Mandriva S.A. was a

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

software company specializing in

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

and

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

. Its

corporate headquarters Corporate headquarters is the part of a corporate structure that deals with tasks such as strategic planning, corporate communications, taxes, law, books of record, marketing, finance, human resources, and information technology. Corporate headqu ...

was in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, and it had development centers in

Metz Metz ( , , , then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle (river), Moselle and the Seille (Moselle), Seille rivers. Metz is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Moselle (department), Moselle Departments ...

, France and

Curitiba Curitiba () is the capital and largest city in the state of Paraná (state), Paraná in Southern Brazil. The city's population was 1,773,718 , making it the List of cities in Brazil by population, eighth most populous city in Brazil and the larg ...

, Brazil. Mandriva, S.A. was the developer and maintainer of a

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

called

Mandriva Linux Mandriva Linux, a fusion of the French distribution Mandrake Linux and the Brazilian distribution Conectiva Linux, is a discontinued Linux distribution developed by Mandriva S.A. Each release lifetime was 18 months for base updates (Linux, syste ...

, as well as various

enterprise software Enterprise software, also known as enterprise application software (EAS), is computer software used to satisfy the needs of an organization rather than its individual users. Enterprise software is an integral part of a computer-based information ...

products. Mandriva was a founding member of the Desktop Linux Consortium.

History

Mandriva, S.A. began as MandrakeSoft in 1998. In February 2004, following lengthy litigation with the

Hearst Corporation Hearst Corporation, Hearst Holdings Inc. and Hearst Communications Inc. comprise an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate owned by the Hearst family and based in Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan in New York ...

over the name "Mandrake" (the Hearst Corporation owned a comic strip called ''

Mandrake the Magician ''Mandrake the Magician'' is a Comic strip syndication, syndicated newspaper comic strip, created by Lee Falk before he created ''The Phantom''.Ron Goulart, ''The Encyclopedia of American Comics''. New York: Facts on File, 1990. . pp. 91, 249 ...

''), MandrakeSoft was required to change its name. Following the acquisition of the Brazilian Linux distribution Conectiva in February 2005, the company's name was changed on 7 April 2005 to "Mandriva" to reflect the names "MandrakeSoft" and "Conectiva." On October 4, 2004, MandrakeSoft acquired the professional support company Edge IT, which focused on the corporate market in France and had 6 employees. On June 15, 2005, Mandriva acquired Lycoris (formerly, Redmond Linux Corporation). On October 5, 2006, Mandriva signed an agreement to acquire Linbox, a Linux enterprise software infrastructure company. The agreement included the acquisition of all shares of Linbox for a total of $1.739 million in Mandriva stock, plus an earn out of up to $401,000 based on the 2006 Linbox financials. In 2007, Mandriva reached a deal with the Government of Nigeria to put their operating system on 17,000 school computers, in a deal that almost ended up with its system being replaced with the one from Microsoft. On January 16, 2008, Mandriva and

Turbolinux Turbolinux is a discontinued Japanese Linux distribution targeting Asian users. Linux distribution The Turbolinux distribution was created as a rebranded Red Hat distribution by (then) Pacific HiTech employee Scott Stone. Scott was the lead rele ...

announced a partnership to create a lab named Manbo-Labs, to share resources and technology to release a common base system for both companies' Linux distributions. Although Mandriva's operating system eventually became a significant entity in the data center, the company's operating margins were thin and by 2012 the company was on the brink of bankruptcy. On January 30, 2012, Mandriva announced that an external entity bid was rejected by a minority share holder and the deal did not go through. At the end of the first semester 2012, a solution to the situation that had appeared in January of the same year was found and a settlement achieved. Mandriva was subsequently owned by several different shareholders. Mandriva filed for

administrative receivership In law, receivership is a situation in which an institution or enterprise is held by a receiver – a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights" – especiall ...

in early 2015, and was

liquidated Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a company is brought to an end. The assets and property of the business are redistributed. When a firm has been liquidated, it is sometimes referred to as wound-up or dissolved, although di ...

on May 22, 2015. The Mandriva Linux distribution continues to survive as

OpenMandriva Lx OpenMandriva Lx is a general-purpose Linux distribution maintained by the OpenMandriva Association for x86 (32/64-bit) and ARM (architecture), ARM computers. It is a community-supported continuation of Mandriva Linux, which was active from 1998 (a ...

. Notable forks include Mageia Linux and

ROSA Linux ROSA Linux is a Linux operating system distribution, developed by the Russian company 'AO NTC IT ROSA' (). It is available in three different editions: ROSA Desktop Fresh, ROSA Enterprise Desktop, and ROSA Enterprise Linux Server, with the latt ...

Mandriva Club

In addition to selling Linux distributions through its online store and authorized resellers, Mandriva previously sold subscriptions to the Mandriva Club. There were several levels of membership, at costs ranging from US$66 or €60 per year (as of 2007) to €600 per year. Club members gained access to the Club website, additional mirrors and torrents for downloading, free downloads of its boxed products (depending on membership level), interim releases of the Mandriva Linux distribution, and additional software updates. For example, only Gold-level and higher members could download Powerpack+ editions. Many Mandriva commercial products came with short-term membership in the club; however, Mandriva Linux was completely usable without a club membership. When Mandriva Linux 2008.0 was released in October 2007, Mandriva made club membership free of charge to all comers, splitting download subscriptions off into a separate service. Mandriva also had a Mandriva Corporate Club for larger organizations.

Products

;

:A Linux distribution ;Pulse² :Open-source software for application deployment, inventory, and maintenance of an IT network, also available as SaaS version as of November 2012. ;Mandriva Business Server :A Linux-based server operating system ;Mandriva Class :E-learning software enabling distributed, long-distance virtual classrooms.

References

{{Reflist, 30em Free software companies Linux companies Mandriva Linux Software companies of France

History

Mandriva Club

Products

See also

References