Tibbetts, Ric wrote:

>But one does have to wonder how much Civileme's attitude will change. ;)
>In the past, we could always count on his level-headedness in defending some
>of Mandrakesofts decisions, and to point out the "good business sense"
>behind them. It has been a calming influence in many discussions on this
>list that have, at times become heated. It will be interesting to see if he
>can maintain that calm now. And if he'll be so quick to defend Mandrakesoft.
>
>Just some stray thoughts, from a madman...
>
>Although, I never did quite figure out how to pronounce your name! <G>
>
>
>----------------------------------------------
>Ric Tibbetts
>Unix Systems Admin.
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: David Rankin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 1:11 PM
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Re: [expert] Thanks Civileme (was Mandrake Club advocates:
>PostPositive)
>
>
>The true mark of great leadership within a company is management's ability
>to
>attract and maintain key individuals. Whatever the backdrop to the situation
>actually is, Mandrakesoft's inability to maitain its relationship with
>Civileme is
>an incredible loss both to Mandrakesoft and to us all.
>
>Best of luck to you Civileme in whatever your future holds, but one request:
>
>PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE THE LIST!!!!!
>
>Daniel Woods wrote:
>
Well, as much as I may have helped the company, in producing product the 
essential folks are Guillaume Cottenceau, Warly, Damien Krotkine, Pixel, 
David Baudens, Fred Lepied, Juan Quintela, Francois Pons, Fred Krozat, 
Daouda Lo and a few others.  I agree with their evaluation as to who 
could be supported.

And I am not exactly gone.  I'll be on list and I will be volunteering 
some time to MandrakeExpert every week.  As for defending Mandrakesoft, 
as long as they continue to carry the banner of free software, I won't 
have any problem with that.  This is kind of an emergency measure on 
their part to keep enough cash to allow the direct  sales of PCs and 
other items to kick in additional revenue--run out of cash and the doors 
close forever...  Jacques Le Marois committed to hiring all the layoffs 
back when the situation bears fruit.

I am more concerned with the folks who want to make mandrakesoft a 
company like SuSE.  SuSE would be history except that IBM and Intel 
bailed them out last year for like $45 million.  Yet the same folks on 
the list want Mandrakesoft to shift to a SuSE model?  Horsefeathers and 
Applesauce!  United Linux is three companies who cannot make it because 
their restrictive policies hurt them and one which is(was?) a free 
software company--the fact is the big sellers now are the ones that are 
basically free software--RH and Mandrake.  That is the market and no 
amount of business philosophy is going to alter market realities nor is 
it going to alter the true assets of a free software company which does 
not reside in intellectual property.

Let us suppose that someone decides to close up the source and make the 
copyright proprietary -- then the PREVIOUS release has GPL stuff people 
can develop in another direction...  How long do you think it would take 
for someone else to do to Mandrake what Mandrake did to RedHat?  I can 
practically guarantee it would be less than a month.

Civileme











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