"Hoyt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
[...]
> Yes, it's a lot of work, but it gives the impression that you don't
> support your product in the way a consumer understands support. It's
> also an argument for not having so many point releases and further
> illustrates that Linux is really still in development. None of this is
> good from an advocacy viewpoint, but it is the way "business is done".
I have several arguments to oppose to that:
- we are not in the usual business, a "consumer" is to be understood
differently, because some of them did not pay us any direct money for
using our products (the downloads) so we feel less stressed to fit their
direct needs (nvidia and aureal drivers are another good example of what
"consumers" deadly want) ; also, the price of our product is very very
low compared to the products that get this support ; for example
Microsoft don't provide free (in the sense of free of price) updates for
anything (except very strategis things like Internet Explorer where
their aim is to kill the opponents not to make a normal living from the
product)
- supporting our product can be understood differently: whenever you
bought or donwloaded any version, you are free to download a more recent
version to have the updates; in that sense, we do support our products
because anyone can benefit from the latest stuff at no cost
- in our domain, the importance of keeping in touch with latest stuff is
very very important, so the balance between putting resource in that and
in the rest is different
--
Guillaume Cottenceau - http://us.mandrakesoft.com/~gc/
