With Warly's permission, I'd like to post this on my site and on
PCLinuxOnline.com. I paraphrased it a lot, because I realize Warly
didn't intend for it to be a public essay, but it's just so beautiful...
:-)
Austin
Warly on the Proliferation of Mandrake DVD Images (heavily paraphrased)
Dec 14, 2002.
Yes. It is possible to have a single big ISO on the Mandrake mirrors,
and it would be quite simple for people to burn DVD's of Mandrake
Linux. But is this interesting for Mandrakesoft?
The great idea behind our economic model is that we provide our product
for free, even though we need to eat, pay our rent, and sometimes even
have some holidays (this is not necessary for a man to survive, I admit,
except maybe regarding gc and snowboarding, but that is another story).
This way, users who use it, or like it, can contribute back to Mandrake
by buying a boxed set, subscribing to MandrakeClub, helping a lot on
cooker, advocating it, pressuring other people to use it, sending food
to developers (warning: no more nuts, this makes them become fat and
inefficient), or whatever.
Theoretically, this model is ideal. Everyone can try our product for
very little cost, either by downloading it or finding it in a magazine,
and contribute whatever he can afford, or whatever he thinks it is
worth.
Mandrake Linux 9.0 DVD edition is 60 Euros on MandrakeStore.
"60 euros! That's so expensive! I can just download the images and burn
them on a 10 euros blank DVD!"
True, so how will we benefit if I put a DVD image on the mirrors?
1. You will be happy.
2. You will pay 10 Euros for a blank DVD. Most of that will go to Mitsui
or Taiyo Yuden, and if you are in France, you will even pay some taxes
to the film or music majors, or even to Microsoft. Of course we get
nothing from these taxes because our products are free.
3. You have already paid 500 Euros to Sony or Yamaha or Pioneer for your
burner.
So the only benefit for us will be point 1; point 2 and 3 will just make
Microsoft, Sony, and Vivendi even more powerful, and make our work even
harder.
I do not care if you are copying DivX films and MP3's and Windows games
and whatever. After all, if MandrakeSoft dies it is just that we were
not strong enough, or not intelligent enough, that we did not work hard
enough, or we were payed to much, or we were over staffed, or...
"So what did I buy this DVD burner for?"
I can't blame you, I did the same with my first CD burner.
Part of the success of GNU/Linux is because it is free, and because
people can get it and use it for free. In our world we can get nearly
everything with money. We think that just about everything can be
compared in terms of Dollars or Euros, and in this world, GNU/Linux
distributions mean nothing but a good bargain.
But there may exist another world where money is not so important, and
where you pay with time, with helping others, with not thinking
selfishly.
In this world, GNU/Linux is not free; it is more expensive than anything
you can afford with money, because it requires *you* to think and act in
another way.
The world will not change if we do not first change ourselves.
--
Austin Acton Hon.B.Sc.
Synthetic Organic Chemist, Teaching Assistant
Department of Chemistry, York University, Toronto
MandrakeClub Volunteer (www.mandrakeclub.com)
homepage: www.groundstate.ca
