On Tue, 06 Jul 1999, Ripcrd6 wrote:
> Just read a review of Mandrake 6.0 that is being distributed by Macmillan
> Publishing over at http://www.cpureview.com/rev_mndk6_a.html . You guys
> might enjoy the read. Mandrake gets high marks. In relation to this I
> was wondering if the Mandrake group is getting any money from Macmillan from
> this deal? If not, I would recommend everyone avoid their books.
> (Although a lot of us newbies could use a good primer.) If so, its a great
> way to get more users of Mandrake and I think you guys deserve the credit
> and moohlah for adding value to RH 6.0. I recommend everyone to buy the
> boxed edition when possible to support your favorite Distro. Thanks for all
> the great support on this list!!
Of course Mandrake deserves credit for the value they've added to RedHat's
distribution, but money from Macmillan? Remember, most of what you're getting
in your Mandrake distribution is from RedHat (though recompiled with Pentium
optimizations), and RedHat doesn't get any money from Mandrake. And if I want
to make a Mandrake CD with all of the packages updated and include the
downloadable version of WordPerfect 8 on it, and turn around and sell it for $5
apiece, that's perfectly fine too (assuming I am just making it from the main
downloadable Mandrake distribution one would get on a cheap CD, and not adding
any commercial software that may be included in a more expensive bundle). Not
that I do that; it's just a hypothetical example.
I agree with the principle of (assuming you do have the spare money to go buy
one of the more expensive bundles) buying Mandrakesoft's own release instead of
something from another publisher such as Macmillan, for the warmfuzzy feeling
you may get from having some of your money going to support Mandrake's
developers. However, what Macmillan does with Mandrake is not entirely
different from what Mandrake does with RedHat, and it's every bit as legal and
(more importantly) ethical. I know it's pretty unbelieveable to someone coming
over from the Windows world, who's lived a horrible computer life deprived of
GPL'd software, but that's how open source software works. :)
-Tom
