Re: [Cooker] Saving Mandrake - another User's Perspective

[Jason]

I am in 100% agreement. I do not support limiting ISO downloads indefinately, only for a cooling off period of about a month after a commercial release (that is after they actually hit store shelves in the major countries). If we don't do this then users may leave for a distro that still allows ISO downloads.... a la RedHat. Club Members (even at a lower tier would avoid this period and have full access to ISO's). I also support local agents and would be glad to donate my time as the New Zealand agent. The bank account would be set up as a Mandrake one and the agent would act as the fiduciary party responsible for the funds making it back to Mandrake once the amount warrants the transfer (SWIFT transfers would be easiest I think).

I am not seeing much from Mandrake in the way of response to these discussions....Mandrake are you listening??


Regards,

Jason Greenwood

Leon Brooks wrote:

On Friday 27 December 2002 01:12 pm, George Mitchell wrote:

5) ISOs should be removed from download availability and the current
ISO should be distributable only by Mandrake. Mandrake club membership
should include a complementary GPL ISO.

Disagree. In fact, I would go the other way: I would like the trees from obsolete Mandrake versions to go up and stay up on the mirrors until Mandrake stops supporting that version entirely.

The reason for this is that I am beginning to come across systems where the original installer left no CDs behind, copied no files onto the disk, and a later update to a package requires more than the original package did.

I do agree that the original GPLable ISOs should be embargoed for a period of time (maybe a month) after release for all except club members.

The other option would be for Mandrake to license ISO
resellers and collect a small but reasonable amount for each ISO sold.

Actually, if they made this easy (took your comments about cheques eetc on board) I know of several resellers who would do this as a matter of course, and several consultants who would donate an `install fee' for each client system set up from the GPL ISO set.

The point is not to make a lot of money on each sale, but rather to
make sure each user must contribute something if they want to use the
product.

Not so much `must' as `may'.

For example, I don't have a credit card, but I for one would be happy to be the Western Australian agent collecting cheques and local money orders for Mandrake and forwarding the proceeds regularly (every week, month or whatever). There is no point in donating, say, AUD$10.00 if an international money order to do same is going to cost about AUD$10.00 in overheads, is there?

All this can be done while maintaining fairness. Bonafide
developers, for example, should receive complementary basic club
membership, etc.

After N patch contributions? N questions answered? Some combination of same? Who would account for this?

Cheers; Leon