Well, I’d say it’s good to see that Manjaro team acknowledged that there are serious issues around the project.
But for now, it’s too late to be saved.
Manjaro has been on my radar when I was switching to Linux almost 4 years ago.
By then, it was the most popular Arch derivative, but also the one with unique package model which didn’t stand the test of time.
The “extensive package testing” delaying their release in a week is fatal, when combined with AUR.
It is also why EndeavourOS and more recently, CachyOS succeeded, offering mostly pure Arch with no package push delays.
TLS issues, as they happened, were just the icing on the cake.
Agree but forking requires a name change, that might be good or bad thing.
Personally i would have forked it with a different name to get rid of the bad image. I get the impression that the members who do want to continue do want to keep the name Manjaro.
I did use Manjaro back in the day and left for the obvious reasons already stated, but the final break for me was the corporate decision from Phil, which i think was a bad move and set a lot of bad blood.
The Manjaro Project will split off from the Manjaro GmbH & Co KG and will become a non-profit registered association (e.V.).
This is the only thing that i think is a good thing, with or without the name Manjaro
i joined here in the great wave of 2020 and contributed a little in the forum, but never did the install. thanks for reminding me i like this community, i’m still a big pile of idonwanna when it comes with doing the work to switch but i know where i will be if i have to.
To be fair, it was acknowledged years ago. As a day to day distribution it has been pretty solid (for my media box) for the last 8 years… but there have been some signs. Phil was forced to leave his home in Vietnam and take his family back home, I think this was a big disappointment after the dreams of creating his business.
Now forums are always a tough environment for discussions without folks being paranoid and crazy, over-reacting… and I saw some of that…
As things spiralled, some mods put some threads away - and retrospectively it turns out that’s a stupid move.
But apart from some blunders, there was only really one main issue… Manjaro is Phil’s baby… but he’s often just too busy doing his thing and filtering out the world.
I see him with his head down, pounding away at his keyboard, oblivious… and it does appear that now the Team has had enough and want independence.
I don’t see a ‘fork’ as any way forward, because it’s all about the FORUM and the TEAM - not just the software.
Despite all the criticisms (stability, AUR, whatever) I’ve had Plasma testing running on the HTPC now for 8 years with no real issues… through Plasma 5 when everyone else was going crazy… so I have no issues at all with curation.
But really, just forking isn’t good… starting up a new forum is also too much. Just basically asking the blockage to quietly move into his corner of the room, giving the rest of us access and space to work is likely enough…
But, as already stated, the bleeding started to be more severe as Jonathan moved on and took a lot of great folks with him… and only time will tell (maybe not even a very long time) how it will go.
There are a great number of users who never even visit the forum… but if the Team decide to move on, what comes next? I already believe depression is set in, Phil got the gaming console looking really good, and put in a lot of time and investment for it to face issues and fail… He’s likely depressed, viewing it as a moribund project and waiting to die.
Not sure if he’s got the energy to do what’s needed.
That is the point. The concept of Manjaro is obsolete. The Manjaro kernel has no added value. The Manjaro look&feel is not enough to keep a distro going. And the release model where they hold back Arch packages for weeks and month has yet to proof that it is worth the effort. From my own experience this release model is not increasing the stability nor the user experience. It has no added value.
Manjaro needs a new concept with a true added value. Especially when the Manjaro GmbH company wants to sell business around Manjaro Linux. Where is the competitive advantage compared to desktop linux distros like fedora or ubuntu?
If I understand the discussion around the manifest the fork is not so simple. For sure you can fork all the code but the infrastracture, wiki, forum, name (brand) would be still owned by the corporate side of Manjaro. That would be a major setback for the project.
Also, it would split the comunity - “generic user” would not know whether to stick with old Manjaro or switch to the fork. That would hurt both sides.
This is long overdue. I admire the patience of the Manjaro community, but it’s not like there aren’t lots of other Arch based options these days, including the Distrowatch award winning 
FWIW (not much) Garuda was originally a fork of Manjaro, so there’s already at least one Manjaro 2.0.
