Gael Duval, CEO of Mandrake, has been kind enough to agree to an interview with LQ. I am going to do things a bit differently with this interview and allow members to post questions in this thread. I'll take a few of them and add them to the interview.

--jeremy

I'm not a big Mandrake user but I am aware of the work they put in their distro that makes it easy for users to start off with coming from other OS backgrounds, so my question of concern would be:

"In the past, Mandrake hit a few financial obstacles. How have these financial situations affected Mandrake and where is Mandrake's current stance financially now, is it leveling off so we can expect Mandrake to have a strong future in the Linux market share?"

There's my question. Maybe get a few more with ideas on what to ask, etc.

Regards.

Maybe a FAQ-type Q, but:

How does Mandrake view RH's recent moves? Do they see it as an opportunity or not? If so, are they going to do anything specific to take advantage of it, or just go with the flow?

While understanding that it's a complex issue and not asking Mandrake to defend themselves, did the LG drive experience make them rethink anything about their procedures?

I frequently recommend Mandrake for the ease of installation when that is the primary criterion for someone choosing a distro, though I don't use it myself. I am *not* a power user by any stretch of the imagination but, for my own education, what's Mandrake's pitch to the power-user, vs. the first-time install?

With the recent Novell/SuSE news and RedHat's move away from the consumer market are you worried that most of the remaining distributions will be locked out of the corporate market in favour of a more homogenous desktop 'standard'?

Without divulging any Top Secret marketing information what kinds of organizations are adopting Linux on the desktop and for what reasons?

Some companies (ie Evesham) offered Mandrake Linux pre-installed on their machines (link), however these were not particularly well advertised, if "advertised" at all. They now appear not to be offering Mandrake Linux on their machines because there wasn't the take-up that they had expected. How does Mandrakesoft view this business tactic? Does Mandrakesoft think that there really should have been just a little bit more advertising?

The interview has been posted.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=126031

--jeremy