Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier, photo by jimgris
THE old S.u.S.E.-Mandriva rivalry in Europe might not be the cause for this bizarre piece from Novell's former booster (he no longer works for Novell [1, 2], which is also up for sale), but either way, here he is commenting about Mandriva's fate, not wishing them what they want.
Maybe it's better if Mandriva doesn't find a buyer
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As a non-Mandriva user, I don't really have a stake in whether the company succeeds or fails or whether something called Mandriva continues to exist in any form. As a Linux user, I love the variety that exists and having many choices of Linux distros -- but I also see enormous wasted effort. Too much work, too few hands. And, especially and unfortunately, too many folks unwilling to compromise on any features or technical decisions when they can just fork or have their own playground -- which ultimately results in tons of duplicate work and a fragmented environment.
Mandbuntu will initially ship with only one desktop environment/windows manager, the newly reconfigured (just for Mandbuntu) DuXfce. Rumor again informs us that a KDuxE version will be available soon. More rumors from lower level custodial crew claim that the French duck dish theme will continue. The next version will probably be Mandbuntu 12.0 – Peking Duck.
Perhaps trumping all the technical aspects of this distro is a sense of ownership for its users. PCLinuxOS is one of the best examples of the "community distro." The small band of developers take suggestions and cues from their users very much to heart and even solicit opinions, artwork, and software requests. This is perhaps the key to PCLOS' success. It allows the community to feel not only involved, but important to development. They all can feel as though they contributed at least in some small way.