Bye bye

Damn, this sounds bad. Just seen the same post on Vincent's blog and now I see it here too. I have to say the same to you: A big thanks for all your hard work making Mandriva so great. I especially liked your work with user community. Hope to see you around and best wishes for the future. I still hope this is another new CEO's mistake.

Well, it is quite sad to see you leave too, and I hope you will find a job quite fast. I hope you will find one where you can satisfy your hunger of geek stuff .

I am sorry to see that you have been pink slipped. These are tough times. You are in good company. Your skills are marketable and with luck you will land on your feet. While I have disagreed with some of your blogs, especially your attack on Canonical and Shuttleworth, I hope that you keep writing and that job hunting does not take all of your time. Your loyalty to Mandriva was unrewarded in the end. Wouldn't it be a strange turn of events if Canonical offered you work? Of course you would have to turn it down due to your principles which you so clearly expressed.

Thanks, Canuck. I've already said I'm not likely to accept any offers from Canonical. Unless it comes from Mark Shuttleworth and has a viable business plan attached. ;)

This is horrifying news. :( Worst layoff ever! Seriously, Mandriva has always had severe PR issues, none the less it's improved over the past couple of years, despite of all the turbulence. You've been the one who should be given the most credit for improving this situation, not to forget how you've kept Mandriva press releases free of frenglish the last years as well! But even worse, the community will suffer a lot from this, it took a great punch when Warly left and noone with anywhere near the same commitment towards the community filled his role. Now the person who's been acting as the representative of the community towards Mandriva and vice versa disappears. What will become of communication now? This as well has been often terrible, yet again you've been the one who's done a great deal on improving this! What will become of Mandriva Linux as a community distribution now? Will the community be left in the dark and be expected to blindly keep contributing so that Mandriva can still make use of it without having to care for it? I sure hope I'm wrong in my fears and bad feelings on this, but past experience tells my gut otherwise.. With the CEO being new, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and hope for some good ideas and plans, expecting some positive changes, but my patience and faith isn't as big as it used to be.. :/ This just makes me so sad. :(

Noone else could have done what you did for mandriva, your presence on all channels (forum, ml, irc etc...) will surely be missing, thank you very much for this. What I fear now is rather a gap between end users and contributors/developpers, but I must also agree with proyvind, contributors will miss you as well not to mention the lack of communication that we can expect for the next months... :( Thank you again

Communication at Mandriva improved immeasurably by your presence. You've helped both me and many others countless times. One of the reason I hung around with Mandriva through some of the rough patches was because you were always there to answer questions and provide support and to keep the communication channels open and let people know that things were happening. I fear for Mandriva's future and community reputation now that they've removed you. On a personal note, having been made redundant only a couple of months ago myself, I can guess what your situation must be like. I wish you the best of luck and I'm sure you'll land on your feet.

This is a very bad thing! You really are a key figure for the Mandriva community... this is a great loss! People like you are not Mandriva's problem but the solution! Why doesn't Mandriva see this? Hope you find a new job soon, or even better, that this CEO comes to his senses and takes you back in! Well... the only thing we can do now it to thank you very much for all your efforts. Greetings from the Netherlands (crewmember of the Dutch MandrivaClub).

Sad to hear that. That's unfortunate IMHO. The CEO doesn't understand (yet ?) the importance of the community as a way to promote the distro, and the awesome job you were doing commenting at each review to correct the misleadings and eventual FUD ... I do hope that you will keep being a contributor/volunteer. Best wishes

Adam, I am shocked and saddened to hear about this. You have been such a help to me with the issues I have had with Mandriva. I will miss your enthusiasm and wise counsel on the Forum. I agree completely with Martin Gil. I have to believe that your absence will cost Mandriva far more in lost business than they paid you. You have triaged many a bug that left sitting would cause users to look for more responsive distros. You soothed many an angry customer who flamed on the Forum because sales screwed up their order. Without you, I would not be surprised if Mandriva is bankrupt with doors closed inside 6 months. Best wishes for a speedy job search.

[...] to grow? It will be a colossal mistake if the company does not restore Adam’s role. He accepted things politely, having previously made humble and correct remarks about [...]

Adam, I join many others in saying your departure will be a sad day. I recall an occasion where you fought to correct a problem with the initial "Mandriva on a 'stick'", and the fiasco of the shipped DaneElec 4GB USB sticks ...... When everyone else at Mandriva HQ chose to ignore the many complaints, you went above and beyond to get this all resolved. I wish you well in all you do, you will be a very positive inclusion to any companies 'books' Best regards & wishes Jos Joslyn

It's a real shame to see you leave Mandriva, as you are the one of the leading people from a community perspective. You would always be the guy that answers the forums and other questions, and had a good idea as to what Mandriva was up to. I wonder how many users Mandriva will loose when you leave. You don't happen to want a job in New Zealand do you?

Sorry to hear this Adam, you are a respected and influential person in the community. It's unusual to find somebody so willingly helpful let alone an employed somebody! I hope you will find new employment quickly, fairly sure that should be no problem, and hope you will not be a stranger to the Mandriva boards. Thankyou for your assistance in the past.

Adam, This are awful news. By your efforts, Mandriva went from "has-been" distro to a new and exciting, community-involved, and with always a face to go in case we (the community) needed to contact Mandriva. You have proved that you are a force to be reckoned. Anybody that hires you will gain an incredible asset. All the best, SinnerBOFH

Sorry to hear that dude, I like Mandriva and i like it more because of the community you kept. Its been a hell of a time with you pal. Good Luck for where you go ...

