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Whither Mandriva? Part 2

August 29, 2012

This article was contributed by Bruce Byfield

When LWN last looked in April 2012, the Mandriva community was in an uncertain state. Information was sparse, and those involved were being cautious about what they said in public. Four months later the caution remains, but the general outline of events has become clearer, even if the details remain vague. It now appears that Mandriva S.A., the company behind the commercial distribution, is turning over development of the code to a community foundation, in which it and ROSA are the main supporters, at least partly in the hopes of winning back community support.

Four months ago, Mandriva S. A. was known to be in financial trouble and considering its options. On the mailing list for Cooker, Mandriva's development repository, rumors were flying about a dispute between Mandriva and ROSA (see below), and an accusation was made that ROSA was poaching Mandriva employees. A major concern was that this dispute would prevent the cooperation necessary to create a foundation for the Mandriva code, which most observers seemed to think was overdue.

Today, that dispute has been settled, at least publicly. However, its causes remains uncertain. Konstantin Kochereshkin, PR Manager for ROSA Lab, would say only that, "Those disagreements have now been solved." Jean-Manuel Croset, the new CEO of Mandriva S.A. was not much more forthcoming, saying:

Perhaps the biggest mistake being done when looking at the situation is to believe that Mandriva SA and ROSA is the same entity; this is not the case, we are two different companies. We share some shareholders, but neither ROSA nor Mandriva SA have any participation in each other's company.

This statement could suggest any number of origins and outcomes for the dispute while supporting none for certain.

Whatever the nature of the disagreement, both Mandriva and ROSA remain reluctant to give details, and currently both are emphasizing that they are cooperating with each other. According to Kochereshkin, the attacks on ROSA in the Cooker thread were made by a Russian competitor, not anyone with any connection with Mandriva S. A., and "his posts are just not true." Similarly, Croset stresses that Mandriva was "[not] the ones who made these accusations, nor do we feel raided in any way by ROSA." He went on to state that today, "cooperation is good" between Mandriva and ROSA.

Restructuring in the corporation and the community

The last four months have also seen major changes in the organization of the Mandriva community. To start with, on April 30, Mandriva S.A. shareholders approved a recapitalization strategy. Details of this strategy have not been made public — according to Croset because of non-disclosure agreements and a wish not to dwell on the past.

The most that Croset would say about Mandriva in the past was that "the main problem was that too many resources were invested in the desktop and too little in our other product lines. The structure was also a little bit too loose." However, Croset did indicate that, in the future, Mandriva will move away from efforts to sell the distribution — an effort that most commercial distributions abandoned over a decade ago — and adopt a mixed services and server-based business model similar to that of Canonical or Red Hat. Croset describes this reorganization as being about 75% complete.

In pursuit of that reorganization, Mandriva has hired five new employees in the last few months. The most prominent of the new hires is Charles Schulz, a former employee of MandrakeSoft (Mandriva's former name). Schultz is best known as a co-founder and member of the board of directors for The Document Foundation, the organization behind LibreOffice. Hired as Director of Community, Schulz's first task has been the creation of the Mandriva Foundation to oversee the community development of the code. Schulz met with stakeholders in Paris on June 19 to begin organization of the foundation.

Schulz also posted a poll to rename the foundation's distribution, explaining that "Mandriva" would remain the name for the distribution used by Mandriva S.A. in its products. Originally, the poll was supposed to close in one week, but, six weeks later, it remains open with "Mandala Linux" and "Open Mandriva" being the top choice. The final decision on the name is due in September.

According to Croset, the structure of the Mandriva Foundation (or whatever its final name becomes), and the extent to which it will be controlled by Mandriva S.A. are still being determined. However, Schulz's diagram of the foundation's proposed structure suggests that ROSA and Mandriva S.A. are being considered as the major corporate members and distributions involved, with derivative distributions like Unity Linux involved, but with less input or control.

What the diagram does not make clear is the role envisioned in the foundation for the Mandriva community. Considering some of the dissatisfaction in the community over Mandriva's past stewardship of the code, the community's role may be the main reason for the time needed to organize the foundation, which currently lacks a web site as well as a final name. With all the distrust that has developed in the last couple of years, community members might be determined to limit the role of commercial interests before they agree to participate.

