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Public Statement of MandrivaUser.de


David Batson
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Behaviour like this is symptomatic of corporate failure. This, along with Mandriva's poor financial position and the current economic climate may indicate troubles ahead. You might argue that Mandriva's financial position has been improving, but that was on the back of a stable and growing macro-environment, I do not see Mandriva's management as having the skills necessary to maintain this through a recession nor ensure survival. I could be wrong, only time will tell.

 

I would have liked to have explored this further, looking at any other messages I could see from their site but that appears to be down for me.

 

Exactly, that's why I consider wobo's perpetuated campaign against Mandriva (insisting on telling everybody possible, on all possible forums and news sites about how he was let down) nothing else than an immature personal revenge campaign.

 

Mandriva is in difficulties already, they shot themselves in the foot (by not attending LinuxTag at the last minute), so there is no need to continue to stomp on the injured foot.

 

P.S: David, thanks but I know the story, I did read some of that long thread about it on the mandriva forum.

Edited by tux99
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tux99, maybe you have not read carefully enough. All public sites, including the magazines have asked for a statement, I did not send anything to someone who did not ask for it (except for the mails to the Mandriva management). Especially heise.de picked it up somewhere else, I was never in contact with them.

There were even articles on websites before we sent out the statement, they also picked it up in the Mandriva forum or the German MandrivaUser.de forum - we did everything in the open, so don't blame me when somebody picks it up and publishes it elsewhere. And don't blame me when I am satisfied with the support I get from all sides, except very few. If you read something like revenge from my postings, then this is my fault, I should have been clearer in my sentences (I'm a non-native English speaker). From my previous 10 years with Mandrake/Mandriva you can tell very easily that I'd give a lot if all this would not have happened and I am only sad, not full of hate.

 

About that discussion in our German forum, of course there are always people who have a different opinion. Nobody said this statement was based on an unonymous vote or something. But you can see very clearly that the great majority supported the statement - almost all, I just remember one single member who did not like one single point in the statement. On the last day before the release of the dtatement the discussion was just about the length of the text, not about the contents.

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Mandriva is in difficulties already, they shot themselves in the foot (by not attending LinuxTag at the last minute), so there is no need to continue to stomp on the injured foot.

 

Sorry, are you saying that we should restrict our criticism just because Mandriva looks to be falling on hard times? By that logic we shouldn't be giving positive criticism in times of success... The fact is that any criticism thus far has been borne out of the actions of the company, none of the criticism thus far has been unjust or without influence from Mandriva. It is on this basis that I believe that your statement is extremely biased.

 

Mandriva is a faceless, capitalist organisation like any other, it's big enough and ugly enough to not need any mollycoddling!

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I think this is getting blown out of proportion. Though I would be angry if I were wobo or a member of mandrivauser.de I still think this is too much. During the years I saw many stupid things Mandriva did, but never any sign of malice. Sure you can criticize them, they deserve it we all know. But if Mandriva goes belly up that will be good for nobody.

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I think nobody said that Mandriva did that out of malice. And nobody is wishing that Mandriva goes belly-up. I know that I personally and the German community have done all we could for many years to help and support not only the distribution but also the company.

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My two cents:

 

I can understand wobos reaction and the decisions made by the german community. Do I back them? Mostly. Mandriva has once again proven that the company somehow doesn't care about it's community (or doesn't know of it's importance), about it's customers (remember: many of their community mambers are also their customers!), about the people who are responsible for paying the cheques of the Mandriva staff. However, I am convinced that this all has not happened the way it happened because Mandrivas employees are "bad, evil, and non-caring capitalists" but because Mandriva simply has no one who is or feels really responsible, no one who actually can coordinate the corporate communications. They seriously lack some qualified personell IMHO. They need a qualified CEO, a qualified PR-Staff, and a good marketing division. Mandriva has actually never had this. And this has kept them from making any advances during the last ten years. And it has caused them trouble over and over again.

 

I am also pretty sure, that prior to the LinuxTag something very serious happened behind the scenes (Staff clashing? Staff not knowing what to do with the CEO out of business? People being expelled?) at the headquarters that made everyone more than nervous. But whatever happens, never ever should any employee give answers the way Mandrivas staff did -which is a sign of incompetence.

 

I would have waited a few days, then kindly asked for an explanation for their behaviour. If they still behave like clowns then, then it's okay to cut ties with Mandriva IMHO.

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I would have waited a few days, then kindly asked for an explanation for their behaviour. If they still behave like clowns then, then it's okay to cut ties with Mandriva IMHO.

