An open letter to Microsoft by Mandriva Linux
An open letter to Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO by François Bancilhon, CEO of Mandriva. The story began this way; the Nigerian government decclassed to get 17,000 Intel-powered classmate PCs with a customised Mandriva Linux as operative system for educational purposes. This was a very promising deal for Mandriva that unlike Ubuntu gets fewer of such request from local governments and was going to use this as a spring board for other better deals or “solution” projects in the third world.
It was a good deal until when the customer (Nigerian gov.) announced; “we shall pay for the Mandriva Software as agreed, but we shall replace it by Windows afterwards.”
Who and what is behind this radical change of point of view by the Nigerian gov. could be a mystery but Mandriva’s CEO has no doubt: Microsoft, and so a wounded François Bancilhon wrote this open letter to Steve Ballmer.
4:47 pm on November 7th, 2007
Its easy for everyone to crucify Nigeria, Nigerians and the truth that it is an openly corrupt country. Exposed just like source code under the GPL. Well, there are other questions on my mind.
Mandriva is accusing Microsoft of playing dirty; no one is asking them how they came about the deal. Were there other Linux distros involved in a competitive bid? Ubuntu, Suse, Red Hat, Linspire, etc. Or was it just an arranged deal from the very beginning between Mandriva’s partner and the government (most likely).
I know the way things work in Nigeria, there was propably never a news paper or public advert asking for competitive bids from various Linux distros; it was not a fair bid from the beginning.
Francois knows this; i doubt if Microsoft paid a bribe. They probably brought some questions that were not originally considered before the decision makers in the Nigerian government. Does Mandriva have the capacity to support such a huge project? Does Mandriva have a sustainable plan for developing Nigeria’s IT capacity or is it just a deal for them? Is Mandriva skill going to be useful to the users of the PCs in the real world? Does Mandriva plan on investing part of what they are being paid back into Nigeria?
Francois; honestly, who does the Mandriva choice honestly benefit? Your ego or the Nigerian children who badly need to believe they can catch up to the rest of the world?
If you really want to show you are a true revolutionary; deduct the cost of your expenses of chasing the deal and pay a refund back to the Nigerian government.
5:12 pm on November 7th, 2007
Many thanks Mosh for this sincere contribution. You asked many pertinent questions that I can’t answer and that Francois certainly has never made to himself. I personally wish just the best for the Nigerian students(Mandriva or not) even though I firmly prefer Linux and Open Source
7:39 am on December 18th, 2007
It will always be extremely difficult for small ICT players like Mandriva to outplay big guns like Microsoft. But I think Mandriva can sue the Nigerian government for changing the terms of contracts, assuming that there is proper documentation for the initial deal.