Mandriva under a change of a new CEO have now put corporate interest above the life source of the distribution; its own community and leadership in the attempt to save a dollar. This will be the ulitmate downfall of the distro if these changes continue to happen. They don’t get it, without the community involvement there will be no more Mandriva. These changes will not help the financial status of the company. It will continue to make matters worse. Mandriva community, Its time to rise up and put your support behind our leaders.
Good bye Adam Williamson – Adams might have rocked the boat recently with his comments about Canonical. They were his own thoughts. As to the Mandriva Community he has been the PR and backbone of the Community and losing him will be a great loss to us all. Save Adam and the other remote devs and contractors.
” On behalf of Wolfgang “wobo” Bornath
Sir,
With great surprise I read the announcement about the termination of Mr. Adam Williamson’s contract with Mandriva. As one of the longest standing users (since 1998), contributors and advocates of Mandrake/Mandriva Linux, as well as a former long term contractor of Mandriva, as well as the founder and maintainer of the German Mandriva user community project MandrivaUser.de I would like to share my opinion about this move.
Let me first state that I am well aware of the financial situation of Mandriva SA. I am also aware of the importance and essential role of cost reduction in the attempt to make Mandriva SA survive the current situation.
Every company in this situation has to look at its assets and decide which one can be sacrificed. The crucial question is: what does it cost the company if I give away this or that asset. In German we have a rule: “Never give away your family jewels!” which may translate into: you must not draw on your reserves.
I saw Dr. Denis Havlik come and go, also Mr. Gaël Duval and many other very important people, important for the future of the company Mandriva and the distribution likewise. With Mr. Williamson you give away one of the most precious assets Mandriva has.
Were it not for Mr. Williamson the community of Mandriva users would be much smaller. You may not know the Mandriva Forum, you may not know the importance of the community in the Linux universe in general nor for Mandriva itself. But you may know the repeatedly announced commitment of Mandriva to this community. Terminating Mr. Williamson’s contract is a dirct contradiction to that commitment. Most of the work which is necessary to distribute Mandriva Linux is done by just that community – for free! Do you know how much of this work will be left undone when you “fire” one of the most important persons in this community?
Certainly you know that each member of this community may be the person who talks to the CTO or CEO of your next potential corporate customer. Guess what this person will tell his superior about Mandriva.
Were it not for Mr. Williamson Mandriva’s output of news and information would have gone down to zero after Mr. Duval and Mr. N’Doua had left the company. It is not the press release on the Mandriva website which makes Mandriva visible in the market, it is the continuous flow of news and information, which was mainly in Adam’s hands during the last years.
Of course you can terminate each and every contract and hope that “the community” will fill the gap for free. This may work well for a certain time and to a certain degree. But it will not work in any case. And not in this case.
For myself, on behalf of the German user community and for the future of Mandriva I want to ask you to give the termination of Mr. Williamson’s contract a second thought.
Thank you very much for reading
Yours,
Wolfgang “wobo” Bornath”
I agree 100%
I agree 100%: AW must stay!
I am NicCo from the MIB TEAM
I am a Mandriva PPack paying subscriptor, and former Mandriva Club Silver Member member
MIB Team is an unofficial Blog/Forum/Server supporting 4 release of Mandriva (2007.1 to 2009.0) in 3 different arch. (i686, x86_64, i586)
http://mib.pianetalinux.org
you’re damn right rodger, i hope Mandriva CEO will be so capable to understand the importance of Adam for the community and not so arrogant to understand the mistake and resolve it. i speak for all the italian community, just read the complains:
http://www.mandrakeitalia.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=16801&forum=7&post_id=122288#forumpost122288
http://mib.pianetalinux.org/miblight/2008/11/28/mandriva-licenzia-e-la-fine/
Can i translate your letter for italian community? thank you
Bye
Marcello
Mandriva has a nasty habit of shooting itself in the foot. Adam Williamson was a very valuable asset of the Mandriva community, and it’s a shame what has happened to him.
