Adam Williamson talking about Mandriva

[arctic]

If somebody hasn't read it yet, here it is: :)

 

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20070618#feature

[ffi]

Nice interview but too bad he didnt more emphasize that pclinuxos 2007 is mostly mandriva 2007.0 (at least according to chris:b/anna), pclos has a very good rep, everybody raving about it and the pclos tools (which are of course the mdv tools) :(

[tyme]

Nice interview but too bad he didnt more emphasize that pclinuxos 2007 is mostly mandriva 2007.0 (at least according to chris:b/anna)

You sure you aren't confusing PCLinuxOS with chris' MCNLive? I seem to recall her stating that about MCNLive, but not PCLinuxOS - perhaps I'm confused.

[ffi]

nope but maybe she can clarify

 

https://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtop...st&p=315343

[chris:b]

The last MCNLive is Mandriva 2007.1, 100% :-)

It is a Mandriva community project. We are trying to stay as compatible with MDV as possible.

 

My impresssion, running pclinux, was that it is MDV 2007.0. I only had a closer look at the init scripts, the drakxtools and the versioning of the base system and the rpm's. But one can't be sure until one can see their exact changelog in their cvs/svn system, and the exact code.

 

Back to the interview with Adam, good news can be found in his comment #56:

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20...mode=6#comments

[adamw]

PCLOS is, as I said, heavily based on Mandriva, but it's not entirely Mandriva. They've diverged some core packages (KDE and kernel, most obviously) quite a bit, and made modifications to things like the drak* tools and the live CD installer (some of which are inexplicable and introduce problems). They also use apt rather than urpmi, which is a significant change. Besides this, they include a lot of stuff by default that we couldn't possibly include without having our pants sued off by all and sundry.

 

A lot of their repository packages are simply MDV packages rebuilt and with the changelogs cut off.

 

"But one can't be sure until one can see their exact changelog in their cvs/svn system, and the exact code."

 

AFAIK they _have_ no CVS or SVN system, or even a real buildsystem. I think the PCLOS packagers simply build the packages locally and upload them direct to the repos.

[tyme]

Thanks for the clarification guys :) (learn something every day)

[yossarian]

First of all, I'd like to congratulate Adam for his interview. IMHO it was very interesting and did a great service for Mandriva, and I can only hope the PR will help the business as well.

 

If I may, I'd like to wonder about only one thing: how come such informative interview appears in disrowatch and not on Mandriva's website? I guess it sounds like I only know to complain (which is true. or at least it's the only thing I'm good at), but still: why is the site so static? Why doesn't it provide more information about what's going on in the development teams? Maybe I'm wrong and not aware to those places where things are happening (which is also Mandriva's fault, if you asked me), and then I will be happy to stand corrected.

Disclaimer: when I started writing this comment my wife came by and saw the article in Distrowatch. When she saw Adam's picture she mentioned he doesn't look bad, so my response might be colored with a somewhat negative sentiment, not to mention resentment.

[adamw]

You can relax - your wife is safe from me. I'm gay :) Still flattered, though!

 

the main Mandriva.com site has never really been intended as a place to post daily news, we tend to do that at club.mandriva.com . I didn't put a link to the interview up there yet either, though - thanks for the reminder.

 

it's possible the whole website structure may get redone at some point. we're not entirely happy with it internally. mandriva.com is too static, and logistically a pain to update (it's far easier to work with the Club site or the Wiki).

[yossarian]

So it's not my wife who is safe, it's me. My wife is just disappointed.

 

About the site - I think it's a good idea to refresh it, or to build some alternative dynamic site for the regular users. If I understand correctly the club is open only to paying members; If I were you, I would think about opening a place to have some fun for non-paying members as well (like mandrivausers.org, but maybe more official), but of course, it's always easy to come in demands when you don't pay.

 

And again - good job! I really hope those things will help you guys down the road, you deserve it.

[dexter11]

No the club is open to everyone. It just has some functions which is only for paying members\contributors. But nothing exiting IMHO. I suggested at least a dozen time to make it more obvious for everyone but so far nothing changed.

[adamw]

yep, the club.mandriva.com page and much of the site is accessible without actually being a member.

[opvask]

Besides this, they include a lot of stuff by default that we couldn't possibly include without having our pants sued off by all and sundry.

 

- You mention this when talking about PCLinuxOS so I thought I'd ask you to tell a bit more. I often wondered why some distro's are able to include prop. driver stuff "out of the box", while others can't do this?

 

I am currently running PCLinuxOS 2007 as my 2. OS and the comparisons to my top pick, Mandriva are obvious. In most areas PCLinuxOS is still behind Mandriva IMO (overall look and consistency, automatic updates etc.) but PCLinuxOS has one big advantage for many users (especially new Linux users) - The "out of the box" prop. driver thing.

 

Getting graphics drivers etc to work is very easy, and I guess that's a major reason for many new users to chose PCLinuxOS.

 

Personally I prefer Mandriva. It's the real deal and IMO the most complete looking/feeling Linux distro out there. I really enjoyed the easy install and out of the box expirience with PCLin though.

 

- What are the plans of the Mandriva team about this towards Mandriva 2008? Is making the installation of prop. stuff a high priority?

IMO it should be. It's the only real area where Mandriva comes in second for me, and (I guess) lots of other users.

 

Regards

o

Edited June 25, 2007 by opvask

[dexter11]

Although I'm not affiliated with Mandriva in any way I think I can answer that. PCLinuxOS is just a hobby distro in the end. There's no company behind it which means there's no one to sue or at least nobody worth to sue. So they just let them be and don't care about them until PCLinuxOS becomes a company and starts to sell services boxed products etc.

A part of these proprietary stuff can be legally packaged in the distro eg. nvidia driver. A part not eg. most of the codecs. Mandriva doesn't package these things into the free version because that version is free as in freedom not just as in beer plus they have to give something to their paying customers. The situation is improved though since the proprietary stuff was available only in plf before.

[adamw]

You're talking about 'prop. drivers' which makes me think of NVIDIA and ATI specifically. We actually can include these (the license terms allow it), and they are included in the commercial (Discovery, Powerpack, Powerpack+) editions, and in One. Also Flash. They're not included in Free because they're not free-as-in-speech, and Free is not only free-as-in-beer but free-as-in-speech.

 

As far as stuff that we can't legally include goes, dexter is correct: anyone who includes patent-encumbered stuff in a distro that they release in the U.S., and that includes PCLOS, certainly _could_ be sued, probably successfully, for patent infringement. No-one would actually bother, though, because (as dexter says) PCLOS is not a commercial endeavour. It is not backed by a company with any financial resources. The only point of launching a patent lawsuit is to get some money, either as damages or by forcing a licensing agreement, and non-commercial distros like PCLOS _have_ no money. So there's just no point.

 

edit - remember the proprietary drivers are available in the public non-free repository, since 2007 Spring.

Edited June 25, 2007 by adamw