It was recently brought to my attention that due to some financial shortfalls, Mandriva has fired Gael Duval, the founder of the Linux distribution, in addition to some other employees.

I think it's strange that a company can fire its own founder, but I guess that's the business world for you.

Here are my thoughts (guesses) about what's ultimately going to happen with Mandriva. There has been some talk here and there about how they seem to be switching to more of an enterprise business model, and questions of whether or not, and how, they're going to continue to support and please their home users when home users like a shorter release cycle than the enterprise world does, so home users can have access to more of the latest software.

There has also been some discussion that perhaps they're going to do both, and I think that's correct. I think they will try to accomplish this by following a business model similar to Red Hat's. Which, if true, really holds a certain sense of irony, considering Mandrvia started off being based on Red Hat.

I think that Mandriva will continue to develop its main product line with a one-year release cycle, aimed at the enterprise, while they'll continue regular development of their new Mandriva One distro with shorter, perhaps six-month release cycles, aimed at the home user.

Many popular distros now ship on one CD, and many popular distros use Live CD technology. With Mandriva One, Mandriva addresses the desires of the community to have a distro which is both compact and dynamic.

Further, by having a distro designed specifically for the home with shorter release cycles, they can better leverage the suggestions, development, and power of the community, and incorporate the improvements into their enterprise offerings.

In short, I think Mandriva will be like Red Hat, and Mandriva One will be like Fedora Core.