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.
This was sent today by mail to hyahi AT mandriva DOT com, vwall AT mandriva DOT com and anicolas AT mandriva DOT com _________________ I'm not bad. I'm worse.
I can only support wobo in this.
Every Linux distribution is depending on the active support of its community, just look at the translations to see in how far this is true.
If you consider this, you will come to the conclusion that one of the most important employes a distributor has, is the contact between the corporate and the community.
The community needs to have information, it needs to have an open ear on the corporate's side, it needs the security, that someone on the corporate's side is listening to the community's wishes and problems and bringing those to the attention of the corporate.
So "firing" this contact is one of the worst things you could have done.
Your disappointed community member
Oliver Burger aka obgr_seneca _________________ German i18n group
Good job Wobo. Is there any point for us signing a petition in this sense ? Do you think they'll listen to us? And if so, where can we do this? _________________ My name is grasu......dubi grasu.
Is there any point for us signing a petition in this sense ? Do you think they'll listen to us? And if so, where can we do this?
Frnakly speaking: No. I do not think that this letter or any other postings of regret or surprise or whatever will change the decision.
Of course I wrote this letter to tell Mr. Yahi my point of view. But in the first place I wrote it in this open way to make this opinion known and documented as long as this forum and the MandrivaUser.de forum exist. I used the buzz words "Open Letter" also to attract as many people as possible.
I would not mind if anybody would distribute it to other platforms (I don't have a blog and I don't have an account on /.).
I'll stick it on the Mandriva section of Ubuntu forums, and Packard Bell's forums.
What will essentially happen is that all of Mandriva's PR will vanish, so a company that isn't exactly well known will be even less known, burning the bridges, I'd say bombing them.
There is already enough people hell bent on making MDV look bad, and they will go unchecked no that Adam doesn't correct them, we can try, but none of us have his reputation or ability to correct reviewers and misguided posts.
So reconsider, not for Adam's good, but for Mandriva's good, your companies good.
Laird Donald "Schultz" Stewart _________________ Its a four letter word, it ruins system speed, you might get sued for installing it and it is generally removing it is the answer to most problems. It also has something to do with #. What is it?
Bang......ouch!!! What was the....... was that????
Mandriva have just shot themselves in the foot - in my opinion big time. I've used Mandriva or Mandrake as it was since 9.1 (I still have the discs).
Boy oh boy what have you done. AW has been a tireless worker for Mandriva his influence can be found & felt all around the Linux community. He can be found in forums beyond Mandriva, where he has worked to promote the virtues of Mandriva. Just have a look at some of his posts & check the time of posting? This Guy is a 24Hr dude......
On a very personal note Adam has helped me out of more issues than I could mention & for that I thank him very much & wish him well for the future as he embodies all that is good within the Linux community.
As for Mandriva, my club membership is due for renewal shortly & the way I feel at present this renewal has the distinct possibility of not happening!!!
Look at some reviews of Mandriva Linux. In many off them is Adam mentioned as a very big plus for Mandriva.
Or look at the Ubuntuforums: Adam holds up the Mandriva Flag "all over the world".
On many bugreports was Adam the only one who answered.
The main pages on the wiki (errate, notes, releas tour) was written and updated by Adam ... also the news on the club page ... and so on.
And who will write the community newsletter?
Well, I truly hope that Mandriva knows what it did and if Mandriva is again profitable and will support the community in a special way!
I love Mandriva and wish Mandriva the very best.
I know the new CEO is not here to collect sympathy but I would be fine to get a signal that Mandriva takes care of the Community and does not ignore them. Mandriva needs the Community and the Community needs Mandriva.
Mandriva needs the Community and the Community needs Mandriva.
Yes, in a way, but not on equal terms.
If Mandriva abandons the community everybody could switch to another distribution and community with not much more than a mouse click and without losing anything - I know that some communities would very much welcome the Mandriva contributors.
But if the community stopped doing Mandriva's work for free - where would that leave Mandriva? They could close shop before long. Something even CEOs should know and consider.
I fully agree with wobo.
I know the financial situation of Mandriva (I am a shareholder of Mandriva).
I am an advisor of my CTO.
I am also a customer (well actually I decided to renew a subscription, but may be i will re-consider).
Adam efficiency at his position is an oustanding asset for Mandriva, community based replacement will not have the same return of investment.
Adam visiblity will make a PR risk with your community.
Mandriva cannot survive without community, and external contributors.
Please re-consider one more time.
Last edited by zack! on Sat Nov 29, 2008 12:34 am; edited 2 times in total
I cannot believe that I am reading this. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Adam has been the driving force behind solving many issues that caused me problems. He is the reason I renewed my Download subscription this last time. I fear this could be a harbinger of the end of Mandriva.