Hold on, take a minute to compare the ‘amazing’ CachyOS configs with Manjaro’s… it’s positively juvenile in comparison.
You pointing to Distrowatch awards - bigging up the Viral… you’re sinking down to the YouTube gamer mentality with that one 
There’s some really weird stuff in Cachy that is downright weird - starting with the rather limited zsh config , which has the highlight alias apt=man pacman and not much else at all - is really the way forward?
Or would you appreciate that switching to fish shell will bring a default to hijack your ls command to output an ‘eza’ long listing instead of just listing as you might expect?
There are reasons I’d avoid Cachy, also Garuda, in favor of Manjaro not so much EOs.
I get what you are both saying but there are also advantages in forking.
When you create a new distro you have an opportunity to make changes that would otherwise cause friction within an existing distro. You bring over every part that you like but you have an opportunity to improve without being bound by the past.
Also, new distros bring new energy and, especially when founded by an experience team, generally bring a lot of excitement amongst the distro hopping crowd.
Lastly, I understand both sides here. Having been behind that curtain myself, I understand why the community is frustrated but I also understand why Phil would not want to turn over control of the project he invested so much of his life into.
Every distro has it’s opinionated warts…sometimes niche and hidden and sometimes on top. Nothing is perfect (or we’d all be there…well maybe) :0
If you’ve got it, flaunt it 
I like eating shellfish, but the fish shell is not for me. I didn’t mention Cachy, and there’s plenty more (Arch) fish in the sea than those two.
In German, but very to the point.
That is an interesting perspective and quite well thought out.
I tried Cachy for a couple of weeks in its early days and haven’t retried it since, so it’s not like I’m an expert on the matter or anything…
That said, I think while this (alias) is indeed a bit “weird” for those of us who are very accustomed to Linux and all its flavors and color of paint, it might just be a nudge for newbies (because Cachy has been getting on a hype train and possibly pulling newbies who migrate from windows) that might find advice online to apt <whatever> to instead read about pacman.
Is it tasteful? In my opinion not really…
But it’s not like it is malicious either.
I think the vision of Cachy is solid, especially when most well established distros make 0 effort to capitalize on hardware improvements over the last decade+ because “What about my 20yo e-waste that is running perfectly fine costing me more in Energy than a brand new mini”
It’s a thorough overview, and it spells things out clearly. This whole situation reminds me of OpenOffice vs LibreOffice (and it’s alluded to later in the article), where the former owners of OpenOffice (the Apache Software Foundation) absolutely refuse to relinquish the trademark, and have left the project to absolutely stagnate in a poorly-managed mess. I don’t have any faith in PM doing the right thing here, heaven knows that there’s a pattern of behaviour that led to this in the first place.
Yes - I want to tell you you’re wrong… but there’s a limit to how much I can push the ‘fanboy’ act. There’s probably some interesting psychology in the mix, a hint of narcissism perhaps, that would make it impossible for PM to move forward, however positive a move it might appear… there’s no denying that the word ‘rescue’ can be replaced with ‘mutiny’.
I really do think that there’s only one single point of failure in this whole affair… We’ll see what happens, the Team are pretty quiet right now.
(not a fanboy) However, having been at the top of something before…the failure is not always just with the top and communication downwards. Sure, that’s usually the root, plus choosing the wrong people in the next stratum.
But there’s that old saying, ‘Takes two to tango’ and I’m sure there’s blame to go around :0
Pretty much the whole issue is that nearly all the failures are down to PM not fixing EVERYTHING and also not allowing others to fix things either… hence the others saying it’s enough… like the stupid certificates.
That article is quite interesting, too bad it’s not available in the english language.
Nevertheless, I want to point out that despite the allegations within that thread, which has been posted 6 days ago, an direct response from the core developer and owner of the Manjaro GmbH & Co KG has already been posted one day after that manifesto has been released. Which you can check out here direct link to his statement within that topic.
I have no personal objections on the subject of founding an 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 that 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.
From my perspective, I don’t have any affiliation to Manjaro. I percieve this just as another distro that may change it’s path and which may end up in a different forks among other forks.