On Tue, 2003-02-25 at 12:15, Tibbetts, Ric wrote: > 1) Mandrake is letting RedHat drive the car. They're allowing Redhat to > set the release schedule. But Redhat has a very different philosophy to > their releases. > > The biggest I see there is that Redhat does not do "major" content > changes on a point release. They fix what's broken. Major content > changes wait until the next major revision roll. As it should be. Thus > meeting a 6 month release cycle is much easier. They can have the 8.x > team working on bug fixes, and point releases, while having the 9.x > (future development) team, working on the next full revision. Thus, > neither is stressed. > > Mandrake on the other hand, insists on trying to match Redhats release > schedule, but they're including major content changes in a point > release, and they're beating themselves up trying to keep up. > > IMHO - Mandrake needs to settle back, and stop letting Redhat drive. > They need to get control of their release cycles, and content policies. > Then they can concentrate on putting out a quality release, not a fast one.
I agree on alot of what you are saying above. There are just too many parallels between RH and LM; which is not surprising since LM was originally an improved spin-off of RH. That was it's attraction in the beginning, which for me was Helios, LM61. My point (in the thread that I *think* you are referring to <g>) was that the distro could possibly benefit from a longer beta/cooker cycle, in the aspect that more bugzilla reports could be filed and addressed, more changes could possibly be made in UI's (if you know what I mean) among other things. What about pressed CD contracts negotiated on 8 months instead of 6? Things like that. The devil's advocate point of view might be that LM is directly in competition with RH, therefore from a marketing standpoint they may actually NEED a 6 month cycle for purposes of competition. My points were purely conjecture from the standpoint of having a better product, without considering things like competition or otherwise. I really need to have lunch with the CEO one day. <g> > > 2) My biggest complaint about Mandrake: (yup.. gonna get shot at for > this one) > > STOP BEGGING! I hate that! No flames here. But I would ask that you resort to some logic on this topic. For instance, let's consult the dictionary on begging: beg v., begged, begging --v.t. 1. to ask for (food, money, clothes, etc.) as a charity: The tramp begged his meals. 2. to ask as a favor; ask earnestly or humbly: He begged his mother to forgive him. 3. to ask formally and courteously: I beg your pardon. Let's look at what Mandrake has been doing in comparison to what begging actually means. Is Mandrake asking for charity or are they seeking compensation for services rendered? Obviously they are not asking for charity, and obviously they ARE seeking compensation for services rendered (which btw has cost THEM in manpower and monetary resources). Therefore the use of the term "begging" is completely improper and has always been absurd. I've written on this topic before, and the problem that Mandrake is attempting to address is freeloading. Dictionary says: "Freeload: to take freely, without making any contribution or effort of one's own...." Now, here's the irony. Mandrake provides a distro for free download, in order that truly poor people can in fact have use of it; in the meantime, the freeloaders(who really do have the ability to compensate Mandrake for their hard work and effort) parasititically use the LM distro's to their own ends, and then turn around and accuse Mandrake of begging !!! Now before you go thinking that I'm flaming Ric Tibbets, let me say, no I'm not. I sincerely believe that you are not in that category because of your positive participation in the lists. However, the truth is that there ARE freeloaders out there, accusing Mandrake of begging! This is *tremendous* hypocrisy. There are also those innocent people that fall victim to the anti-LM propaganda spread by the sharks and snakes of the internet media world. The bottom line is that if you use the LM distros and you have the extra jack, which amounts to the cost of a magazine subscription, then you should be sending that money to the Mandrake club or getting a boxed set from Mandrakesoft. That's only the right thing to do. This should be punctuated with the realization that the survival of the company, the paychecks of the development teams, the other employee's paychecks and the quality of life of their families are all at stake. In other words a little compassion and a magazine subscription will go a long way, not just for you truly but also for the future of everybody else involved. Including me, cause I want to see 10.1 come out with that bastardized rpmdrake UI fixed. > > It seems that every time I log into their site, or try to download a > fix, or get e-Mail from them, they're whining about money. "Oh please > subscribe to the club".. "Oh please donate.." .. It's not our fault, it > was the evil management we had a while back... > > Yeah... It's always easiest to throw darts at the "old management". Have you ever considered that they may actually be relating facts. ?? > > But I still see them making the same mistakes. Rushed releases, with too > much content change to be controllable in such short cycles. They're > doing no better at managing their business practices today, than they > were a year ago. In fact, I had more faith in them a year ago. Now I'm > just tired of releases that don't run. (I still cannot get 9.1 to run on > my systems. And my boxes are not exotic!). Well...I happen to think the cycles are a little short myself. I suspect there may be more reasons behind it that a 6 month pressed cd contract, tho. Contracts are negotiable. > Yup, I understand that they're trying to meet with a competitive market, > and meet customer demands. But... The customer is ALWAYS going to want > the latest & greatest software, whether it's stable or not. And THEY > WANT IT STABLE. Well, it can't always be done. Mandrake needs to learn > when to say no. > The general feel about Mandrake around the people, and companies I work > around is not good. If a Linux box is built, it's Redhat. Why? Stable > releases, Stable company. I've got production server boxes on LM82, which is technically a no-no. Should be using the LM server distro's; shame on me. But I would pick LM82 over any version of Red Hat any day of the week. And I do NOT EVER want to go to their mailing lists. LX ________________________________________________________________________ -- ��������������������������������������������������� Kernel 2.4.21pre4-6mdk Mandrake 9.1 RC1 Enlightenment 0.16.5-12mdk Evolution 1.2.2-1mdk Registered Linux User #268899 http://counter.li.org/ ���������������������������������������������������
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