OpenMandriva

[proyvind]

Bingo.

But then, then came Mageia because they "laid off", or fired Anne, another blow to the distro itself. They not only screwed her, but screwed themselves doing it. What was she supposed to do? Sit on her arse and do nothing the rest of her life, or do what she loves most? They said bye-bye to her themselves; she was free from there to do what she wanted, far as I'm concerned.

Currently, it's the same as it was with Mandriva SA; a house divided against itself can not stand.

Well, the public image of this situation was rather fscked...

What actually happened was that Anne was rather the one to hold responsible for decline of popularity for the previous releases if any, and in addition there was a Paris cliqué that had become to big of a problem for everyone and drove others away (I was myself targetted by this cliqué and ecstatic about the edge-it liquidation), ie. there's a reason why *none* from conectiva team ever joined Mandriva, not even those who left around the same time..

But Anne and her cliqué did well by manipulating many with their munchausen tactic with slander through twitter accounts like "mandrivaleaks" etc. months in advance, and in secret made sure to only involve the people they liked, then made sure to scare and manipulate them succesfully into joining their secret fork in progress, why do you think they kept it secret months in advance? Or didn't even bother to collaborate with those of us who were already trying to get a foundation up and running, myself I had worked on this since 2007 where the efforts got started by a discussion I took iniative on at FOSDEM that year. with the notes & results for available at http://proyvind.net/~peroyvind/mandriva.org.pdf .

Unfortunately this didn't progress that much because of the lack of driving force in community (myself I had just suffered a burnout), and the only two at company and community who was against and considered the work on the foundation as a threat to Mandriva was actually the director of engineering (anne nicolas) and the paris team manager (fredric crozat), which made it kinda hard to succeed getting anywhere with traditionally so much of the responsibilities left on company side and so little on contributor side..

Some other members of the french user community organization AUFML wanted to try pick up the efforts again at the beginning of 2010, so I was invited to Solutions Linux (this especially because the french user community probably had a worse relations with the cliqué than the rest of us) in Paris for a meeting to take place there. The meeting wasn't all that well planned, I myself was disappointed, especially since they had invited the CEO back then to the meeting, which said he'd come, but didn't, while the most important person in management and CTO of that time that I took for granted was invited, wasn not. I only ran into him the next day when he actually was at SL (when most of the other participant in the meeting previous day had already left Paris) and discussed things with him, he was very in support of this and had always supported the idea since before he became CTO as well, which said that he totally thought that the distribution should be turned over to the community, but Mandriva had a difficult time then and would not be able to participate in efforts, but encouraged it and for them to join later.The following week that CTO became CEO btw.

So there was discussions following privately by mails and things seemed to do some progress, then something weird happened, I heard that someone within the company considered me and this initiative a threat (this was during when the edge-it liquidation started) which I found rather weird, then suddenly I got less mails and heard less from others, while hearing more nonsense FUD that were dismissed, but still posted on forums etc. later. This by the very same people I had been in discussions with...

So believing in nonsense rumours, the very same people I had been in talks with earlier, started posting slander on forums etc.
So by vicimitizing themself and distributions future secretly, they gained community support from some to do it publically, while manipulating some of the key people in community to join their fork in secret..

On the friday after a general assembly that had been held the day before, and news from not yet published, Mageia was announced with their FUD about the company to die in the next few months, the danger of distribution etcetcetc.. On the Monday after, the news from the general assembly were published officially dismissing all their false rumours, but over the weekend they had already started gaining some momentum with supporters rallying behind them..



For where 2011 failed, it was mainly due to a political internal power struggle between the owners of mandriva and rosa taking place during development and following, resulting in most key people leaving right before or after it's release. So with new management at Mandriva being totally clueless, more people left, with the developers who had been responsible for the work gone, the amount of updates was rather poor as well, especially considering that the relationship between mandriva and rosa were cut off entirely right after release, all of kde/gui developers disappered with it as well..
And to give the whole thing a rather bad start, some rookie mistake was made by someone not actually responsible for doing the releases, released it too early with the rest of us discovering it when returning after the weekend..


Of course all of these things affected each other and lead to the last couple of years being rather difficult to say the least, but going through those more recent and many internal events would be too much to write and inappropriate of me to post about (not to mention that I hate writing long mails, forum posts etc. so please mind some potential incoherency;p)..

[dedanna1029]

There are people pontificating about the distro who appear to have no experience of building a linux distro.

Indeed, and that is the point.

[dedanna1029]

Time for bed in the UK. Good thing, as this upsets me way too much. I think I need to bow out of this conversation.

[viking60]

I realize that Mandriva is a distro that does still create a lot of passion. People hanging in there and truly fighting (where others simply install Arch ) is a good thing.
Mandriva has never had a better supporter than Rolf and proyvind has worked with it for years.
Both know how to went their views -berserk style - and we are the first to forgive that because we are tolerant (besides, we'll kill anyone who is not ).

Thanks for the update Rolf - I am confused at a higher level now. @proyvind I buy that description, but it is archeology. I would really like to see a functioning Mandriva again - no hurry - in one week will do can you fix that?(The Alpha is promising).
And can anyone tell me what is happening with MCC - it does not fire in the Alpha is that deliberate or is it a bug?

[proyvind]

Per is employed by ROSA. Clearly, they have been slow to pay him, with some claims of financial hardship, which is not an incredible theory. For whatever reason, no one holds a gun to Per's head. If his work situation is making him sick, only he can change the situation. We (working people) are all in the same boat.



From the beginning of the association that was put in place as the means of transferring the community branch of Mandriva from the company to the community, Per has shown hostility toward Charles Schultz, a Mandriva employee assigned to facilitate the transfer. It appears G. Moro, another developer, shares the animosity and refusal to cooperate with this process. Whenever there is an opportunity for W. Bornath to vent his disdain of Mandriva and its representatives, he pops over from Mageia to do so.

Mandriva made some conditions and provided some resources to effect the change of ownership of this branch of the distribution. It seems to me certain of the luminaries, most notably Per, have dug in their heels and only throw insults, sabotaging the process in order to grind personal axes. I'm not impressed.

What's sad is that many have invested time and energy to make the foundation. Per, whatever sacrifice he claims, will not do this on his own, beyond what he has already been paid to do. Virtually all his arguments are passive-aggressive trolls with no clear point other than to flame and complain. His complaints might have merit but he need not sacrifice any further on my account. Move on down the road to a better job.

Bernhard Rosenkränzer, a developer since the time of Red Hat - Mandrake with at least the stones of POK, writes this side:

Hi,
thanks for expressing your views in a way people won't find offending this
time...


On Monday, March 04, 2013 07:48:56 PM Per Øyvind Karlsen wrote:
> 2013/3/4 Jean-Claude Vanier <jclvanier at gmail.com>
>
> > The discussion started with the question of the logo contest for the
> > association.
> > Is that all we have to solved in order to get the next release ?
>
> No, a lot more remains for doing the next release, logo is unfortunately
> one of the less concerning issues..

