# Manjaro Linux Developers Are Taking The Distro Back

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Brodie Robertson
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EegnxkJeDx0
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/23260

## Транскрипт

### Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) []

If you've been using Linux for a few years, you may recall that Manjaro was a pretty popular recommendation. In fact, during the older LTT Linux challenge, that's one of the things that Linus was actually using. That kind of changed a bit more recently though, as Manjaro kept making mistake after mistake, and distros like CashOS and Endeavor kind of started filling that similar sort of void that Mainline Arch just never was going to do. Now, to be fair, Manjaro is still a very special kind of Arch. Rather than being purely rolling, they hold back updates, allowing theoretically for more testing time. Now, whether that testing actually gets done, and whether problems get caught, that's a whole other question, but a lot of people like this model. Now, I've heard murmurings for quite a while that Manjaro is going through some, let's say, internal management struggles, and this post from a Manjaro team member, Manjaro 2. 0 Manifesto, this basically confirms everything. At this stage, it's still unclear whether Manjaro is cooking, or they're cooked. The Manjaro project has been declining over the past decade. Thank God somebody is willing to admit it in the team. It managed to sustain a sizable user base, yet it stagnated, lost trust, lost almost all of its contributors, and even became a laughingstock for repeatedly making the same mistakes, and never even attempting to address these known issues. known issues, such as, for instance, the TLS certificates, not being renewed in time, are simply ignored, despite multiple team members taking the initiative and volunteering, or even building tooling, processes, and infrastructure to address these issues. You know what? I've talked about some of these failings in the past, and I don't want the Manjaro project to fail. There are people using it, there are people that like Manjaro, and want Manjaro to do well. But it makes me so happy that somebody in Manjaro is willing to just say it. Willing to acknowledge, hey, we have screwed up, there is a problem here, and this problem is not being addressed. I wish FOSS projects took community sentiment a lot more seriously, and started to actually address it long before we get to where Manjaro is right now. If you ever feel bored and want to see something fun, go check out Manjarno. This is a website that basically documents pretty much most of the times that Manjaro does something really stupid, and the page is basically always growing. On the TLS certs, I've been told things like, oh, it's not that easy, oh, there's something weird about our architecture that makes it, so setting up certbot is really difficult, we just can't do that. That might be the case. But what it sounds like to me, is there were people that actually wanted to address the problem, but the people with the keys to make it happen, either didn't care enough, or just didn't want it to be fixed. So there is this fun post from Arkane Linux. This is one of your Arch-based systems out there. Someone said, hey, why do the TLS certs keep breaking? And they said, we are working on it. The team has written a letter detailing the concerns and vision of Manjaro to the company, and handed it over yesterday. So either Manjaro will now implode, or stuff might actually get fixed. This is from 20 days ago. This was only posted about 7. So this was kind of hinting at something like this being written. And the TLS certs were a popular problem, but not the only problem. We have this one from November 2025. Stable is not updated at two months. Why? Why are the updates not being pushed out? Where are the updates? What is going on? Whilst there are a lot of possible answers or excuses for why it was like this, Community Assistant said this. Unfortunately, Manjaro is understaffed. The team is, in my opinion, on the bare minimum number of people working on the project, if not under. I can just hope it will not cause the death of the district in the future, but so far it is rolling okay. Let us be optimistic and hope a little bit more financing for hiring more developers will be found in the newly coming year. And don't you worry, we will certainly get to Mr. Philip Mueller. Very important character in our story here. Back to the main post. The priorities of the project leadership do not align with those of the developers and community. The current leadership's goal is to turn Manjaro into a successful business, and thus far these attempts have mostly failed. The Manjaro project is being run as one individual's personal project, and everything is centralized around this single individual, an individual who refused to share essential access to both the maintenance of the project and the supporting infrastructure with the rest of the team.

### Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00) [5:00]

The Manjaro name is only used for its popularity, and the community is only used as guinea pigs and unpaid workers. As a result, the project is severely suffering. As an example of this, no attempt is being made to acquire any funds for the project, and the funds owned by the Manjaro company are not being invested into the project. With this, as a result, the project's funds have now run out, causing Manjaro's only full-time developer to lose their only source of income. If you have a company that is built off of a project, not like a company that's just taking an open source project, doing its own thing, but like a company that is supposed to be there directly supporting the project, and you're not supporting the project, why do you exist? I want to be very clear that this tension, whilst now boiling over, is certainly not new. This is a post from 2021 from Foxboron. This is Morten Linderud of the Arch Linux project. Manjaro is currently owned by the Manjaro company. One or two, maybe three now contributors, are hired by this company to work on the distro. Because of this, there's essentially two parts to Manjaro. Manjaro the community, and Manjaro the company. Manjaro the company has funds with hardware deals, with pine, laptop vendors, and merch. Manjaro the community has community donations through Open Collective. These funds are part of the community funds Phil, the founder of the Manjaro company, and project leader, had collected privately, and forwarded to this collective. These funds are used to pay for laptops and merch, associated with business expenses, to forward the interest of Manjaro the company. You can see how this creates some tension, when the boundary between the community, and the company, is blurry at best. So it's not like, say, Red Hat and Fedora, where there is a clear, legal separation between the two. Red Hat does offer them developers, legal support, but Fedora is its own separate entity. Here it's kind of like, well, all of the funding comes from the company, and the company is very heavily involved in the project, and there's like this weird management of funds going back and forth between the accounts. Things get weird. And about a year earlier, there was this drama of the treasure from Manjaro being removed, after questioning the expense of a laptop. This was a 2,000 euro laptop, and the problem wasn't necessarily the laptop itself. The issue that he had was, why are you not going through the treasurer to make a big expense? There was some, like, fighting, and ultimately this led to the treasurer just being removed, and the expense being totally fine. Just don't think about it. Don't talk about the treasurer trying to do the treasurer's job and manage the money. Nope, just get rid of the treasurer. One thing not mentioned in this thread, but is a very important detail, and a big part of the reason why there is so much tension here, is the ownership of Manjaro. There are two people that have a basically, I'm pretty sure exactly, 50-50 ownership of Manjaro. So, one of them wants to make the company more profitable, is very corporate focused, the other more aligns with the community. And when you have two people that have an equal split, that have very different goals, obviously this is going to create some problems. So, the plan here, the Manjaro project, the community development, the distro, the people actually working on the project, will be split off from the Manjaro company, and will become a non-profit registered association, EV. It is a German registration, that's, I don't know what it's called, it's on the screen here, but basically a non-profit. So you'll have the Manjaro company, and the Manjaro non-profit. Both of these will exist simultaneously. Simultaneously, but certainly not equally, the Manjaro project EV, will be headed by all current team members, with an interest in joining this endeavor, each receiving an equal share of ownership. This here is just boilerplate about, how to join the project, and if you want to leave the project, basically with leaving, if you leave, you can just leave at any time, and if you're a member, and you don't respond to anything for 12 months, then they just kick you out, because, I don't know, you're probably dead. You can also suspend your membership, for a certain amount of time as well, and that's also an option, if you know you're going to be away. The Manjaro project EV, will have a flat, decentralized structure, instead of a traditional leadership hierarchy. Members may pick up roles, or tasks with the Manjaro project EV, according to their own interests. Components of the project, will be assigned to one or more arbiters. These are senior, and respected contributors, who will provide leadership, and direction, for their respective domains. Despite the flat structure, team members are expected, to not bypass arbiters, and act upon their own accord. For anything of impact, they shall seek permission, of the arbiter

### Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00) [10:00]