[...] his Linsec blog. The post was later amended to report that Danen would be retained by Mandriva, but Adam Williamson was not so fortunate. “Well, I was rather expecting this after reading Vincent’s blog this [...]

[...] basically, everyone not working at the corporate offices in France. Unfortunately, this includes Adam Williamson, the man who has arguably done the most to interface between the users and the developers / [...]

Adam. Thank you. You brought so much to the Mandriva community. You have been a help to me and others in the forums. Outside of France, I would have to say you have been the face of Mandriva. If a cost cutting measure to save the company removes the very people that make the company worth saving, then perhaps someone just wants to sell. Thanks Adam. I would love a copy of your CV.

Thanks. I'll send you one. Are you on LinkedIn?

Oh my :( I do *agree* with most of what have been said here. - First, even if i'm French (with an obviously better French level than English ;), i often use the English version of the Mandriva forums, half of the reason beeing your amazing presence there (especialy after imr left on the French side): i can't recall an issue posted without you paying attention to it if nobody else did. It makes me volunteer to give even an uncomplete answer as i knew you *will* pass by and complete the answer whenever you can. - Your help has also helped me to make more bug reports, as sooon as i noticed you did help correct it when needed and makes it usable by the devs/packagers. As quoted, communication at Mandriva improved immeasurably for every English speaking ppl by your presence. You’ve helped both me and many many others countless times. I'm looking forward to see what will happen to the gap between end users and contributors/developpers after/if you leave. Dunno how much it costs Mandriva to have you workin? but i certainly wonder what it will cost the company to let you go! All the best, Cyrille L

We made an online petition for you: http://mib.pianetalinux.org/miblight/2008/12/01/salviamo-adam-williamson/ And then comunicate it, in many sites: I know, it's a little thing, but we made that with love Now there are already almost 600 signs, and only from yesterday Many are pessimistic about that, but I hope You can use it, at least, as a sign of being a good and loved worker, in you future work NicCo MIB Team Founder http://mib.pianetalinux.org Excuse me, for my poor English Most important: For you father, I send you, all my best Augurs

[...] Williamson deja de trabajar para Mandriva 3 12 2008 Según se lee en su propio blog, Adam Williamson dejará de trabajar para Mandriva al término de este año, parece que debido a [...]

I just saw all of this, Adam, and wish to extend my best to you in this and my sadness in your leaving. I simply hope that someone will think again and, as with Vincent, understand they make a mistake here. All of your enthusiasm and hard work will be missed by those of us you've helped or argued with (like me!) over time. Keep up the enthusiasm and hard work. ttfn John

[...] Adam Williamson [...]

[...] Adam Williamson will no longer work for Mandriva. What? The guy was always represent Mandriva so well, some people think that he IS Mandriva. But Mandriva the company, due to a budget cut and harsh economic situation, fired the respected awilliamson. Bad move from Mandriva. Again. Yeah, right. Again. First was Gael Duval. The very founder of Mandrake. And now Adam? What are those guys in Paris thinking? News spread on Distrowatch. Some of the comments suggest that Adam should work for Canonical slash Ubuntu slash Mark Shuttleworth. I don’t like Ubuntu, hence I don’t like Canonical. Do not agree with that. Some of the other suggest that he should help PCLinuxOS slash texstar. It is based on Mdv2007 anyway. I prefer this idea than the previous one. But Adam stated himself that he may will continue to be an active member of the Mandriva Community. I don’t know. Mandriva the distribution he said. Not the company. Mandriva in my PC slash laptop? Always trying to get things working the way i like. Hasn’t succeed much. Mdv2006 was fine, Mdv2007 was also fine. The thing is, I didn’t get to install it on my SATA based laptop. MCNLive Toronto was also the same. Pendrivelinux (based on MCNLive Toronto which eventually based on Mdv2007) acts strangely that I can never fully understand. TinyMe 2008.0 has the same problem with SATA drives. IMHO, Mandriva’s best release was the 2008 spring. One downside is the proprietary codecs, that you must purchase via Codeina if you want to listen to some exotic files like m4a and aac. I’m a KDE guy so the 2009 version along with KDE4 is still no match for KDE3 robustness and customizable traits. So? so long Mandriva, I am now using PCLinuxOS MiniMe. Along with a working internet connection, MiniMe is a breeze to handle and customize. Especially when adding softwares and codecs. Synaptic is quite nice for an end user, on par with the urpmi graphical interface from original Mandriva. Maybe I’ll try Fedora 10 later on. They have quite nice reviews spread on the web. Next bad news is Honda quits F1. Again due to economics condition. As the news suggests, a bit of optimism spread among the crew, including Jense and Ross Brawn. A team in need of an owner. Gaaa! I’m kinda confused on this one: will Honda continues to supply the engine for the team? Well Bernie (Ecclestone that is) suggests that all team should use one engine supplier somewhere in the near future. So the team could remain, under a new flag, new names, with … an engine supplier which I still haven’t figured out yet. This economic storm … what the hell with it? [...]

PCLinuxOS is a great choice.. I’ve tried mandriva a few times, but have yet to give up PCLOS for it. It’s sad to hear about your all your recent bad news Adam.. although not a regular mandriva user, I have often found your contributions to the mandriva community useful in my work with PCLOS. I wish you the best and who knows, maybe you will find your way over to www.PCLinuxOS.com from time to time! :)

[...] à peine en place, une bourrasque est venue secouer la communauté : le départ forcé d’Adam Williamson (représentants hyperactif de la communauté Mandriva sur tous les fronts et l’un des [...]