This is true, and we all need to work together to get it done.
Your work on DrakX is really important, so is other people's work on getting
the packages to pass the mass build again.
The best set of packages are no good without a way to install them, and the
best installer isn't useful if it installs packages that are a load of crap
that don't even compile.

We can't split the project, we need everything to come together.

> > If I understand well, this means there cannot be any link between the name
> > "openmandriva" and the next distro, whatever its name ?
>
> Yupp (thanks for actually taking me seriously btw., and this isn't
> something new and something that we've agreed on more than once earlier and
> that's been made quite clear all along.

I think we need some clarification here.
We (sort of) agreed that OpenMandriva isn't a good distro name.
This doesn't necessarily mean any logo that has the words on it can't go into
the distro. It just means it can't be the logo of the distro.

If you look at what our competition is doing, you'll see "Microsoft" labeled
logos while the "distribution" is called "Windows", and you'll see Apple logos
even though the distribution is called "OS X".

In the same way, there's no reason why we can't display a logo saying
OpenMandriva anywhere in the distribution, just as long as it's clear that
this is neither the distribution's logo nor its name.

As for the remaining artwork, I think we need to provide several options for
people to choose from.
Some people really like the penguin theming of the previous alpha, and some
really hate it, and to some extent that comes down to different usage types
and different cultures (e.g. it tends to be more acceptable in Europe to have
"fun" bits in use in business than it is in the US).
So just provide both a "fun" and a "professional" theme and let the user pick.
Technically it's just a matter of having 2 or more branding packages...

> > The official goal of the association is the support of different
> > projects. For you, it is not the release of the association but only one
> > of the projects that are (will be) supported by the association ?
>
> Hm, well, that's actually a good question and something possibly putting
> things in perspective, as I see it is a release done by the project that
> the association will support and enjoy, despite not having been involved
> with it.

I wouldn't say the association hasn't been involved with it - maybe not the
association in itself because it simply hasn't existed for long enough, but it
is made up of people who have contributed and are contributing in some way
(sometimes ways outside of development - not everyone who is valuable to the
project is a developer. We do need people who answer newbie questions on the
forum etc. so that workload is kept off the devs...)

> > In other words, do you say: well, I'm responsible of a distro which name
> > is "xxx" and I'd like the association supports it by doing something ?
>
> Well, it's more like that it's a bit too late for the association to do
> much as the release is almost done and is asking for it to not interfere
> and disrupt the development and delivery of as I don't see the association
> as ready to take over full responsibility of.

We're all on the same page in terms of what we want -- make a release that is
as good as possible while sticking to the timeline.

It looks like there's some disagreement over how to get there that we need to
solve.

I think we all agree that in the longer term, the association (or rather some
subgroup like the TC (of which you're an important part) or even a subgroup of
that, let's say a release group defined by the TC) should be responsible?
You've been doing a great job at keeping things alive while everything was
being built up, but I don't think we should have a single point of failure -
it makes more sense to distribute the job among several people to make things
easier if someone goes on vacation/dies/leaves/whatever.

I can see the point that the association may not be fully ready to take on
everything - but shouldn't we get started?

> But individual people involved with the associaton also getting involved
> with cooker on testing etc. like those who already are active with
> certainly would be something that would help support the development of
> the upcoming release.
> Ie. we're especially in desperate need for more people to get involved with
> QA, and someone to help organize a triage team is certainly something I've
> been hoping to get help on and that would only help and not be at risk of
> interfering with other aspects of development that I'm already responsible
> and in full progress on.

I fully agree on that -- can we get everyone involved with the association to
install alpha3 somewhere (even if it's only in a VM) to hunt for bugs?

This should also give people a more realistic view of where we are.

> Question : if so, what do you expect from the association ?
>
> To not take charge of the next release as it's almost done already and the
> association isn't really ready for it.

I see the point, but keep in mind that the first release after the creation of
the association will pretty much be an identifying part of the association -
this will show the world where we're headed.
So I think it's legit that the association wants to have *some* say over it.

Yes, that does mean getting active and actually doing things -- obviously the
association can't assign nonsense tasks to people who can't fulfill them (such
as telling me to take care of artwork) - but if there's people doing something
and the council thinks their work should go in, it shouldn't be blocked...

ttyl
bero

https://listes.lautre.net/pipermail/oma ... 00247.html

I'd say that's a pretty sane side, taking all the contributors and all the realities under consideration.

Ahrf, I'm too tired to defend myself (and the distribution) from the same crap getting on the mailing list and won't answer each of this in detail (and I'm more of a mailing list guy, so sorry for being too dorky to use any forum markups etc., but all I can say is that you don't know half of this situation and what's been going on internally.

Also I would like to point out that I've regularly been working 150-250% a week, and was contributing waywayway before getting any pay for it, so obviously this is more than just a regular job that I get paid for.

Things are anyways turning around now, after I brought in Bruce in: https://ml.mandriva.com/wws/arc/foundat ... 00255.html


I think I can sum up the discussion and our viewpoint with that it needs to governed through meritocracy (as agreed on previously, but misunderstood the definition of by some), rather than as a newly established democracy.

If you want to have a word to say in what gets done for the distro, you need to do it and prove it.
And here the people of the association has been free to do so all along and I've more than once encouraged involvement of and in cooker, but it has never happened, the only work done has been on creating an organization who wants to govern the distribution project, rather than supporting and contributing to it.
It seems like we're starting to get this point across now, with outstanding salary paid, so I'm getting more optimistic again now at least.

I've had to spend all of my time on writing mails this week on these things (which I find exhausting), rather than getting any actual work done, so...

Thx for the support of (almost) all of ya, and have a nice weekend as well!

[viking60]

Have a nice weekend and hang in there.

[dedanna1029]

Opening up two extra windows here, to respond to a couple of things. Last night, my cache didn't catch up to everything, and I'm now finding posts that I did not see; however, this one I had. The rest, not. The quotes I am putting in spoilers, as this post would look quite long if I don't.

Per is employed by ROSA. Clearly, they have been slow to pay him, with some claims of financial hardship, which is not an incredible theory. For whatever reason, no one holds a gun to Per's head. If his work situation is making him sick, only he can change the situation. We (working people) are all in the same boat.

And that gives the next employer excuse not to pay his employees, I presume? If an employee is told they will be paid, then are not paid, that is not the employee's fault. That is the fault of the employer. It only serves to keep the employee working, when they won't be paid, which is equally as wrong.

[From the beginning of the association that was put in place as the means of transferring the community branch of Mandriva from the company to the community, Per has shown hostility toward Charles Schultz, a Mandriva employee assigned to facilitate the transfer. It appears G. Moro, another developer, shares the animosity and refusal to cooperate with this process. Whenever there is an opportunity for W. Bornath to vent his disdain of Mandriva and its representatives, he pops over from Mageia to do so.

I see W. Bornath as not even in this. His comments don't matter to me. mandrivauser.de was shut down, offered to others, who (again) did not take over to use it to contribute. Pity, as it could have been used for OpenMandriva in a positive way, but no one took the bait. So what. It doesn't make him part of, in any way, what has been happening with OpenMandriva, other than maybe fuel flames from those who delusionally think he was. I dismiss his comments anywhere about OpenMandriva, because he himself has (and has had) nothing to do with it. I do see your animosity towards him (and have several times in more than one place), and even understand it to a certain degree, but I do not see something that has really nothing to do with him, being "something to do with him." It's not an opportunity to slam him, so I dismiss this comment of your post.

