On Thu, 26 Dec 2002 22:55:27 +0000, David Walser wrote: >> Mandrake may say, yeah but we need help NOW. Ok, I >> agree, create the >> lower tiers to the club today (and tell the Linux >> press and media >> outlets ASAP) and I will join today. Me along with >> several other users I >> have helped convert to Mandrake here in New Zealand >> (and hopefully >> millions of users the world over). Mandrake doesn't >> need handouts, it >> needs to refine its business model. The availability >> of ISO downloads >> before boxed set arrival not only reduces potential >> sales (and possibly >> club membership sales) but it also is a double edged >> sword that ensures >> your mirrors get hosed driving up the bandwidth >> costs for Mandrake and >> the mirror owners. > > ISO availability when the product is finalized pays > back all the people who gave their time to beta test. > Take that away you'll lose the beta testers, and the > quality of the product will decline. There's no easy > solution.
I actually don't think that holding back the ISOs will discourage any beta testers at all. As far as I understand it, the concept of cooker is that people constantly update their distro to the most recent version of the packages. This effectively means that as a beta tester I don't even have to download the ISOs at all, because cooker is always more up2date than any ISO can be ... And I personally doubt that "normal" users would rather download all the packages and then make the ISOs using MakeCD. So these are my 2� on this ... May Mandrake life long and prosperous ;-)) udo
