OpenMandriva takes off

The OpenMandriva community is moving on. The statutes of the “OpenMandriva Association” have been sent to the French authorities and the incorporation process has thus started. At the same time, preparations are ongoing to migrate both the actual development environment of the distribution and the entire community infrastructure. On top of this, the development environment is not just migrated to another server, it is being upgraded to ABF and Git.

We have thus embarked into an ambitious migration plan and I would like to thank all the teams of developers, sysadmins, infrastructure and communication of the OpenMandriva project who are working hard towards making this a reality.

I must say that, back in May when I was discussing with Jean-Manuel Croset, the CEO of Mandriva SA, I was somewhat wary of Mandriva SA’s actual will to set the community free. But Jean-Manuel came across as a very straightforward guy, so I decided to trust him. Today, this is about to become a reality. At least the completion status is somewhere around 80% and it would not have been possible without Mandriva S.A’s commitment and will to live up to its word and to the one of its CEO.

It is not everyday you see an example of a community who gains its independence with the blessing and dedication of its former steward. But I probably would not be writing these lines if I hadn’t witnessed what it takes to fulfill this kind of commitment. The OpenMandriva project, foundation, community, association is taking off. The best is yet to come. But just like with every FOSS project out there, and especially Linux distributions, the community will have to strive to prove it can bring its longstanding promise: to deliver an innovative, user-friendly Linux distribution developed by an inclusive and friendly community. You see, my first distribution was called Mandrake Linux. I used it as a home user and as a professional user while working at MandrakeSoft/Mandriva. When I look back at the history of this distribution, I see both the missed opportunities and I see the unwavering momentum of the community. True, a large part of the community went away to create Mageia and Mageia has shown one of the fastest expansion in two years: I see this as evidence that the original idea behind Mandriva is still the right one: and I’m fine with this; so is Mandriva SA. The Mageia community is our friend and we respect them. Their talent and skills are positive for Mandriva SA and if OpenMandriva knows how to handle these, to OpenMandriva as well.

But my point was this one: For the first time since 1998, OpenMandriva has now reached the point where it can fully decide what’s good for itself. From now on, the community can unleash its full potential and live up to its promise. I, for one, am happy to help and am honored to be part of it.