I did. I sent a friendly mail on Monday, 22nd, repeating my offer to operate the stand (that was a couple of hours before the deadline. I sent another one last Friday with a short question if somebody would pls explain all this. Neither one was answered.

 

wobo

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Mandriva is a faceless, capitalist organisation like any other, it's big enough and ugly enough to not need any mollycoddling!

 

I have to assume you don't mean this seriously, Mandriva has 80 employees worldwide, I would hardly call that a big ugly organisation!!!

If anything this issue is a consequence of them being too small, lacking marketing and PR staff as 50 of them are engineers.

(source: http://www.mandriva.com/enterprise/en/company/backgrounder)

 

And I wouldn't even call them truly capitalist given that they have never made a profit for their 'ugly' capital owners (the shareholders).

Edited by tux99
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If anything this issue is a consequence of them being too small, lacking marketing and PR staff as 50 of them are engineers.

I must admit the lack of a real PR person is a big part of the problem. The issue at hand would not have happened with a PR person in charge, of that I am sure.

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I have to assume you don't mean this seriously, Mandriva has 80 employees worldwide, I would hardly call that a big ugly organisation!!!

 

I disagree, haiving 80 staff, sales of EUR 4m and operating globally is far from small.

 

If anything this issue is a consequence of them being too small, lacking marketing and PR staff as 50 of them are engineers.

(source: http://www.mandriva.com/enterprise/en/company/backgrounder)

 

That has nothing to do with size and everything to do with balancing the organisation with the oppropriate skills. IIRC they just recently ditched a member of staff that had a vital marketing role. IMO it would be a lot easier to pass off coding/engineer skills to the community than marketing, I do not believe that the Linux community as a whole is endowed with enthusiastic market skills, marketing in this context is certainly not as attractive as coding.

 

And I wouldn't even call them truly capitalist given that they have never made a profit for their 'ugly' capital owners (the shareholders).

 

That arguement is very weakl IMO, that's like calling a charity that makes surpluses a profit orientated organisation. In this context the motive to make profits is worth a lot more than actually achieving the goal of making profits.

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Interestingly, if they had made no promises to wobo about sharing/covering costs, I doubt anyone would have even noticed this. They would have simply said, "we have decided not to attend due to <whatever reason>".

 

I have a feeling this was the case of people making promises and then their higher-ups not liking them. I really don't think Mandriva did anything wrong here, to be completely honest, things simply didn't work out as planned.

 

Accept it and move on.

 

Just a thought, not trying to offend anyone.

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I disagree, haiving 80 staff, sales of EUR 4m and operating globally is far from small.

It fits the definition of a SME perfectly.

 

That has nothing to do with size and everything to do with balancing the organisation with the oppropriate skills. IIRC they just recently ditched a member of staff that had a vital marketing role. IMO it would be a lot easier to pass off coding/engineer skills to the community than marketing, I do not believe that the Linux community as a whole is endowed with enthusiastic market skills, marketing in this context is certainly not as attractive as coding.

 

That arguement is very weakl IMO, that's like calling a charity that makes surpluses a profit orientated organisation. In this context the motive to make profits is worth a lot more than actually achieving the goal of making profits.

 

I would guess that the high proportion of engineers among Mandriva employees is one of the main reasons why the Mandriva distro is so well put together compared to other distros. Ubuntu has 200 employees (and the advantage of a solid Debian foundation) and they still don't manage to make such a polished distro. They probably have a much larger percentage of PR and marketing types which explains their success.

 

But maybe you should apply as CEO at Mandriva then, as you seem to have it all worked out so well...

Edited by tux99
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Interestingly, if they had made no promises to wobo about sharing/covering costs, I doubt anyone would have even noticed this. They would have simply said, "we have decided not to attend due to <whatever reason>".

I have a feeling this was the case of people making promises and then their higher-ups not liking them. I really don't think Mandriva did anything wrong here, to be completely honest, things simply didn't work out as planned.

Maybe you did not read the timeline of events. A logical thought, if not all facts speak against this thought.

 

1. They promised to cover costs right from the beginning and told me that it was decided. If they lied to me then and the CEO said "no" later, they could have told me during the many weeks following, without any bad feelings on either side. But instead they kept telling me that everything was ok and the assistant even sent me a mail 1 day before the cancellation that they ordered the hotel for me - which obviously was a straight lie.

2. Anne could have told me "no" in that phone call on Friday before the event. She did not say no, she said she will inquire and call/mail back the next day - which she did not nor anybody else.

 

wobo

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