I also think on Charles Schulz, having seen several things over the time since he self-named himself as leader of this "association", this "thing", and having done things to literally dictate to everyone else "how it will be, at his command," this is part of the reason I do not have much respect for him; he at one time thought he could be the sole one to dictate the name of the organization, and of the distro, when an "association" and "council" hadn't even come into being yet. From things I'm seeing on his twitter, he still thinks the same. "I am the one who will dictate the direction this thing's going in, I'm the leader, and screw those who don't like it" when he hasn't even established the means to do so yet, and appears to have no clue, in full, of what's going on all 'round.

Mandriva made some conditions and provided some resources to effect the change of ownership of this branch of the distribution. It seems to me certain of the luminaries, most notably Per, have dug in their heels and only throw insults, sabotaging the process in order to grind personal axes. I'm not impressed.

Well, I see it as a rebellion against what I just said above about pay, about dictatorship; as people are rebelling the U.S. People are entitled to their opinions, whether we like them or not, and they also have right to rebel that which they think is blatantly wrong. Just as we rebelled GWB, for example, among others, that is what happened here. I do not think as well, that any of us knows the particular details of the "change of ownership" either, so we are not qualified to state if they were good or bad; such as, the question, "Who were those conditions and resources agreed upon by, and with whom, directly? Which persons were involved (to include internal ones)?

What's sad is that many have invested time and energy to make the foundation. Per, whatever sacrifice he claims, will not do this on his own, beyond what he has already been paid to do. Virtually all his arguments are passive-aggressive trolls with no clear point other than to flame and complain. His complaints might have merit but he need not sacrifice any further on my account. Move on down the road to a better job.

Again, recognize the consequences. We are talking about people who don't even know how to write a distro. How can it survive, without the ones who write it? What good is anything anyone else is doing, not to have the distro laid out to do the other work for?

Bernhard Rosenkränzer, a developer since the time of Red Hat - Mandrake with at least the stones of POK, writes this side:

Hi,
thanks for expressing your views in a way people won't find offending this
time...


On Monday, March 04, 2013 07:48:56 PM Per Øyvind Karlsen wrote:
> 2013/3/4 Jean-Claude Vanier <jclvanier at gmail.com>
>
> > The discussion started with the question of the logo contest for the
> > association.
> > Is that all we have to solved in order to get the next release ?
>
> No, a lot more remains for doing the next release, logo is unfortunately
> one of the less concerning issues..

This is true, and we all need to work together to get it done.
Your work on DrakX is really important, so is other people's work on getting
the packages to pass the mass build again.
The best set of packages are no good without a way to install them, and the
best installer isn't useful if it installs packages that are a load of crap
that don't even compile.

We can't split the project, we need everything to come together.

> > If I understand well, this means there cannot be any link between the name
> > "openmandriva" and the next distro, whatever its name ?
>
> Yupp (thanks for actually taking me seriously btw., and this isn't
> something new and something that we've agreed on more than once earlier and
> that's been made quite clear all along.

I think we need some clarification here.
We (sort of) agreed that OpenMandriva isn't a good distro name.
This doesn't necessarily mean any logo that has the words on it can't go into
the distro. It just means it can't be the logo of the distro.

If you look at what our competition is doing, you'll see "Microsoft" labeled
logos while the "distribution" is called "Windows", and you'll see Apple logos
even though the distribution is called "OS X".

In the same way, there's no reason why we can't display a logo saying
OpenMandriva anywhere in the distribution, just as long as it's clear that
this is neither the distribution's logo nor its name.

As for the remaining artwork, I think we need to provide several options for
people to choose from.
Some people really like the penguin theming of the previous alpha, and some
really hate it, and to some extent that comes down to different usage types
and different cultures (e.g. it tends to be more acceptable in Europe to have
"fun" bits in use in business than it is in the US).
So just provide both a "fun" and a "professional" theme and let the user pick.
Technically it's just a matter of having 2 or more branding packages...

> > The official goal of the association is the support of different
> > projects. For you, it is not the release of the association but only one
> > of the projects that are (will be) supported by the association ?
>
> Hm, well, that's actually a good question and something possibly putting
> things in perspective, as I see it is a release done by the project that
> the association will support and enjoy, despite not having been involved
> with it.

I wouldn't say the association hasn't been involved with it - maybe not the
association in itself because it simply hasn't existed for long enough, but it
is made up of people who have contributed and are contributing in some way
(sometimes ways outside of development - not everyone who is valuable to the
project is a developer. We do need people who answer newbie questions on the
forum etc. so that workload is kept off the devs...)

> > In other words, do you say: well, I'm responsible of a distro which name
> > is "xxx" and I'd like the association supports it by doing something ?
>
> Well, it's more like that it's a bit too late for the association to do
> much as the release is almost done and is asking for it to not interfere
> and disrupt the development and delivery of as I don't see the association
> as ready to take over full responsibility of.

We're all on the same page in terms of what we want -- make a release that is
as good as possible while sticking to the timeline.

It looks like there's some disagreement over how to get there that we need to
solve.

I think we all agree that in the longer term, the association (or rather some
subgroup like the TC (of which you're an important part) or even a subgroup of
that, let's say a release group defined by the TC) should be responsible?
You've been doing a great job at keeping things alive while everything was
being built up, but I don't think we should have a single point of failure -
it makes more sense to distribute the job among several people to make things
easier if someone goes on vacation/dies/leaves/whatever.

I can see the point that the association may not be fully ready to take on
everything - but shouldn't we get started?

> But individual people involved with the associaton also getting involved
> with cooker on testing etc. like those who already are active with
> certainly would be something that would help support the development of
> the upcoming release.
> Ie. we're especially in desperate need for more people to get involved with
> QA, and someone to help organize a triage team is certainly something I've
> been hoping to get help on and that would only help and not be at risk of
> interfering with other aspects of development that I'm already responsible
> and in full progress on.

I fully agree on that -- can we get everyone involved with the association to
install alpha3 somewhere (even if it's only in a VM) to hunt for bugs?

This should also give people a more realistic view of where we are.

> Question : if so, what do you expect from the association ?
>
> To not take charge of the next release as it's almost done already and the
> association isn't really ready for it.

I see the point, but keep in mind that the first release after the creation of
the association will pretty much be an identifying part of the association -
this will show the world where we're headed.
So I think it's legit that the association wants to have *some* say over it.

Yes, that does mean getting active and actually doing things -- obviously the
association can't assign nonsense tasks to people who can't fulfill them (such
as telling me to take care of artwork) - but if there's people doing something
and the council thinks their work should go in, it shouldn't be blocked...

ttyl
bero

https://listes.lautre.net/pipermail/oma ... 00247.html

I'd say that's a pretty sane side, taking all the contributors and all the realities under consideration.