Certainly a notable absence in the diagram is Mageia, the distribution founded by former Mandriva employees and community members in September 2010 with the declaration that, "We do not trust the plans of Mandriva S.A. any more and we don't think the company (or any company) is a safe host for such a project." These sentiments do not appear to have changed in the last two years; when asked if Mageia had any interest in the foundation, Patricia Fraser, Mageia's marketing communications team leader, replied,

Mageia doesn't have any ties to the Mandriva Foundation, or any form of Mandriva; Mageia.org is a completely separate organization. Our governance rules have been carefully formulated to make sure that Mageia is and remains a community-based and community-driven project, with no corporate oversight or obligations.

Since Mageia.org is already registered as a non-profit, merging with the Mandriva Foundation would naturally be difficult. Fraser's reply suggests that the major fork in the Mandriva code base is likely to continue. Croset had announced in a podcast that Mandriva S.A. would use Mageia for its server products, but, Fraser's comment would seem to preclude any cooperative development of Mageia within the Mandriva Foundation.

Whether other community members have the same reluctance is uncertain since the initial organization work is happening in private. However, if they do, then the time needed to organize the Mandriva Foundation would be even more understandable.

Under the ROSA

In the middle of these reorganizations, ROSA has appeared as something of a wild card, a relative newcomer about which little is known. According to co-founder Dmitry Komissarov, ROSA is another mixed community- corporate venture — a combination that he believes necessary to make free and open source software a going concern in Russia. It includes ROSA Lab, a subsidiary that has been the most public aspect of the company, that is "focused on research and new technologies development [and] should become a base for future ROSA product advantages."

Komissarov has co-founded five technology companies in the last decade — many of which appear to be quite small, since although he lists them as still active, they lack any website. He was also on the board of Mandriva between August 2010 and October 2011.

ROSA itself has some 100 employees, having increased its size four times since it was founded. Those employees include Deputy CEO Vladimir Rubanov, a director at the Linux Verification Center that has done some work with the Linux Standard Base and R&D Director Eugene Sokolov, who started the now-defunct Linux XP distribution. The company has also employed Jeff Johnson, the maintainer of RPM5, apparently on a contractual basis.

ROSA's first and so far only released product is the free-licensed ROSA Marathon, a long term support distribution based on Mandriva which has attracted attention for its innovations on the KDE desktop. These innovations include a fixed bottom panel whose task bar displays open windows as icons, a full-screen menu window with a timeline for locating recently used applications and customizable previews of documents and downloads. In addition, ROSA Marathon features some minor tweaking of the Dolphin file manager and ROSA Media Player, which supports both audio and video, and ROSA Sync, which configures a cloud client.

A commercial distribution, ROSA Desktop 2012, is scheduled for release by the end of 2012. ROSA is also developing products for mobile devices and a cloud storage service.

Whatever the past causes for friction with Mandriva S.A., at this point ROSA is acting as a major player in the unfolding events. Kochereshkin talked of how ROSA will "work jointly" with Mandriva S.A. in the foundation and how "ROSA and Mandriva met as peer members" during discussions. Some community members may still be unsure what to make of ROSA, but these references suggest that either ROSA wants to become a major player or else has already become one. A logical inference would be that part of the delay in finalizing the reorganization is the negotiating of exactly what ROSA's position will be.

Still unanswered

This summary raises almost as many questions as it answers. Mandriva S.A. has yet to disclose its investors or anything beyond its general directions for the future. Nor is it clear yet how the foundation will be organized and governed, and whether community interests will have an equal voice with commercial ones.

Looking into the future, you might also ask: can Mandriva S.A. turn its troubled fortunes around? Moreover, can any structure for the foundation unite all those working with the Mandriva code base, or are the divisions too deep to overcome?

At this point, the apparent slowness of the reorganization could indicate that key aspects are difficult and likely to be only partially successful. Anybody who has been involved in corporate decision-making can appreciate the reluctance to complicate ongoing negotiations with premature publicity, but, combined with the slowness of results, at some point the reticence may help to create an impression that difficulties are being hidden precisely because those trying to solve them are floundering.

You have to wonder, too, whether greater transparency would help to improve relationships with the community. However, obligations to shareholders may make transparency impractical. Very likely, too, community distrust runs too deeply in some places to be overcome quickly, no matter what the policy.

From the available glimpses, corporate and community Mandriva are struggling with some determination to reinvent themselves. However, the tactics of that struggle are still uncertain to any outside observer — let alone what chances they might offer for success.

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