Mandriva

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This article is about the company. For the Linux distribution produced by this company, see Mandriva Linux.
Mandriva
Type
Founded 1998 (MandrakeSoft)
Headquarters Paris, France
Curitiba, Brasil[citation needed]
San Diego, United States
Website www.mandriva.com

Mandriva S.A. is a publicly traded (symbol:MDKFF) Linux and open source software company with its headquarters in Paris, France and development center in Curitiba, Brazil. Mandriva, S.A. is the creator and maintainer of Mandriva Linux, describing itself as a "project initiator and a skills organizer in the Open Source arena", and a founding member of the Desktop Linux Consortium.

Mandriva, S.A. began as MandrakeSoft in 1998.[1] It currently has about 130 employees (80 of whom are engineers) and has offices in France, the USA, and Brazil.[2][3] The company sells its products in more than 140 countries and estimates the number of Mandriva Linux users to be in the 6-to-8 million range.[3]

MandrakeSoft was forced to change its name as a result of losing litigation to the Hearst Corporation over the name Mandrake. The litigation concluded in February 2004, and appeals expired in early 2005. The litigation arose because of Hearst Corporation's claim to the name "Mandrake", inspired by the comic Mandrake the Magician; forcing MandrakeSoft to change its name. In 2005, MandrakeSoft acquired the assets of Lycoris, and purchased Conectiva. As a result of the forced name change, the name Mandriva was selected to reflect the combination of MandrakeSoft and Conectiva.[4]

On 2008-01-16, Mandriva and Turbolinux announced a partnership to create a lab named Manbo-Labs, to share resources and technology to release a common base system for both companies Linux distributions.[5]

Contents

[edit] Innovations

Mandriva has, like other Linux distributions, created several applications that give it a distinctive feel. The urpmi package management tools and the suite of graphical system configuration tools contained in the Mandriva Control Center are probably the most notable, along with nspluginwrapper which allows x86-32 plugins to be used within a x86-64 browser.

Another example is transfugdrake, a tool designed for easy migration of documents and settings from Microsoft Windows to Mandriva Linux.[6][7] It is a front end to Migration Assistant with a unique interface and several improvements and bug fixes.[8]

[edit] Financial state

MandrakeSoft operated under bankruptcy protection from January 27, 2003 to March 30, 2004.[9][10] The déclaration de cessation de paiement (similar to the US Chapter 11) gave the company protection from its creditors. MandrakeSoft recorded its first quarterly profit since 1999 of €270,000 on €1.42 million of revenue during the period between October 2003 and December 2003.[11]

Shares of Mandrakesoft are again being traded on the Euronext Marché Libre exchange (ISIN code MLMAN) and on the US OTC Bulletin Board (Stock symbol MDKFF).[10]

[edit] Mandriva Club

In addition to selling Linux distributions through its online store and authorized resellers, Mandriva previously sold subscriptions to the Mandriva Club. There were several levels of membership, at costs ranging from US$66 or 60 € per year (as of 2007) to 600 € per year.[12]

Club members gained access to the Club website, additional mirrors and torrents for downloading, free downloads of its boxed products (depending on membership level), interim releases of the Mandriva Linux distribution, and additional software updates. For example, only Gold-level and higher members could download Powerpack+ editions.

Many Mandriva commercial products came with short-term membership in the club; however, Mandriva Linux was completely usable without a club membership.

When Mandriva Linux 2008.0 was released in October 2007, Mandriva made club membership free of charge to all comers, splitting download subscriptions off into a separate service.[13]

Mandriva also has a Mandriva Corporate Club for larger organisations.[14]

[edit] Acquisitions

On October 4, 2004, Mandrakesoft acquired the professional support company Edge IT. Edge IT focused on the delivery of services and support to the corporate market in France and had 6 employees.[15]

On February 24, 2005, Mandrakesoft acquired Brazilian Linux distributor Conectiva for €1.79 million (2.3 million US dollars at the time).[16]

On June 15, 2005, Mandriva acquired Lycoris (formerly, Redmond Linux Corporation).[17]

On October 5, 2006, Mandriva signed an agreement to acquire Linux enterprise software infrastructure company Linbox. The agreement includes the acquisition of all shares of Linbox for a total of $1.739 million in Mandriva stock, plus an earn out of up to $401,000 based on the 2006 Linbox financials.[18]

[edit] Controversy

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[edit] Products

  • Mandriva Linux - Free of cost versions include Mandriva Free (open source version) and Mandriva One (Live CD with some proprietary components). Paid versions currently include Discovery (for beginners), PowerPack (for advanced users), and PowerPack+ (for power users), but Mandriva 2008 will have only one commercial edition (the Discovery and Powerpack+ editions will be merged into Powerpack).
  • Mandriva Directory Server - An open source LDAP server that aims to be easy to administer via a web GUI. Similar in aims to Fedora Directory Server

[edit] References

Free Software Portal
  1. ^ Corrêa, Fernando Ribeiro (May 2000). "Linux in France: Guess MandrakeSoft's Next Move". Linux Gazette (53). 
  2. ^ "Mandriva aims its Linux at Mexican enterprises", DesktopLinux.com, 2006-12-27. Retrieved on 2007-05-27. 
  3. ^ a b Corporate information about Mandriva - Mandriva Linux. Mandriva Linux. Archived from the original on 2006-05-05. Retrieved on 2007-05-27.
  4. ^ Mandriva Linux (2005-04-07). "Mandrakesoft Announces Name Change!". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-05-27.
  5. ^ Mandriva and Turbolinux announce a partnership and create a joint development lab called Manbo-Labs
  6. ^ [cvs] Index of /soft/transfugdrake
  7. ^ [cvs] View of /soft/transfugdrake/README
  8. ^ migration-assistant. launchpad.net. Retrieved on 2008-03-07.
  9. ^ July 24th - 2003. Mandriva Linux (2003-07-24). Retrieved on 2007-05-27.
  10. ^ a b Mandriva Linux (2004-03-30). "Mandrakesoft Exits Bankruptcy". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-05-27.
  11. ^ January 22nd - 2004. Mandriva Linux (2004-01-22). Retrieved on 2007-05-27.
  12. ^ Welcome to the Mandriva Linux Users Club Page. Retrieved on 2007-10-03.
  13. ^ "Arkub" (26/10/2007 at 04:12). Mandriva Club: Where is the Club?. Retrieved on 2007-11-03.
  14. ^ Welcome To The Mandriva Corporate Club. Retrieved on 2007-10-03.
  15. ^ O'Gara, Maureen. "Mandrakesoft Back in the Black", Enterprise Open Source Magazine, 2004-12-04. Retrieved on 2007-05-27. 
  16. ^ Mandriva Linux (2005-02-24). "Linux companies Mandrakesoft and Conectiva Announce Definitive Merger Agreement". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-05-27.
  17. ^ "Mandriva acquires Lycoris, boosts US presence, desktop prowess", DesktopLinux.com, 2005-06-15. Retrieved on 2007-05-27. 
  18. ^ Mandriva Acquires Linbox for €1.3 million. boursier.com. Retrieved on 2007-12-12.(French)

[edit] External links