Yes, but consider that we don't even know what's actually "sane", other than basic principles, with all the internal (and other) infighting that's going on. It may sound sane to you, and maybe to others, but may not be in reality.

As for Per (post of which I've just now seen:

Some other members of the french user community organization AUFML wanted to try pick up the efforts again at the beginning of 2010, so I was invited to Solutions Linux (this especially because the french user community probably had a worse relations with the cliqué than the rest of us) in Paris for a meeting to take place there. The meeting wasn't all that well planned, I myself was disappointed, especially since they had invited the CEO back then to the meeting, which said he'd come, but didn't, while the most important person in management and CTO of that time that I took for granted was invited, wasn not. I only ran into him the next day when he actually was at SL (when most of the other participant in the meeting previous day had already left Paris) and discussed things with him, he was very in support of this and had always supported the idea since before he became CTO as well, which said that he totally thought that the distribution should be turned over to the community, but Mandriva had a difficult time then and would not be able to participate in efforts, but encouraged it and for them to join later.The following week that CTO became CEO btw.

So, you're saying that Mandriva wanted to turn the distribution over to the community before everyone started screaming for it to be (those like me, who saw the lack of relations with the community, and were screaming about it). Mandriva fired their CEO, and put the CTO in its place? This is all beginning to, as I stated earlier, sound like self-sabotage to me, on the company's part. From our end as well, we were seeing Mandriva SA go through so many CEOs, it wasn't funny, seemingly every month! So, when it does go under, the people who saw it was about to go under, jumped ship. I myself heard rumors of mismanagement of funds on the part of the company Mandriva SA. It would be interesting to see if this part is true or not, and on who's part it was, if it did indeed happen. I saw it in news articles, I saw hints of it from the company itself. Again, if this was going on, they were doing nothing but sabotaging themselves, and those who contributed to the company (PWP sales, Rolf's energies to get the ability to accept credit cards, the works. They screwed ALL of us, again, IF this is true. There are all kinds of things at play, to which the community may have been quite a bit more aware of than most think, and they did scream about it - for a time, until they realized that all the screaming in the world would do nothing to help matters (again, I liken this to the U.S. vs. GWB). Mandriva SA had fired their only good public figure, that being Adam Williamson, so they didn't have backing like that any more, they'd run them all off (deliberately).

On the friday after a general assembly that had been held the day before, and news from not yet published, Mageia was announced with their FUD about the company to die in the next few months, the danger of distribution etcetcetc.. On the Monday after, the news from the general assembly were published officially dismissing all their false rumours, but over the weekend they had already started gaining some momentum with supporters rallying behind them..

So, it was Mageia who announced this? I'm not seeing it. Mandriva SA themselves had announced it so many times, then had so many comebacks, that people started tuning out to this very thing, wondering if it was to be believed or not. First, they're going under, oooooohhh but WAIT! They now have backing of company X, or of grant X, or this, or that, or the other. I find it hard to believe that by that time, it was still Mageia behind these things at this point. Anne may have done her own sneaky dealings, but in the end of it all, ended up having to move on herself from Mandriva. So be it.

For where 2011 failed, it was mainly due to a political internal power struggle between the owners of mandriva and rosa taking place during development and following, resulting in most key people leaving right before or after it's release.

Well, isn't it always a political internal power struggle? I think in actuality, this is what's happening at OpenMandriva. As I said, a house divided by itself. You've just shown me correct in that.

I don't see it in the black and white of OMA "ripping off Per". There are many aspects of this transition and formation, with not-yet-formed channels of communication only getting burned down. I see many non-devs contributing their heartfelt time and non-dev skills only to get dissed as 'amateurs' by the almighty devs. I've been supporting this distro since early 2000, paying for my first version and the first to bring up the idea to Deno on the mandrake forum to enable credit card contributions, which I've done since. When G. Cottenceau asked for extra donations at one of the several nadirs of Mandrakes financial roller-coaster, I sent in a few dollars. I made, probably, tens of thousands of forum and list posts to help with user issues. I brought marketing materials to Lindependence Day
Many, many other non-devs have made similar or greater contributions to community and I, for one, don't appreciated being discounted as unworthy by any member of the distro.
I'm not buying the divisive characterization of Foundation as conspiring to seize anything. Communication has been very lacking and I think that's due to all the chips on shoulders wrt Mandriva's past sins and perceived sins. It's time to get over it and move on.

Yes, Rolf, but again, what you're not seeing, is that if there is no distro, the rest is just talk, and can't be acted on. It goes like this: Devs create distro-->the rest do what they do with it. It can't happen elsewise. It's all wasted energy.[/quote]

What many can't see as well, are things like, how are they going to have an "association", if they don't even have a headquarters (or office) to operate out of? Do it with a lot of online junkies who think passing messages around to one another will get the job done, in particular when they themselves are inexperienced enough? I realize that Mandriva SA had a good bit of this; their staff was worldwide. However, at least they had the basics! How is OpenMandriva going to do things like have artwork, have this, have that for a distro, without a distro?er is employed by ROSA. Clearly, they have been slow to pay him, with some claims of financial hardship, which is not an incredible theory. For whatever reason, no one holds a gun to Per's head. If his work situation is making him sick, only he can change the situation. We (working people) are all in the same boat.[/quote][/spoiler]
And that gives the next employer excuse not to pay his employees, I presume? If an employee is told they will be paid, then not, that is not the employee's fault. That is the fault of the employer. It only serves to keep the employee working, when they won't be paid, which is equally as wrong.

[From the beginning of the association that was put in place as the means of transferring the community branch of Mandriva from the company to the community, Per has shown hostility toward Charles Schultz, a Mandriva employee assigned to facilitate the transfer. It appears G. Moro, another developer, shares the animosity and refusal to cooperate with this process. Whenever there is an opportunity for W. Bornath to vent his disdain of Mandriva and its representatives, he pops over from Mageia to do so.

I see W. Bornath as not even in this. His comments don't matter to me. mandrivauser.de was shut down, offered to others, who (again) did not take over to use it to contribute. Pity, as it could have been used for OpenMandriva in a positive way, but no one took the bait. So what. It doesn't make him part of, in any way, what has been happening with OpenMandriva, other than maybe fuel flames from those who delusionally think he was. I dismiss his comments anywhere about OpenMandriva, because he himself has (and has had) nothing to do with it. I do see your animosity towards him (and have several times in more than one place), and even understand it to a certain degree, but I do not see something that has really nothing to do with him, being "something to do with him." It's not an opportunity to slam him, so I dismiss this comment of him in your post as well.

I also think on Charles Schulz, having seen several things over the time since he self-named himself as leader of this "association", this "thing", and having done things to literally dictate to everyone else "how it will be, at his command," this is part of the reason I do not have much respect for him; he at one time thought he could be the sole one to dictate the name of the organization, and of the distro, when an "association" and "council" hadn't even come into being yet. From things I'm seeing on his twitter, he still thinks the same. "I am the one who will dictate the direction this thing's going in, I'm the leader, and screw those who don't like it" when he hasn't even established the means to do so yet, and appears to have no clue, in full, of what's going on all 'round.