What really gets me is that Adam’s criticism of Cannonical is spot on. Ubuntu spends so much time, effort, and money making sure it’s the top dog in Linux distros, but so little on actually developing for Linux projects. Also, that nature of their business model, where they give the distro away and will even ship you a free copy completely takes away users and much needed revenue from companies like Mandriva, Novell, Red Hat, and others that have a much higher level of development and innovation in the Linux ecosystem. This “free as in beer” approach has been applauded by many users, but in the end it hurts Linux, as it needs funding to innovate and develop to further Linux.
Mandriva had been on a downhill slide for years, and I think this will accelerate it. That’s a shame, because Mandrake is where I first cut my teeth on Linux and it’s a distro that will always be special to me for that reason. In the days where Linux was much more difficult to get a grasp of for new users, Mandrake was a boon. It made Linux easy enough for just about anyone to learn and use, and many new users found their way to Linux through them.
I have been trying out Mandriva again recently, and it was the care and thought that Mr Williamson put into helping others that was convincing me to lean towards trying a full conversion again, but this news has soured me on Mandriva’s commitment to “Community”, and and am now looking elsewhere again. Nice OS, but the tools alone do not make the distro. The people, the community, this is what matters, and what now feels to be being ignored. A sad day, and sad news. All the best ibn your future endeavours Mr Williamson, your patience and willingness to help will not be forgotten. Your efforts were assuredly appreciated. Cheers.
i’m planning to create a petition, i will let you know.
Bye
Marcello
Update from laurentsuchet on the Mandriva Forum.
“Another critical Mandriva maintainer is leaving on 31th Dec: Oden Eriksson, who’s contributing since 1999… and maintains more than 1200 sources rpm, including LAMP and many other server stuff. His status was the same as Adam’s one.
I think that it is clearly a policy to eliminate all non-employed Mandriva persons, perhaps to be able to more easily control the minds?
I think community MUST send a clear signal to Mandriva, the most efficient way is certainly to stop all community activity in all domains. That will certainly clarify the aims of the new CTO: turning Mandriva towards business only or keeping a strong community relationship ?”
We must stop this total disregard for the community. We cant lose the developers and asking them to contribute for free is ludicrous. They have been a vital part of the community for years.
Save Mandriva. Otherwise the only other thing I can think of is a fork. Development on a forked MCC can continue outside. Lets hope it doesnt come to that.
Enough of my ranting. Im just very angry.
Do you want to react to Mr. Williamson firing?
Sign up the petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/qws589/petition.html
Marcello
I found your site in google when I was looking up blogs. I realy like what you have done and just wanted to leave a comment saying so. Cheers
From what he have done on EeeUser.com Forum, I can sense that this is a man who really loves Mandriva, so to drive him help so many people with problems. Although he is not paid now, he is still there doing volunteer supports. Wish him good luck for a new job!
Great stuff. I was too sure about this story. But this helped a lot so thanks
Hi there I like your post ?tter to Mr.Hervé Yahi, Mandriva CEO at rodgerdean.org? so well that I like to ask you whether I should translate and linking back. Please give me an answer. Your Goldpreise
Great blog. Just stumbled here late on Christmas day – but I’ll definitely be back – - Happy new year to all
ojq62D Thanks for good post
2 months later, Adam is at RedHat and I still think Herve is a yahoo.
Im sure if they cut down on the wine at lunch, they could hire a couple of Adam’s.
Mandriva visibility is zero in north america so Im sure the genius in charge has something in mind that will not only do all taht Adam did but will do it better and cheaper.
April Fools!!
Its not about Adam, its about the position and corraling the community to work, support and promote Mandriva.
Its about tell the community FU!!
Its great to hear that the wonderful people of Redhat/Fedora have taken Adam on as the Quality Assurance Engineer. Apparently similar to what he was doing at Mandriva.
http://www.happyassassin.net/2009/01/23/job-announcement/
Wish you all the best Adam.
I thought I wasnt going to like this blog but more I read the more I liked it.
Great Article , I thought it was grand
I look ahead to more great postings like this one. Does This Blog have a newsletter I can subscribe to for fresh posts?
I like post.I agree.