responsible for the relevant domain. Some examples being, very important examples here, you should not make expenses, without the approval, of the treasurer. This is obviously, in specific reference, to the whole laptop situation. You should not represent, the Manjaro project EV, in any official capacity, on social media, or at a convention, without the approval, of the community manager. I can point to, countless examples of this, both within Manjaro, and within projects like, Bazzite, and various other projects, of people just, kind of, going off, doing their own thing, acting as, like, acting as the project, with no prior acceptance, of doing so. Here we just have some stuff, about voting, and how long voting goes for, and how many votes are needed, to make important, versus less important decisions. Not very important here. However, relationship, with the Manjaro company. This is incredibly important. The Manjaro company, will over time, effectively become, the downstream, of the Manjaro project EV. Basically, flipping the relationship, upside down. The Manjaro project EV, will continue, to assist the Manjaro company, to the best of its ability, but only as a subordinate, to the Manjaro project EV's work, for the community, and the Manjaro Linux distribution. The Manjaro company, will give the Manjaro project EV, an exhaustive license, of the Manjaro trademark, until the end of 2029, while the Manjaro company, retains the right, to use the Manjaro trademark, for its own products, as long as the Manjaro company's, use of the trademark, does not cause any confusion, and the Manjaro company's, product naming, does not conflict, with any projects, products, and or services, of the Manjaro project EV. The Manjaro company, also declares, its willingness, to yield the trademark, to the Manjaro project EV, for the price of, one euro, after this initial period. Don't worry. It gets even better from here. Anything for which, the Manjaro project, is its primary user, will be handed, to the Manjaro project EV. This includes, but is not limited to, basically, everything. The Manjaro Linux, Manjaro kernels, and Manjaro arm GitHub organizations, the self-host Manjaro GitLab, any relevant Git repositories, the Manjaro domain, the forum, any relevant cloud organizations, at for example, Hetzner, the CDN, any finances, and donations, such as open collective, and, miscellaneous infrastructure. Basically, the project, becomes the project. The Manjaro company, may continue utilizing, the Manjaro project EV infrastructure, but is expected, to actively work, towards migrating, as much as reasonably possible, over to the Manjaro company's, own infrastructure. Any usage costs, made by the Manjaro company, and the Manjaro project EV infrastructure, will be fully compensated, including, but not limited to, storage, bandwidth, cloud, runners, and system administration. This can be settled, through a negotiated, recurring cash payment, rather than by attempting, to calculate, the exact usage costs. So, you have to go, and use your own infrastructure, but if you use ours, we're gonna charge you for it. The Manjaro company, may continue hosting, websites and services, under the Manjaro. org domain. The Manjaro project EV, will maintain, Manjaro. org, website and email, while the Manjaro company, may choose to use, Manjaro project EV's, email server, and have an anchor tag, to any domain of choice, listed in the header, and or footer, of the Manjaro. org website, for redirecting people, to the Manjaro company's, own website. Will be nice, you can use our domain, for Manjaro related things, but it's gonna be a sub domain, you can have your email, go through Manjaro. org, and also, we'll even give you a link, over to the actual, Manjaro company website, but the main Manjaro website, that's ours now. As a comparison, this would be like, Fedora going to Red Hat, and saying, okay, so Red Hat, can continue to exist, but, all of the infrastructure, all of the Git repos, all of the funding, all of the customers, all of the domains, everything related to Red Hat, that's now ours. However, you can keep, you can keep sending emails, through the Red Hat domain, if you want to, if you want to use the infrastructure, we'll charge you for it, and, yeah, you still exist, but, we're the boss now. The Manjaro company, may continue to use, the Manjaro project CDN network, as long as the Manjaro company, covers its own usage cost, and the Manjaro project, will not guarantee, the continued functioning, of any shared services, services may be taken down, or replaced, following a Manjaro project vote, or as a part of, normal system maintenance. So you can use

### Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00) [15:00]

