Mandriva: We're not dead

In a reaction to the founding of the Mageia project and to a question posed on the Cooker mailing list, the French Linux distributor Mandriva has commented on its current situation and future plans. The company says the Mandriva distribution is far from dead and will continue to be consistently maintained. The next release of the Mandriva Community Edition is reportedly planned for the beginning of 2011.

The focus of future development is for Mandriva to become the "best KDE distribution in the world". An independent community is expected to form to maintain other desktops and Mandriva says it will provide the technical infrastructure for them to operate. To coordinate collaboration, Mandriva will be hiring a community manager who will help create an autonomous governance structure for the Mandriva community.

The firm also commented on its future plans by saying that it is currently planning new products, especially for tablets with Intel and ARM processors. It is also working on developing a cloud strategy, the Mandriva Store will be simplified and improved and other online services will be integrated into the desktop version of Mandriva.

The company also plans to hire twenty developers in Brazil in the coming year, adding to the seven developers already in that country and the five developers in France. It also plans to set up R&D, testing and Q&A with up to fifteen staff in Russia.

On the Cooker mailing list, Mandriva's comments have led to some controversy. While some can imagine working in an independent Mandriva community, others believe there will be a long-term loss of confidence.

See also:

• Mandriva Linux forked into Mageia community distribution, a report from The H.
  
• Health Check: Mandriva, a feature from The H on the history of Mandriva.
  

(djwm)