It was my first distro way back in the late 90s when I first started to dabble with Linux (it would take me nearly 10 more years and the threat Vista posed to me continuing using Microsoft OS, to finally
get on with the program on Linux). It was called Mandrake then. I fine distro and one of the first to offer a graphical installation. It's an interesting thing to see they never moved from KDE in all these years.
[...] along with a move to RPM5 (I admit I am not sure of the singificance of this).
Basically, and to my knowledge, it's backwards compatible with RPM 4, but not with RPM 3 and below, whereas the official release is backwards compatible with 3. Also, if you use RPM 5 to pack with LZMA or xar, RPM won't be able to use these.
It's essentially a mess. For the sake of a new port because someone thought they could do better (but didn't really), you introduce yet another variable into the Linux ecosystem which, frankly has to many package managers for comfort. One of the problems non technical users face when trying to install software if they don't know how to just build from source and avoid package managers entirely, is exactly that often the software they wish to install isn't available in their distro usual format. One can always work around this, of course. But usually by learning how to compile software or how to use 200 different package managers. Not funny.
Anyways. That's my only criticism. I did appreciate Mandriva brought something new to the table by taking the bold move of greatly customizing KDE. They can't be accused of being just another distro.
