I know I haven’t posted much about linux, and now it’s two posts in a row, but…this one I couldn’t pass up.
Gael Duval founded Mandrake Linux back in 1998, based on RedHat but with KDE as the Desktop Environment. He has been one of the most respected voices in the OSS/FS community almost since the beggining, his vision of making linux accesible for the regular human being and not just for geeks, now something that we take for granted (if not the execution, at least the desire by most distros) was a true novelity back then…and it was done with a flair over the years. Yes, me and others who have used Mandrake (now Mandriva) have had our complaints now and then (I *still* like the old GUI package manager better than the one we have now), but most of us *knew* that Mandrake was trying its best…and Mandrake’s best was pretty damn good most of the time.
Now, the end of an era has come…Duval is out…and he’s not happy with how it was done. Mandriva has changed in many aspects, and a lot of old users are sounding worried about how the new blood will focus the distro and the company…will it become a corporate distro, like RH? or will it keep us, individuals and SOHOs, in mind? We don’t know, and no matter what anybody says, only time can tell…so we’ll have to wait and see.
I’m sad…and worried…and exploring posibilities again…hopefully Mandriva will not forget that it was us, the individual users and the SOHOs, that made it one of the mainline distros.
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Tags: Thoughts
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