's just say one example: A non-techy person can convince another non-techy person to use or at least try out Linux. And the convinced person can convince more people. There will be more and more of this kind of convincing as the Linux user base grows. Maybe there will be a tech person on the end of a chain but not necesarily.

Not every person will start to fix their own computer as is the case with any other machines.

Adam wrote somwhere maybe a year ago that 10 or 20 % (can't remember the exact numbers) of all the revenues come from the club. Now when almost nothing works there as it should. Imagine what it could bring if they'd do it the right way.

Conclusion the club could actually work.

[tyme]

When it comes to Mandriva's club model, I think the thing that I question most is only letting club members contribute. I think having a more open contribution system like Fedora is a lot more helpful to a distro.

anyone can contribute...file bugs, install cooker and test it, join the cooker mailing list...

[Gannin]

But as I understand it, only club members can contribute packages. The third-party package repos don't really fill in the gap either, as they tend to be missing a lot of software.

[tyme]

i don't know the process for package contributions with mandriva but i always assumed it was open, i've never seen package contribution listed as a perk of a club membership on any of the lists i saw.

[Gannin]

Ideally what I would like to see, is for Mandriva to have Mandriva Community and Mandriva Business. Mandriva Community could have a new release every six months and a rolling upgrade process in between, while Mandriva Business could be updated once a year.

 

I know this is almost exactly what Red Hat is doing, but I think it would greatly benefit Mandriva as well.

[arctic]

I know this is almost exactly what Red Hat is doing, but I think it would greatly benefit Mandriva as well.

Yes, it is almost exactly what Red Hat does, but this scheme does at least work and is proven. :)

[dexter11]

This is the same what Novell doing also.

[iphitus]

Neither Novell or Red Hat/Fedora use rolling releases.

 

A rolling release is where packages are updated when new versions are available, and the repositories are in a constant state of change. Releases are simply snapshots at one stage in time and are pretty much out of date the next day.

 

Minor updates and security fixes do not count as a rolling release. You cant keep 'up to date' with these on mandrake/fedora/novell, and have exactly the same distro at the next release.

 

James

[thac]

I f you use distrowatch as a indicator, this might be a sign

http://distrowatch.com/index.php?dataspan=1

Mandriva is now on 9 and falling

and

PClinuxOS is on 5 and rising fast

Edited April 28, 2006 by thac

[Reiver_Fluffi]

I f you use distrowatch as a indicator, this might be a sign

http://distrowatch.com/index.php?dataspan=1

Mandriva is now on 9 and falling

and

PClinuxOS is on 5 and rising fast

 

Yes, but as Ladislav tells us, these are merely for fun, and given that it is over 7 days, they are not statictically important in the grand scheme of things. For example Xubuntu is high on the list, obviously the announcements concerning the distro in the last few days have attracted this attention!!! However look further, i.e. 30 days and onward, Xubuntu creeps down the list, 7 days is too short term to reflect an general opinion on popularity for something that is released once a year.

[ianw1974]

Could always create a bot to :bump: the figures :P

[Ixthusdan]

There is currently no objective measure of any linux distro. The best are those provided by companies who are making money, e.g., Redhat. The list at distrowatch contains so many errors that it is truely just party talk. For example, a group of us could start clicking Mandriva at their site and get a raise in the rating, a technique openly used by ubuntu zealots! :lol:

 

A real measure of linux in general is the reaction from Microsoft. As long as they continue to be creative at previnting linux from working, like preassuring hardware vendors to not make drivers or else, and their "safe computing" initiative, we know that linux is on the rise and continues to be so. Frankly, with a business like Microsoft, I don't care which distro is "on top".

 

Mandriva, like everyone else, always gets a bump at release time. "New" creates "interest". No mystery there.