Thursday 21 December 2000 08:19, ?? ????????:
| I'd pay a subscription fee for a service that backported certain
| "interesting" packages from cooker to the release version if it meant I
| could see them in say, maybe a month of release time. Why pay money?
| To encourage speedy releases, and to benifit from the integration that
| Mandrake does well with all of the other software packages installed on
| the system. Does Mandrake offer a service like this?
I doubt that such service will work.
RedHat claimed (just few days ago) that they have 60 000 subscribers to "Red
Hat Network"
But, it's now in "testing" mode, when you pay nothing.
Let's see how may of these 60 000 subscribers will agree to pay $9.95 per
month for software updates.
Several companies have 5 of more computers with Linux installed.
Will they pay 5x $9.95, or just download once updates fior one computer, and
re-distribute it to 4 others?
I personally, would subscriber to such service, if, for example, software
updates on CD, once per month, are mailed to me (by post service, not by
e-mail).
Yes, I have slow connection, and can't download Cooker or any *latest*
release, which is close to 1.2GB just for binaries.
|
| Just trying to keep pace with Open Software...
|
| Guillaume Cottenceau wrote:
| > "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:
I don't want to "oppose" Guillaume, but IMHO:
- Linux is really still in development
- this is not good from an advocacy viewpoint (yes, how you can convinience
customers to move to *development* platform)
and:
-KDE 2.x, which is in development, is better to have as upgrade.
KDE2 builds for LM 7.2 work on LM 7.0 and 7.1
I don't know if you track you customer base (6.0, 6.1, 7.0, etc.)
It will be good if you drop all them a mail saying that there is a new KDE2
which is recommended as upgade.
-XFree86 [4.0.2] - you should recommend as upgrade to all people as well.
You need it just to load X when your video is ATI Radeon or NVidia GeForce 2.
These adapters are not supported in 4.0.1, not speaking about 3.3.6
(and AFAIK there are no plans to backport Radeon and GF2 drivers to 3.3.6)
| >
| > - 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)
Let me suggest once more: many of these problems will be solved, if Linux
Mandrake appears pre-installed on PCs.
It doesn't matter - is it white-box or brand-name.
Unfortunately, it looks like that Mandrake doesn't have any bundled deals.
Despite the fact that Henri Pool was promising such deals in August 2000,
just after his appointment.
--
Vadim Plessky
http://kde2.newmail.ru (English)
http://kde2.newmail.ru/index_rus.html (Russian)
Do you have Arial font installed? Just test it!
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