On Sunday 17 November 2002 03:09 pm, Robin Turner wrote: > Dennis Myers wrote: > > On Sunday 17 November 2002 01:28 pm, Stephen Kuhn wrote: > > [snip] > > >>Why are we talking about "buy Mandrake" when it's freely downloadable? > >>This is free software - you pay for packaging, support and the > >>likes...otherwise, it's free software. We should be promoting it as free > >>software - no matter what version of linux you favor...They've got ADSL > >>- they can download the entire set if she already doesn't have it - or > >>even go so far as to do a reinstall via ftp... > >> > >>...but buy? > > > > Yeah, buy, I do crashtesting and beta testing on ML since 8.0 and still > > buy the boxed set from Mandrake just to give the company support. I also > > need to join the Club but haven't yet cause I keep spending money on the > > wrong things. : ) Anyway, if no one buys from Mandrakesoft then they go > > away : ( The Standard box set for 3 CDs and the manual is only $39 US . > > I realize that in many cases that is a considerable amount of money but > > for a few out there it is in the budget area. > > I think we've had this debate on this list before. It's a tricky issue > to address, because Free Software is working with a radically different > economic model to the commodity market model of proprietary software. > In the proprietary model, a software package is seen as a commodity just > like a table. The model doesn't work for software (not that it works > wonderfully for physical property either), for reasons better explained > elswhere (Raymond, Stallman etc.). The new model is still being worked > out, the main question being, put crudely, how do the coders eat?" > Paying for boxed distributions is one good way of putting food on > programmers' tables. The point I was trying to make is that the > proprietary model is negative (copy this software and you're a criminal) > whereas the Free Software model is positive (you can have it for free, > but if you'd like to pay for it, or contribute in some other way, that's > great!). Dennis is to be applauded, but that doesn't make people who > download their copies "bad". > > On a more practical note, I wish Mandrake would sell a plain download CD > set as soon as each distro comes out (a la Cheapbytes). I'd certainly > buy that, even if it were a dollar or two more than third-party releases. > > Sir Robin Didn't want to get this started up again, and meant no disrespect to anyone on the list. Just felt that with the daily death of one corporation after another here in the US, the issue of how people get paid should be mentioned. So let us do what we can but enjoy the freedom any way we can. : ) -- Dennis M. linux user #180842
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