Hi, > I think this is more semantics than anything else.
Perhaps, but its better to be correct when you are a market leader like mandrake. > The CDs that are in the pack which are downloadable also are included in > the pack. They are not free of charge. If you asked me to burn you a > copy and I charged you a fee for copying them, to cover my time, > materials, and shipping, that doesn't make the software less free. In > fact the "free" we speak of here is like the French "libre", not "gratuit". > > Now the commercial CD, if you asked me to burn you a copy, I would > probably refuse, because I am not permitted to redistribute it. > > Actually most of the price you are paying for the boxed set isn't for > the work on the distribution preparation, though that is a cost and one > Mandrakesoft has to defray with other activities. It is for the > packaging and shipping and marketing, and perhaps for the support though > the support could be better and is now improving. So, you agree that the first 2 cds are commerical, mandrake is making money out of charging for distribution to put back into the next version etc. (I'm glad they are doing this). > But if you want to call them commercial since they are in a boxed > commercial set, feel free. The fact is the software on them is free. > The distinction Mandrakesoft is making is that the softwae on the > commercial CDs is from third parties and is not freely redistributable. All the cds I have are a commerical distribution of mandrake, are they not? The cds labeled 'Commerical' are infact 'Proprietry not freely redistributable", they are also commerical just as the first 2 cds, are they not? I'm trying to point out that calling the cds with star office and the other apps on "commercial" is not the correct name in the light that the entire mandrake is commerical, you need the distiction from what I can see of your reasoning above. "Commerical" is the wrong term though, "proprietry commerical" is the correct one. Abreviated to "proprietry", to distinguish between the first 2 cds. JG
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