Hi, I totally agree with the message below. I'm also one of the people that joined the club to support the development of the great products mandrake created and creates. Especially I joined the club for the MNF project. It feels really odd that mandriva sets out this new course.
Greetings, Pascal -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Locke Sent: donderdag 23 juni 2005 0:28 To: security-firewall@mandrivalinux.org Subject: Re: [Security Firewall] firewall Hello, Hopefully this won't drift too far off topic. Like others here, I will be sorely dissappointed if there isn't a free version released. I don't begrudge Mandriva wanting to make money off this release, and I think the new price is much more reasonable than the price for MNF1, making me much more likely to pay it. But I do think a policy of not releasing a free ISO goes against the whole spirit of Free software. Mandrake has been one of the staunchest supporters of free software, and that's why I've become such a big fan. I do pay for it, too--I've been a Mandrake Club member for two years now. I think the division between the download and powerpack editions, and advance availability for club members is reasonable. Why should the MNF2 be treated differently? Will Mandriva, now that it's no longer Mandrake, continue its level of commitment to free software? So far I've installed MNF (different versions) at two different clients. I do not charge for the software--only the service of installing it. And in my business, I have a policy of contributing 10% of my profits back to the open source software used in my solutions. But since I service primarily small businesses, with small budgets, nearly $2000 USD for licensing is nowhere near reasonable. $500 is much more in the range--though I can purchase a WatchGuard Firebox, a completely proprietary firewall in its own appliance, for less. By the time you add my services, it becomes a hard sell to my small business clients. I think Mandriva should make a free version available, especially to members of this list and those who have been proponents for so long. I think they should also have some online payment location where I can pay an amount of my choosing. I'm much more likely to pay in the $100 to $200 range for each place I install it, rather than $500--If I need to charge enough to cover that, I'll be deploying a lot more Smoothwalls. Cutting off the open source community, though, and strong-arming us in this way doesn't seem like an advisable business move to me... Cheers, -- John Locke "Open Source Solutions for Small Business Problems" published by Charles River Media, June 2004 http://www.freelock.com
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