our infrastructure, but there's no guarantee, it's going to stay around. At the time of posting, here is a list of people, who are in support, of the proposal. Notably, Roman Gilg, Manjaro company CTO. Why is he important? Well, remember how I mentioned, the 50-50 ownership? That's between, Roman Gilg, and Philip Mueller. And, uh, well, now we get to have some fun. To make it extra clear, the goal is not to remove, anyone from the project, we only hope to see, a change in leadership, and to turn Manjaro, into a proper, healthy community project. The project is dying. Radical change is needed, to save it. We value Philip, he is a genius, in his field. But his lack of communication skills, and the inability to share anything, is destroying the project, and what is written above, is not set in stone. If you have any feedback, please share it. Philip received a copy, of this document two weeks ago, and has yet to reply. Thus, we are now publishing it internally. Following this, it was also published, publicly, which is why you are now seeing this. And very shortly, following this, um, he also did finally respond. Finally, and we'll get to what happened, after the response. With this post here, on the internal hub, it now seems the community, has serious intentions, to actually found, a non-profit association, and push ahead, with a split from the company. Before the company was founded, there had already been suggestions, and discussions, to establish an association, or other forms of legal entity, to make the Manjaro project, more sustainable. Ultimately, the current corporate structure, was chosen as the only legal entity, known as the Manjaro GmbH Co. KG Company. The company has already provided, significant financial support, to the project in the past, and also has employed, various Manjaro developers, on a freelance basis, since 2019, using company funds. I have no personal objections, on the subject of founding the association, to separate the project, from the company. However, at this time, I will not be personally involved, in any founding processes, of this new legal entity. In this regard, association members, should not be involved, in the company in any way. Any transfers of company assets, or infrastructure, require close consultation, with the company, and yet to be established, new legal entity. In order to ensure, the interests of both parties, are safeguarded, as amicably, and smoothly as possible, any actions that could damage the business, must be ruled out. To ensure the smooth operation, of the company, assets relevant to the company, will remain within the company. Finally, I would like to note, that any actions, or comments, that could damage the business, or reputation of myself, or the company, should be refrained from, in order, to ensure, a mutually agreeable process, and avoid legal actions. What is your bet, that this was written, alongside his lawyer? This does not feel like, what someone would just, write by themselves. This is, very legal speak. It's, very like, formal writing. Following that, we have a response, from Mr. Roman Gilg. Thank you Philip, for your participation, in this discussion, and your general agreement, in that a Manjaro Association, should be founded. You say that any transfers, of company assets, or infrastructure, require close consultation, with the company. But the above document, already provides, a precise list of assets, that are supposed to be moved, into the association. Keep in mind, Roman also has, 50% ownership, of the company. So, he does kind of have that sway, to be like, hey Philip, I also own this, so like, what's your plan here mate? From my perspective, I don't see an issue, with these assets, being moved, into the association, do you? Philip might not be, happy about this going on, but there is one post, I skipped over, that basically says, that he is, pretty much going to be, forced to do something. This post right here, at present time, given that we are in stage one, this was before, it was published, publicly, all administrators, moderators, and community assistants, are considered, on strike. Concretely, we will no longer approve, any new member registrations, they will not be deleted, but simply left in the queue, and there will also, no longer be, any flag handling, or hiding, closing, moving, or splitting off, of threads. Basically, the community team, is not working anymore. So, Philip, what is your move? Do you, hire a bunch of people, to run it? Do you somehow, just like, kick everyone out, and take it over? Or, do you have to say, well, I'm cooked. I don't, like, what do I do here? That was before, his initial response, but, now we're after that. Four days ago, we had that post, and then, another post tagging him, and then, Roman's post, and, uh, given that Philip, is obviously stalling for time, as some of us expected already, or even worse, hoping this will blow over, we have now decided, to skip phase two, and into phase three. Phase three, is the public announcement

