Should ROSA, openMandriva and Mageia ever join forces?

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Should ROSA, openMandriva and Mageia ever join forces?

Postby MadmanRB » Dec 3rd, '14, 08:30

I think a big weakness between the major mandriva spinoffs is that there is no interactivity between them, each one seems to be spiraling in its own direction yet I feel if these distros were more aligned things might be better.
I am not saying become the same distro under one roof, they can remain separate distros but its clear where the weaknesses of each disto lays.
Mageia has a huge community yet it seems to have the least amount of packages.
Rosa has a lot of packages but has a tough update process between versions.
Openmandriva has a lot of ambition yet its community is tiny.
You got the recipe to make a great distro here yet the components are not mixed.

I know its a fools dream as once distros splinter off it becomes clear they become hostile towards the others but there is opportunity here
Last edited by MadmanRB on Dec 3rd, '14, 09:38, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Should ROSA, openMandriva and Mageia ever join forces?

Postby isadora » Dec 3rd, '14, 09:36

What makes me curious, what "things might be better"?
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Re: Should ROSA, openMandriva and Mageia ever join forces?

Postby MadmanRB » Dec 3rd, '14, 09:46

isadora wrote:What makes me curious, what "things might be better"?


Mainly in terms of what the repos can offer, plus better compatibility between them.
Like being able to use ROSA repos in Mageia or vice versa without totally breaking things.
Not to mention the communities could be more interactive without worrying about there being too few members.
Its just a missed opportunity in my eyes, the fall of Mandriva as a desktop distro created a lot of fallout and it would be nice if its splinters could work better with one another.
This isnt like asking if fedora can merge with ubuntu or something crazy like that, when the distros seem to have a lot of common goals and use the same common base.
I just see that the division of the distros is what really hurts the mandriva forks.
Especially when it comes to community support.
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Re: Should ROSA, openMandriva and Mageia ever join forces?

Postby benmc » Dec 3rd, '14, 09:49

MadmanRB wrote: once ddistros splinter off it becomes clear they become hostile towards the others but there is opportunity here

I dont feel that this is true, given that I recognise a few - yours included, forum members on both Mageia and OpenMandriva.
I certainly spend more time on Mageia forum than OpenMandriva, yet I rarely see any hostility towards any other O/Ses at all on Mageia, particularly from active members.

Like all distro's, the " feel " of the distro, and people behind it, is what will give you pause enough to go - this works for me, I'll stick around.
Eventually - hopefully, you get on the " helping make the distro get better ladder ".

MadmanRB wrote:Mageia has a huge community yet it seems to have the least amount of packages.

If the number of packages is important, consider, quality over quantity, seems to be a Mageia strength.
Yes, there are usually 4 or 5 very similar programs available, but I have found that the Mageia selection seem to be more tried and proven, than bleeding edge
There may also be difficulties with packaging as Mageia and Openmandriva use a different package system [ RPM4 as used by Mageia Vs RPM5 as used by OpenMandriva ].

just my 2 cents
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Re: Should ROSA, openMandriva and Mageia ever join forces?

Postby MadmanRB » Dec 3rd, '14, 09:53

Package selection however can be a double edged sword however, I just see that there are a lot of packages on the others in terms of what is available.
As for rpm4 vs 5 will magia offer rpm5 support soon?
Thats a general question not asking if one is better to the other or anything like that
Last edited by doktor5000 on Dec 3rd, '14, 12:56, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: removed fullquote
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Re: Should ROSA, openMandriva and Mageia ever join forces?

Postby doktor5000 » Dec 3rd, '14, 16:18

MadmanRB wrote:Package selection however can be a double edged sword however, I just see that there are a lot of packages on the others in terms of what is available.

So you prefer more packages, even when those packages are broken, untested and do not receive bugfixes or security updates?
MadmanRB wrote:As for rpm4 vs 5 will magia offer rpm5 support soon?


Not soon, and not at all. We discussed this extensively, there's aren't any benefits for us, but a lot of work on each package,
and also on the underlying infrastructure. All that for nothing. RPM5 doesn't offer much better performance, nor simplicity nor anything
else that would benefit us enough to make up for all the required work.


For interacting with the other communities:

Rosa itself pretty much does their own thing, they already did that when Mandriva existed. They also have pretty strict visions about particular software (hint: KDE), which doesn't work that well in a general-purpose distro which Mageia is. Also from the past experiences they're not that much interested in a lot of two-way collaboration - at least that's my perception.

OpenMandriva ... well to be honest, didn't follow closely but the OpenMandriva community itself seems pretty much dead. IRC channel is nearly empty, only ~150 bug reports found, and forums are also nearly empty. Only place where most communication seems to happen is the new cooker ML. There you have all your usual suspects, like previous Mandriva developers, Rosa developers, MIB (Mandriva International Backports) contributors and some new ones.
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Re: Should ROSA, openMandriva and Mageia ever join forces?

Postby jkerr82508 » Dec 3rd, '14, 19:20

OpenMandriva seems to use:
https://www.loomio.org/g/BDrzTjSf/openm ... ssociation
and
https://project.openmandriva.org/

They appear to prefer unfamiliar (at least to me) software over the traditional means of communicating within open source projects. (wiki, IRC and mailing lists.) I'm not sure their approach is conducive to widespread participation.

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Re: Should ROSA, openMandriva and Mageia ever join forces?

Postby wizardfromoz » Dec 29th, '16, 01:28

Don't know whether this is a bump after two years, but I just found it during a search on OpenMandriva, which I am trying currently.

After two years, I think the OP's comments are more relevant than ever.

During that two years, I have gone from using 3 to 4 Linux Distros to using currently 49 - yes, 49. I have been using Mageia 5 for almost 2 years, and also Mageia 6 STA since its release and enjoy them thoroughly.

I haven't tried ROSA yet, but likely will. My 49 Distros span Debian, Debian-based, Ubuntu-based, RPM, Gentoo-based, Arch-based and am just starting to explore Slackware - Puppy and the like. If Linux is about freedoms via open source, I cannot help but wonder why anyone would NOT want to explore the options?

After reading the comments above, I revisited the OP and saw it is none other than my good friend and colleague, from Bleeping Computer, MadmanRB - small world.

Enjoy Linux - I know I do, and have a safe and Happy New Year.
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