Mandriva made some conditions and provided some resources to effect the change of ownership of this branch of the distribution. It seems to me certain of the luminaries, most notably Per, have dug in their heels and only throw insults, sabotaging the process in order to grind personal axes. I'm not impressed.

Well, I see it as a rebellion against what I just said above about pay, about dictatorship; as people are rebelling the U.S. People are entitled to their opinions, whether we like them or not, and they also have right to rebel that which they think is blatantly wrong. Just as we rebelled GWB, for example, among others, that is what happened here. I do not think as well, that any of us knows the particular details of the "change of ownership" either, so we are not qualified to state if they were good or bad; such as, the question, "Who were those conditions and resources agreed upon by, and with whom, directly? Which persons were involved (to include internal ones)?"

What's sad is that many have invested time and energy to make the foundation. Per, whatever sacrifice he claims, will not do this on his own, beyond what he has already been paid to do. Virtually all his arguments are passive-aggressive trolls with no clear point other than to flame and complain. His complaints might have merit but he need not sacrifice any further on my account. Move on down the road to a better job.

Again, recognize the consequences. We are talking about people who don't even know how to write a distro. How can it survive, without the ones who write it? What good is anything anyone else is doing, not to have the distro laid out to do the other work for? (continued)

[dedanna1029]

(continued from previous)

Bernhard Rosenkränzer, a developer since the time of Red Hat - Mandrake with at least the stones of POK, writes this side:

Hi,
thanks for expressing your views in a way people won't find offending this
time...


On Monday, March 04, 2013 07:48:56 PM Per Øyvind Karlsen wrote:
> 2013/3/4 Jean-Claude Vanier <jclvanier at gmail.com>
>
> > The discussion started with the question of the logo contest for the
> > association.
> > Is that all we have to solved in order to get the next release ?
>
> No, a lot more remains for doing the next release, logo is unfortunately
> one of the less concerning issues..

This is true, and we all need to work together to get it done.
Your work on DrakX is really important, so is other people's work on getting
the packages to pass the mass build again.
The best set of packages are no good without a way to install them, and the
best installer isn't useful if it installs packages that are a load of crap
that don't even compile.

We can't split the project, we need everything to come together.

> > If I understand well, this means there cannot be any link between the name
> > "openmandriva" and the next distro, whatever its name ?
>
> Yupp (thanks for actually taking me seriously btw., and this isn't
> something new and something that we've agreed on more than once earlier and
> that's been made quite clear all along.

I think we need some clarification here.
We (sort of) agreed that OpenMandriva isn't a good distro name.
This doesn't necessarily mean any logo that has the words on it can't go into
the distro. It just means it can't be the logo of the distro.

If you look at what our competition is doing, you'll see "Microsoft" labeled
logos while the "distribution" is called "Windows", and you'll see Apple logos
even though the distribution is called "OS X".

In the same way, there's no reason why we can't display a logo saying
OpenMandriva anywhere in the distribution, just as long as it's clear that
this is neither the distribution's logo nor its name.

As for the remaining artwork, I think we need to provide several options for
people to choose from.
Some people really like the penguin theming of the previous alpha, and some
really hate it, and to some extent that comes down to different usage types
and different cultures (e.g. it tends to be more acceptable in Europe to have
"fun" bits in use in business than it is in the US).
So just provide both a "fun" and a "professional" theme and let the user pick.
Technically it's just a matter of having 2 or more branding packages...

> > The official goal of the association is the support of different
> > projects. For you, it is not the release of the association but only one
> > of the projects that are (will be) supported by the association ?
>
> Hm, well, that's actually a good question and something possibly putting
> things in perspective, as I see it is a release done by the project that
> the association will support and enjoy, despite not having been involved
> with it.

I wouldn't say the association hasn't been involved with it - maybe not the
association in itself because it simply hasn't existed for long enough, but it
is made up of people who have contributed and are contributing in some way
(sometimes ways outside of development - not everyone who is valuable to the
project is a developer. We do need people who answer newbie questions on the
forum etc. so that workload is kept off the devs...)

> > In other words, do you say: well, I'm responsible of a distro which name
> > is "xxx" and I'd like the association supports it by doing something ?
>
> Well, it's more like that it's a bit too late for the association to do
> much as the release is almost done and is asking for it to not interfere
> and disrupt the development and delivery of as I don't see the association
> as ready to take over full responsibility of.

We're all on the same page in terms of what we want -- make a release that is
as good as possible while sticking to the timeline.

It looks like there's some disagreement over how to get there that we need to
solve.

I think we all agree that in the longer term, the association (or rather some
subgroup like the TC (of which you're an important part) or even a subgroup of
that, let's say a release group defined by the TC) should be responsible?
You've been doing a great job at keeping things alive while everything was
being built up, but I don't think we should have a single point of failure -
it makes more sense to distribute the job among several people to make things
easier if someone goes on vacation/dies/leaves/whatever.

I can see the point that the association may not be fully ready to take on
everything - but shouldn't we get started?

> But individual people involved with the associaton also getting involved
> with cooker on testing etc. like those who already are active with
> certainly would be something that would help support the development of
> the upcoming release.
> Ie. we're especially in desperate need for more people to get involved with
> QA, and someone to help organize a triage team is certainly something I've
> been hoping to get help on and that would only help and not be at risk of
> interfering with other aspects of development that I'm already responsible
> and in full progress on.

I fully agree on that -- can we get everyone involved with the association to
install alpha3 somewhere (even if it's only in a VM) to hunt for bugs?

This should also give people a more realistic view of where we are.

> Question : if so, what do you expect from the association ?
>
> To not take charge of the next release as it's almost done already and the
> association isn't really ready for it.

I see the point, but keep in mind that the first release after the creation of
the association will pretty much be an identifying part of the association -
this will show the world where we're headed.
So I think it's legit that the association wants to have *some* say over it.

Yes, that does mean getting active and actually doing things -- obviously the
association can't assign nonsense tasks to people who can't fulfill them (such
as telling me to take care of artwork) - but if there's people doing something
and the council thinks their work should go in, it shouldn't be blocked...

ttyl
bero

https://listes.lautre.net/pipermail/oma ... 00247.html

I'd say that's a pretty sane side, taking all the contributors and all the realities under consideration.

Yes, but consider that we don't even know what's actually "sane", other than basic principles, with all the internal (and other) infighting that's going on. It may sound sane to you, and maybe to others, but may not be in reality.

As for Per (post of which I've just now seen:

Some other members of the french user community organization AUFML wanted to try pick up the efforts again at the beginning of 2010, so I was invited to Solutions Linux (this especially because the french user community probably had a worse relations with the cliqué than the rest of us) in Paris for a meeting to take place there. The meeting wasn't all that well planned, I myself was disappointed, especially since they had invited the CEO back then to the meeting, which said he'd come, but didn't, while the most important person in management and CTO of that time that I took for granted was invited, wasn not. I only ran into him the next day when he actually was at SL (when most of the other participant in the meeting previous day had already left Paris) and discussed things with him, he was very in support of this and had always supported the idea since before he became CTO as well, which said that he totally thought that the distribution should be turned over to the community, but Mandriva had a difficult time then and would not be able to participate in efforts, but encouraged it and for them to join later.The following week that CTO became CEO btw.