### Segment 5 (20:00 - 25:00) [20:00]

and everybody gets to see it. Concretely, this means, the general strike will continue, and, other things I already mentioned, and an archive, also made, to make sure that, evidence cannot be hidden. This is as of, three days ago. You might notice, there is a post on here, from, three hours ago. Before we get to that, main discussions were moved, over to this thread. Discussions regarding, the Manjaro 2. 0 manifesto, started by Tio, the community assistant. 200% in favor, of all of this. The project is going down, the drain as it is, and is in many aspects, poorly maintained. I was actually looking, for an alternative, as a main daily OS, because I cannot imagine, this will survive, another year or two. The only way, to attract new developers, or donators, is for those people, to have the feeling, their voice can be heard, and they can actually, change anything. Time for Phil, to let go, and focus on the company, and let the community, steer the OS. He can only benefit, from it in the long term, because if the OS dies, so does the company. An idea, if this goes to the next phase, which it did, it might be good to send this, to some of the media, like Pharonix and co, and even some YouTube talking heads. I know we don't like them, but they have a lot of followers. Hi there, I'm Mr. YouTube talking head, I was not sent this, at least, someone sent it to me, but I don't think they were, I remember? Maybe they were. Either way, I'm here, hello. Someone said, hey, why don't you like, talk on private channels, with Philip, and get all this stuff, sort of, ironed out. It's because he's not, responsive on those. He's been hiding, from the Team Matrix channel, since the team shared, their intention, a few weeks ago, and even before that, people calling out, these issues, were usually ignored, or received, a non-answer. Referring to an older problem, that happened, around the same time, during internal discussion, on the above mentioned issues, he referred to the project, as a dinosaur, and stated, that it should remain, a dinosaur. We all know, what happened to the dinosaurs. He does not consider, the project to have much of a future, we disagree. Maybe I'm just naive, but I believe, this all to be still salvageable, although I'm aware, that it would be, a major challenge, to fix the project's reputation. That, I think, is a major uphill battle, and this is why, I've seen a lot of people, suggesting, hey, why don't you just, fork the project, make a new project, have the same team, working on it, but, not be called Manjaro. And I understand that, right? But a lot of these people, they've been working, on Manjaro, for a long time. They like Manjaro, Manjaro is a big part, of their life. And they don't just, want to abandon it, because, you know, things are falling apart. They want to try, to save it, if at all possible. Now, the person who wrote, the manifesto, also highlights, another problem Manjaro's had. One of the problems, with Manjaro, is the fact, that due to the intertwining, between the community aspect, and the company, which is a commercial enterprise, and which thus relies, on their being customers, the Manjaro website, was being untruthful, regarding what Manjaro offered, and for who Manjaro, would be the perfect distribution. Manjaro was being touted, as perfect, for absolute beginners, which is completely false. And I've written a so far, much quoted essay, about that already. And as a distribution, aimed at gamers, as if there aren't enough, gaming or interdistributions, out there already, Garuda springs to mind. And even most of our catalog, consists of Windows games, that have only been, code ported to GNU Linux, i. e. not Unix native applications, by design. Apart from being, a curated rolling release, Manjaro is also, an easier to use arch, but that does not make it, a beginner friendly distribution, yet. And again, there are plenty of other distributions, filling that niche already. Beginners can use Manjaro, but if and only if, they're also willing to learn. The biggest mistake people make, is to assume GNU Linux, was conceived as some kind of, alternative to Windows, which couldn't be further, from the truth. Is an alternative, to proprietary Unix. And, whilst they're not difficult, to get their head around, and everything is logical, and well documented, it is very different to Windows, and a lot of people, just don't have experience, with that. So going to Linux, is this whole, different beast. But, if your goal, is to get as many people, as possible to use Manjaro, to buy Manjaro products, to fund the Manjaro company, you're gonna sort of, mislead people a little bit, about, what it is that, Manjaro actually offers. And, this is someone, who likes Manjaro, they're part of the Manjaro team, but they're being honest, about what Manjaro is, and what an Arch based system is. This isn't something, that you can just put, a random person, that has no idea, how to use Linux on, and expect things to go well. It'll probably go fine, if you're willing to learn. But if you're not, and you just want to treat it, like something, you can just, do anything you want on, and ignore all the Arch related stuff, things are gonna go wrong for you. badly. As of 13 hours ago, here is where we are. We still have not got a reply

### Segment 6 (25:00 - 26:00) [25:00]

from Philip Euler. We still have, absolutely no idea, what the plan is, what's gonna happen, has he run, is he gonna show up, and is he gonna like, do something, is he waiting for this to blow over? Right now, no one knows. All we know is, Philip's nowhere to be seen, the community and Roman, are basically saying, hey, what's your goal here? I think there is a very, even though they don't want to do it, there is a very high probability, that, they do end up forking the project. There is a high probability, that, nothing actually comes out of this, and their best shot is just saying, okay, it's done, we're never gonna reach a deal here, let's just do another thing. But, what do you think is gonna happen here? Do you think Manjaro is done? Do you think the community can actually take things back, and revive the project, and actually, sort of, create a new image for Manjaro, that people actually like? What's your thoughts? I'd love to know. So, let me know your thoughts, down below. If you liked the video, go like the video, go subscribe as well, and, yeah, I guess, if you want to become one of, these missing people over here, Patreon, SubscribeStar, Liberapay, linked down below, that's gonna be it for me, and if anyone from Manjaro, wants to talk about, what's happening, feel free to reach out, and I would be happy to talk.