Mandriva Pink Slips Adam Williamson too
Well, I was rather expecting this after reading Vincent’s blog this morning (and to be honest, doing some basic mental arithmetic on our recent financial results), but I have been told that as of December 31st, I’ll no longer be working for Mandriva, as all external contractors are being canned.
I’ve had a great time working for Mandriva, and hopefully whatever job I find next will leave me enough time and flexibility to keep working on the distribution as a volunteer. I’ll try and still be around the user community after my contract expires, too.
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Mandriva just made a big mistake - BIG
To quote Pretty Woman. Adam is the best thing they had going for them when it came to the forums. Good sensible advice delivered in a way that people could understand.
Atang, lay off the paint
Atang,
lay off the paint chips. That is all.
Insert_Ending_Here
Atang
Atang1, what are you smoking, man?
No offence, but one day your "posix packets" and "Eclipse SOA cloud computing" stopped being funny and became worrysome. Either you have access to some real weed, either you are a really long-time joker or... maybe you need a girlfriend
Best,
virvan
Mistake
Big mistake. Why lay off the talent?
___
/me always wondered if atang was some kind of inexpensive shill
re: Mistake
Um.....because they have no money? Mandriva is dreaming if they think their current "business model" can turn a profit. They have to cut expenses before they can beg for another handout.
re: re: Mistake
Yes, they're going to have to pinch a lot of pennies to survive. But canning the human support face who has done much to assist the faithful in installing, configuring, and maintaining Mandriva distros, as Mandriva was beginning to win back a quality reputation, is a dreadful mistake. It's not about the necessity of layoffs, it's about Mandriva's choices of who specifically gets the pink slips.
re: (x3) Mistake
Of course it is. But if they had "smart" management, they'd be turning a profit and wouldn't need to cut expenses. In any case, it's a short term, bottom line pad, that will most likely be futile and end in doom.
Ditto.
I'm with you on that one. AlanW should stay.
Wrong approach
What Adam could bring was the knowledge and assistance that would keep people using Mandriva rather than another distro. That would keep the revenue flowing. If you know that the people supporting the distro are interested in helping your experience so that you keep using that distro rather than another one, then you will have more people using it and more revenue flowing in. If the people supporting the distro are nasty or smart-alecky or look down their noses at those who have questions, the those who have questions will find somewhere else to put their time and effort and money and that somewhere else will get the benefit of the good support groups. Evidently Mandriva doesn't care that the best people to support the distro were let go.
This attitude will send people like me who were interested in Mandriva to Ubuntu or Slackware or Sabayon were we are appreciated and where there is good support. I currently use two other distros most of the time rather than Mandriva and the main reason is that when I have a question, I get a response that answers my question and gives the logic behind the answer within hours and without any nasty remarks. I appreciate that and support it with my contribution. Mandriva, not so much and now that they have let go the ones who were giving good support there not at all.
Story Problem
You have 100,000 people downloading Mandriva for free. You piss off 90,000 people due to lackadaisical community support. Question: How many private jets does the CEO lose?
Answer: None.
Your assumption is wrong. Mandriva ONLY cares about their PAYING customers - not the freeloaders.
Unlike the Windows user base - where they are used to paying money for software. Linux fanboys via the shrill ranting of Stallman EXPECT everything for free. Not exactly a stellar business model to rake in the big bucks.
Problem is that the "freeloaders" are the ones who will donate
Donations are the way the rest of the Linux distros make their money. People will donate if they get something for it and will not donate if the distro supporters treat them like s*it.
The big bucks come in time to those who earn them and will keep coming there. If you piss off your users, you lose any opportunity to get those big bucks. Bad policy loses customers and losing costumers means others will not see any reason to pay for the product that is losing.
re: Problem...
That's a good story - unfortunately it's not backed up by facts.
Freeloaders will ALWAYS be freeloaders (i.e. NOT customers). Only a very small percentage of people willing donate - and compared to even the most basic of operational costs - it's a teeny tiny drop in the bucket.
Keeping Freeloaders happy is at best a "soft money" return (i.e. goodwill). Unfortunately it's been proven many times over that goodwill is wasted on Freeloaders and NEVER is converted into hard money (i.e. profit).
For references - look at Unoobtu. In theory the most popular distro on the planet, yet it's a black hole money-wise (i.e. money goes in but NEVER comes out) and would have died long ago if it wasn't a hobby (and/or ego tool) for it's wealthy benefactor.