So, you're saying that Mandriva wanted to turn the distribution over to the community before everyone started screaming for it to be (those like me, who saw the lack of relations with the community, and were screaming about it). Mandriva fired their CEO, and put the CTO in its place? This is all beginning to, as I stated earlier, sound like self-sabotage to me, on the company's part. From our end as well, we were seeing Mandriva SA go through so many CEOs, it wasn't funny, seemingly every month! So, when it does go under, the people who saw it was about to go under, jumped ship. I myself heard rumors of mismanagement of funds on the part of the company Mandriva SA. It would be interesting to see if this part is true or not, and on who's part it was, if it did indeed happen. I saw it in news articles, I saw hints of it from the company itself. Again, if this was going on, they were doing nothing but sabotaging themselves, and those who contributed to the company (PWP sales, Rolf's energies to get the ability to accept credit cards, the works. They screwed ALL of us, again, IF this is true. There are all kinds of things at play, to which the community may have been quite a bit more aware of than most think, and they did scream about it - for a time, until they realized that all the screaming in the world would do nothing to help matters (again, I liken this to the U.S. vs. GWB). Mandriva SA had fired their only good public figure, that being Adam Williamson, so they didn't have backing like that any more, they'd run them all off (deliberately).

On the friday after a general assembly that had been held the day before, and news from not yet published, Mageia was announced with their FUD about the company to die in the next few months, the danger of distribution etcetcetc.. On the Monday after, the news from the general assembly were published officially dismissing all their false rumours, but over the weekend they had already started gaining some momentum with supporters rallying behind them..

So, it was Mageia who announced this? I'm not seeing it. Mandriva SA themselves had announced it so many times, then had so many comebacks, that people started tuning out to this very thing, wondering if it was to be believed or not. First, they're going under, oooooohhh but WAIT! They now have backing of company X, or of grant X, or this, or that, or the other. I find it hard to believe that by that time, it was still Mageia behind these things at this point. Anne may have done her own sneaky dealings, but in the end of it all, ended up having to move on herself from Mandriva. So be it.

For where 2011 failed, it was mainly due to a political internal power struggle between the owners of mandriva and rosa taking place during development and following, resulting in most key people leaving right before or after it's release.

Well, isn't it always a political internal power struggle? I think in actuality, this is what's happening at OpenMandriva. As I said, a house divided by itself. You've just shown me correct in that.

I don't see it in the black and white of OMA "ripping off Per". There are many aspects of this transition and formation, with not-yet-formed channels of communication only getting burned down. I see many non-devs contributing their heartfelt time and non-dev skills only to get dissed as 'amateurs' by the almighty devs. I've been supporting this distro since early 2000, paying for my first version and the first to bring up the idea to Deno on the mandrake forum to enable credit card contributions, which I've done since. When G. Cottenceau asked for extra donations at one of the several nadirs of Mandrakes financial roller-coaster, I sent in a few dollars. I made, probably, tens of thousands of forum and list posts to help with user issues. I brought marketing materials to Lindependence Day
Many, many other non-devs have made similar or greater contributions to community and I, for one, don't appreciated being discounted as unworthy by any member of the distro.
I'm not buying the divisive characterization of Foundation as conspiring to seize anything. Communication has been very lacking and I think that's due to all the chips on shoulders wrt Mandriva's past sins and perceived sins. It's time to get over it and move on.

Yes, Rolf, but again, what you're not seeing, is that if there is no distro, the rest is just talk, and can't be acted on. It goes like this: Devs create distro-->the rest do what they do with it. It can't happen elsewise. It's all wasted energy.
What many can't see as well, are things like, how are they going to have an "association", if they don't even have a headquarters (or office) to operate out of? Do it with a lot of online junkies who think passing messages around to one another will get the job done, in particular when they themselves are inexperienced enough? I realize that Mandriva SA had a good bit of this; their staff was worldwide. However, at least they had the basics! How is OpenMandriva going to do things like have artwork, have this, have that for a distro, without a distro?

[viking60]

Interesting:
It is always educational to get it from both sides.
I can see where rolf is coming from:
He is the most experienced Mandirva user in the world and resents that a dev asks people to shut up while he is delivering his super-qualified speeches.

I also get that proyvind has been working with Mandriva for so long that he considers it to be his baby, and that he never meant to put down gurus like rolf (Well he is our Guru so that would be totally unacceptable)
And who cares as long as we get a distro?

Linux needs Mandriva - especialy the rpm side of Linux.
With this Alpha they are getting so close that I really can taste it - so keep going. I am one of the unfaithful ones that could easily switch to Arch all together...But I would really like to be able to recommend Mandriva to a new Linux user.
I am even crazy enough to use Arch as a server - and that works fine for me - as you can see here. Here is the LAMP version
But I know that Mandriva would take less work - so I would use it if it would exist....

[rolf]

Well, I see my last post is of the sort of offensive, disrespectful, emotional rant that I was objecting to, sorry. The best I can try to do is make some more objective observations.

• I've read the community list from the beginning of June 2012. What I've observed is that {Mandriva|ROSA|whoever has acquired the Mandriva properties} took steps to provide for the formation of an entity/foundation to own and operate a community branch of the distribution.
  http://blog.mandriva.com/en/2012/06/01/ ... versation/
  http://blog.mandriva.com/en/2012/06/
• I didn't perceive any "hidden agenda" on the part of Charles Schultz or Mandriva and was puzzled by the animosity displayed toward him by certain of the long-time Mandriva contributors.
• Much volunteer work was done by non-dev community members, along with devs or, at least, not excluding devs.
• All that I saw seemed an earnest effort to comply with the initial goals/requirements to form a legal entity in order to take possession of a community branch of the Mandriva code base/relevant properties. It was a slow process, with many bodies working on it, but the official entity was approved beginning of January 2013.
  http://blog.mandrivalinux.org/2013/01/o ... orporated/
• Again, discussions and work by non-dev volunteers about webservers, website software, distro names, graphical logos, etc. continued with heartfelt and not inconsequential devotion by motivated community members until this last week.
• It appears that Per took offense at a perceived defiance of his authority to do what he wanted with the release where the non-devs had been developing other ideas, such as art work. Adding fuel to the fire, he made some heated claims about ROSA failing to pay him on schedule. Some counter claims by Kate lead me not to take any of the claims as gospel but there is evidence of contributory friction from that.
• Per did make some offensive and inflammatory remarks about the non-dev side of community, appearing to reject all the work and legitimacy of those who had worked with good intentions for most of a year to bring the transition to its current state.
• Per solicits Bruce Perens who, afaict, comes to the controversy primed by Per's version of all that has gone before. I am suspect, therefore, of his objectivity and whether his input will be positive. Something remains to be seen.
• One who has devoted much of his time and obvious love of FOSS to birthing OMA, João Azevedo Patrício, was offended enough by Per's attacks of the work of community to date that he bowed out.
  https://ml.mandriva.com/wws/arc/foundat ... 00328.html
  

No one has to explain to me that there is no distribution without the developers; I've been around this phenomenon more than 10 years. There can be distribution that only serves devs but that is not the case for what is happening here. Per is (finally) paid for what he does and he is not denied his voice. However, it appears to me that he, g.moro, perhaps others are railing against an injustice that does not exist, that they are unwilling to meet halfway on what is, in the reality of *this* distribution, a two-way street.