Thanks again for all the support, guys. Wobo, I edited your post to make the email addresses not vulnerable to spambots, hope you don't mind. _________________ Adam Williamson | http://www.happyassassin.net Fedora QA community monkey
Mandriva contributor, former community manager
Mandriva has screwed over two really really good people, who give them P.R., publicity, help to keep them afloat, their "everything" people.
They have nowhere to go from there - I don't care what kind of price tag, be it big or small, that Mandriva thinks they're saving by laying off Adam (not awfully long after wobo, mind you), but it will cost them ever so much more and will come back on them ten-fold, if not more, and they will lose even more money, because there goes all of their bridge between Corp and the end-users (to include the Enterprise ones).
I know that if they don't recant at least this with Adam (if not with wobo too in some way) then I will no longer support Mandriva at all in any way, and will take countless scores with me come December 31st (and I can back this up; you should see my inbox here full of "I'm leaving" messages).
Mandriva, Mr. "Yahoo" (yes, he's welcome to take that as an insult), you need to wake up badly. You have a goldmine with Adam, you under-paid him to begin with and kept on doing so throughout his employment with you (there's no way you could pay him enough, and you were getting a helluva lot for what little you did pay him). Why do you want to screw with a deal like that?
The best revenge Adam can get is some $350,000 p/yr job (at least), and tell Mandriva and Mr. Yahi-yahoo to stick it up their ass, just like what I'm saying now.
Mandriva, Mr. Yahi, stick it up your ass, along with your buggy-as-hell 2009.
Last edited by teknokraft on Sat Nov 29, 2008 5:15 am; edited 4 times in total
When reading Mandriva reviews on sites, you can find that Adam has made comments or corrections. Now this is someone who cares enough about his distro, to not only search out and read reviews but make sure info is correct or solve reviewers problems.
I have not seen this in other distros.
I have only had Mandriva 2009 as my main for a few months, but know the impact of Adam leaving.
As I explained in the "Leaving" thread, there will be more, it would not be logical to terminate just one contract and leave the others untouched. _________________ I'm not bad. I'm worse.
wobo, it's not the fact that they're doing it at all.
It's the whos involved.
I didn't appreciate it one bit when you were done the way you were by them, and I appreciate the company on the whole that much less now.
I've also since 2009 came out, come to appreciate the distro that much less as well.
This kind of stuff hurts all of us, and the fact that they don't give a damn makes it that much less tolerable.
I expected there would be more, but these people are important to me, and they're important to all of us.
They've blown it, I'm sorry.
And, I need to recant what I said earlier about someone else getting laid off (but I'm sure that won't hold true for long). I've just found out it was a misunderstanding, that this person had already left.
No, they haven't. From a realistic point of view they planned something and carried it through, done. What could they be afraid of?
1. As the distribution is cost free it will not make any difference when a couple of thousand users switch to another distribution.
2. As Gaël's example clearly showed, there was no significant loss of subscriptions after he was laid off.
There is only one way the community could send a clear signal to Mandriva: all volunteers, all contributors, no matter what they do (packagers, translators, wiki authors, etc.) - in short: all community people who work for free go on strike for one week. All community websites - outside mandriva.com - go offline (show an explaining page) for 24 hours.
As Mandriva is far more depending on the community than the other way round, such a strike would show what they are putting at risk.
Other than that there will be the usual uproar here and elsewhere and then life will go on as usual. Mandriva has done what they wanted to do, the community has howled loud enough, now everybody goes back to normal.
.....and look at the number of people online (shown at the bottom of the screen.
Until the deal with microsoft and the decision to remove a key company rep from the forums ( AKA Boylinux), this once fine community has almost disappeared and gone to pastures new. You can shout as much as you like on the xandros forums but the company won't hear you. The few stalwarts that remain are fine people hanging on in there for a new version 5, details of which Xandros seems reluctant to share.
As Gaël's example clearly showed, there was no significant loss of subscriptions after he was laid off.
wobo
Not sure it won't happen this time. Adam's work has proved too valuable to the community.
I for one will not renew my subscription.
Though I've been a mandrake/mandriva user, club member and customer for more than 6 years, I can no longer support a management whose decisions seem to me plain stupid.
I'll donate the 60 or 100 € I used to spend every year on the distro --I know it isn't much ... -- to some other free software organization.
I'll donate the 60 or 100 € I used to spend every year on the distro --I know it isn't much ... -- to some other free software organization.
I've already done it for 2009 and for the same reason. _________________ AMD Athlon 64 3500+ / ASUS A8N-SLI / nVidia GeForce 6200 / RAM 1Go
Mdv 2009 / Debian testing + Sidux
Les pérégrinations d'un ardéchois sur la banquise
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