Not sure if the "end is nigh" for the makers of Mandrake Linux, but things could be better. Its growing financial difficulties "due to growing liabilities following a series of quarterly losses", have prompted the Paris based company to file for the French equivalent to American Chapter 11 reorganization.
"The company remains focused on Mandrake Linux version 9.1, the next version of its Linux distribution, which is on track for release in April, the statement said."
I've recently been trying out many different distributions of Linux in order to better understand their differences, and Mandrake remains one of the best, if not the best. Certainly after the mess that was Red Hat 8.0, I've been looking to Mandrake as an alternative as have many others.
More here.