[proyvind]

Whoa, I'm amazed of this objective coverage and insight going on by dedanna, you've surely earned your twitter account name, DedannaRocks! )


But you misinterpreted me on one thing, which I understand because of not using names:

Some other members of the french user community organization AUFML wanted to try pick up the efforts again at the beginning of 2010, so I was invited to Solutions Linux (this especially because the french user community probably had a worse relations with the cliqué than the rest of us) in Paris for a meeting to take place there. The meeting wasn't all that well planned, I myself was disappointed, especially since they had invited the CEO back then to the meeting, which said he'd come, but didn't, while the most important person in management and CTO of that time that I took for granted was invited, wasn not. I only ran into him the next day when he actually was at SL (when most of the other participant in the meeting previous day had already left Paris) and discussed things with him, he was very in support of this and had always supported the idea since before he became CTO as well, which said that he totally thought that the distribution should be turned over to the community, but Mandriva had a difficult time then and would not be able to participate in efforts, but encouraged it and for them to join later.The following week that CTO became CEO btw.

So, you're saying that Mandriva wanted to turn the distribution over to the community before everyone started screaming for it to be (those like me, who saw the lack of relations with the community, and were screaming about it). Mandriva fired their CEO, and put the CTO in its place? This is all beginning to, as I stated earlier, sound like self-sabotage to me, on the company's part. From our end as well, we were seeing Mandriva SA go through so many CEOs, it wasn't funny, seemingly every month! So, when it does go under, the people who saw it was about to go under, jumped ship. I myself heard rumors of mismanagement of funds on the part of the company Mandriva SA. It would be interesting to see if this part is true or not, and on who's part it was, if it did indeed happen. I saw it in news articles, I saw hints of it from the company itself. Again, if this was going on, they were doing nothing but sabotaging themselves, and those who contributed to the company (PWP sales, Rolf's energies to get the ability to accept credit cards, the works. They screwed ALL of us, again, IF this is true. There are all kinds of things at play, to which the community may have been quite a bit more aware of than most think, and they did scream about it - for a time, until they realized that all the screaming in the world would do nothing to help matters (again, I liken this to the U.S. vs. GWB). Mandriva SA had fired their only good public figure, that being Adam Williamson, so they didn't have backing like that any more, they'd run them all off (deliberately).

The CEO (Herve Yahi) at that time which didn't participate at the meeting he'd said to at Solutions Linux never showed up at all, it was the then CTO (Arnaud Laprevote) who did the next day and who was very intended on this and saw it as the only reasonable solution, and he became the CEO next.

During this time back in 2010 you might remember Mandriva being on the brink of bankrupcy again and it was about to have to be sold to Linaro, but in the last minute Arnaud managed to find a new investor to save the company.
So when you take this into consideration and the context of who and why was provided from the start, it was obvious that the company wasn't gonna die, it had just been saved by a new Russian oligarch investor which you all know about the intentions of, it would be certainly absurd if it were to acquire the company, sack it, then trying to win Linux government contracts..?
You certainly should see the obviousness of what's wrong with the picture here.

Anne and her cliqué was unhappy about this, as they really wanted the company to die immediately, as a bankrupcy would've meant that they would get secured with three months pay and all outstanding salaries paid out right away as well. Also in addition to this, they wanted the company to die for another reason as well, they knew their time was up as soon as Arnaud became CEO, as he was not happy with her incompetence and unprofessional behaviour (which you might imagine with her in a management position, wasn't limited to only affecting the distro).
So here they were expecting and hoping for the company to die, then it didn't, and then a couple of those weren't offered a new contract to stay (most notably Anne, most of the remaining at Edge-IT chose to decline new contract offered as a result, not because of being fired), so this would mean their loss of control on the distro and all.

So they disliked our work on trying to get the foundation going, Anne even had some fallout with one of the participatants shortly after as a result!
When I had gotten the local exclusive Mandriva partner in Norway trademark licensed to, "Mandriva Norway" willing to create and fund the foundation here in Norway (as Arnaud encouraged) and I shared the news with others, I then head of people at Edge-IT considered me as a threat and was when I got confused.
I didn't immediately connect the dots with what I heard of at same time about some employees already making backups of svn repos etc. in case of company dying, but I started suspecting when communication with people involved in our efforts started revolving most around slander and attempts from some of us to dismiss, then they started posting the slander in public and the communication with them fading out.

So there was hijacking of our efforts happened going on with AUFML people being manipulated into believing things which were bad about the company and the distributions future..
I started connecting the dots and suspecting a fork in progress and tried warning the CEO about the need to get some reassuring news out ASAP, but most details were internal, in progress and hadn't been approved at the GA yet, and he underestimated the possible consequences of this and what damage could be done in time before they could officially announce news about their new strategy.
You might imagine why things happened in secrecy, with the announcement of Mageia happening right before Mandriva announced it's new strategy and ambitious plans which certainly strongly contradicted and totally dismissed claims from the disgruntled ex-employees made in their announcement of Mageia.

So you had employees finishing their three months notice and about to leave the Mandriva, which also meant loosing the control of Mandriva Linux as well, not happy with, need I explain more..?

I see W. Bornath as not even in this. His comments don't matter to me. mandrivauser.de was shut down, offered to others, who (again) did not take over to use it to contribute. Pity, as it could have been used for OpenMandriva in a positive way, but no one took the bait. So what. It doesn't make him part of, in any way, what has been happening with OpenMandriva, other than maybe fuel flames from those who delusionally think he was. I dismiss his comments anywhere about OpenMandriva, because he himself has (and has had) nothing to do with it. I do see your animosity towards him (and have several times in more than one place), and even understand it to a certain degree, but I do not see something that has really nothing to do with him, being "something to do with him." It's not an opportunity to slam him, so I dismiss this comment of your post.

I also think on Charles Schulz, having seen several things over the time since he self-named himself as leader of this "association", this "thing", and having done things to literally dictate to everyone else "how it will be, at his command," this is part of the reason I do not have much respect for him; he at one time thought he could be the sole one to dictate the name of the organization, and of the distro, when an "association" and "council" hadn't even come into being yet. From things I'm seeing on his twitter, he still thinks the same. "I am the one who will dictate the direction this thing's going in, I'm the leader, and screw those who don't like it" when he hasn't even established the means to do so yet, and appears to have no clue, in full, of what's going on all 'round.

For wobo you unfortunately lack the insight of his role in all this, but the following you write is totally related.
I had convinced and brought in wobo to our workgroup that had the kickoff meeting back in June, but then the first isssues with Charles started to take place..
The very first thing we had a discussion over within the workgroup was about the name, and in the voting Charles included both "OpenMandriva" and "Mandala" which we both had rejected at the Paris meeting, and we had disputes over this right away after seeing the voting published.

Charles refused to take down or change the voting and insisted on it finishing, despite everyone but Matthew was against the name.
With discussions following, and the attitude you've seen from Charles, wobo chose to leave the group as he noticed immediately as some of the old issues he feared with bad politics coming from Mandriva. A as a pensionist that has survived cancer, multiple heart attacks etc. and other problems coming with old age over the last years, he simply didn't have the health anymore to waste on this, which I totally and absolutely understood wobo for. In his post announcing his resignation, he promised not to go public about any these things as to not hurt the initiative.

Wobo was one of MandrakeSoft's first employees, and was with the company all untill 2007, when all contractors were laid off as part of cost savings to prove itself on for new investor (Marc Goldberg of Occam/LinLux) saving the company back then (something investor hadn't requested to be done as part of btw.).
While few of the people who's left Mandriva over the years has stuck around and kept any relations or contributed to, wobo always did, so don't speak ill of him in any way, he certainly does not deserve this.
As wobo actually was the only other one loudly objecting to things, with him not being worried about being critical, I invited him to FOSDEM this year in hope of someone with good insight and also to support me in the discussions (I was exhausted and fed up of being alone in all this crap). Unfortunately he couldn't afford to attend, so I offered to pay for his train tickets and promised to pay for his accomodation as well if the association wouldn't, fortunately it would and wobo got to still attend meetings with us. So as you see, he did actually have a part in this, and it being on the "good" side, which I greatly valued him for, and I really think you all should do as well!

Fortunately Guilherme Moro got available back online after having had to leave a while ago due to same money problems I had, and has certainly been of great help and assistance to me, as out of all the people contributing to distro, he's the only other one who takes on responsibilities and isn't afraid to voice his opinions in public. And for his attitude towards Charles, they're of the same reason as to mine and wobo's.

After wobo left the group, things only escalated (revolving around much more than the name) with me only left and actively trying to prevent crap from happening, and after having worn myself out on discussions moving nowhere with him, I didn't have the health and energy left, especially as my work situation started to get fscked at the same time, I chose to give up on trying to discuss the issues further with him on the mailing lists and just focus on getting the distro developed as it already had delayed the first alpha by a month (the only outcome of the workgroup ended up being the naming dispute and further conflicts following btw.).
For a couple of months after as you might remember before Kate came in, there wasn't much activity taking place for a couple of motnhs, while Mandriva said that they would take care of setting the association up, and the failure at actually getting anywhere with this is why she was brought in by the investor, and not employed by either of the companies to take over responsibility for what Mandriva failed at..

So here I explain why you haven't seen that much of me on the mailing lists, except for when trying to intervene on things going wrong, as while several of the others share my views, I'm the only one daring to speak up (I've always received a several emails in support privately), making me look like purely difficult, and you might imagine how exhausting it is to always having to be that only guy on the list being critical, which when gmoro got involved with and helping me in discussions surely got to experience himself as well..

For Bruce, I met him when he held a talk in Oslo back in 2007, this was during the time we had started the initial efforts on getting a foundation up and running, and I asked him if he'd have any interest in possibly helping us out, which he said that he certainly would, but unfortunately I didn't get around to include him before the discussions had pretty much died out already..
I tried pinging him again again last summer when the issues with Charles were acting up, when he said that he'd still have interest in helping us out, for which I requested him to be added to the new internal workgroup, which Charles refused.
Ever since I've had varying amounts of motivation and energy to try spend on these politics as they're so *INCREDIBLY* exhausting, so while I've been meaning to get more involved and also for a proper way to include Bruce, where simply the thought of trying to explain all the politics and conflicts we were at felt rather exhausting, and I really thought of it as being an appropriate thing for starters at least..

So when as I was going to FOSDEM this year and knew it was time for political quarrels again, I called him again and intended to try follow up on this time, which I had difficulties to, and a 2-3 weeks ago I asked if we could have an IRC meeting to discuss the situation, but all the stress and crap of the situation has made me very procastinating and I didn't get around to prepare for such a meeting either as things were only escalating..

So it was only earlier this week when I kinda already had decided on leaving over the political crap and economic situation, I thought that I'd just make a last chance and ask if he could subscribe on the mailing list and participate in the discussions as I felt like as the deeper and more general issues at stake were totally up for discussion for real and I felt like I wouldn't even have to bring him up to date..

And he did, and no private mails, phone calls or IRC conversations between him and me discussing the details of the situation has ever taken place neither in advance or following him subscribing, so rolf's assumptions of me pushing my own bias on in advance are so incredibly wrong, my problem has been with all the social and performance anxiety that I've gotten from and just growing and growing with long term stress..
Some background on this, I had a burnout in 2007 and when I rejoined Mandriva in 2011, I was only employed 60% by own will over not having fully recovered yet.
It was only after switching contract to ROSA and shit hit the fan at same time that I changed to a 100% position. With Mandriva I was employed through a local consulting company with an office desk, colleagues, rights, benefits, equipment, etcetcetc. as regular employees enjoy, and a contract which specified my job responsibilities.
Now currently I'm not an employee of ROSA, but rather a contractor and no employment through local company nor office to work at, and no responsibilities specified in my contract. The idea was still that I'd continue my work as with Mandriva on RPM development etc., but with everything going on, I've had to take initiative and responsibilitiy for of a lot more (actually every responsibility not being just packaging) without any changes to contract (& salary), while putting in 150-250% on regular basis per week.
So that should explain more of my current job situation and actual role in all of this in answer to rolf's speculations regarding.

This is again an unusually long post from me (making me very tired), so I'm not going to proof read it or anything, so please excuse any potential incoherence or what not that might be. :p

[dedanna1029]

Thanks for clearing that all up, Per. It's much appreciated.

Rolf, yes, there were other people working on it, but without a real foundation laid, it's in vain. We can appreciate their work, yes indeed! But the fact still remains, that everyone is running 'round doing it for what, shits 'n giggles? For a distro they think will magically appear, because one whole person is working on it, and that we should see disrupted when just about finished, by changing this and that for it, when there's still no distro to change, and there is one whole person, who took it upon themselves to create it, that knows the code inside and out? Look at what would happen, man, if they did take it over from Per, at least for this release? This is what he was saying. If you notice as well, he did beg for help with it, for people to contribute to it, so it could get done, so everyone else could move on to be able to do what they would for the distro. It's not an ego trip to want to keep moving with your baby, especially when it's just about grown up and ready to fly, and when you're a single parent, wherein no one else knows anything about the raising of that particular child! Especially if you have wanted help raising that child all along, and are at your wit's end with everyone fighting over your child, and how you raise it, when they have no clue how it was raised, because they didn't help with it, other than to give gifts here and there!

These things make a parent very emotional, to the point of sickness, and makes them want to say, "OK, fine, you think you can do better? Go for it!" I understand this, because it's what my whole family did with one of my daughters, and I said the same to them. Fine, do better. Go for it. I can use the break! They all shut up REAL quick.