On Thursday 16 January 2003 11:24, Adam Williamson wrote: > On Thu, 2003-01-16 at 10:16, John Allen wrote: > > > MandrakeSoft is a commercial software company. It ought to be able to > > > be profitable (or at least not burn cash so fast it gets near > > > bankruptcy) through normal business operations. If not, it deserves to > > > fail. This is > > > > Ok then, lets assume that normal business operations is for everyone who > > has an installation of Mandrake (any version) who has not paid for that > > installation should now send their money to Mandrake. > > > > Aha, problem solved, Mandrake sinking under massive cash surplus. > > Uh, how is that normal business operations? Mandrake makes a business > decision to make a version of its distribution available for free,
Mandrake is a commercial software company, with a free edition of their product. I believe whislt this mey be the norm for Linux distro companies, that it is distinctly not normal business operation. > therefore it has no right to demand that users of that version give it > money. Users of the free version deciding to give MandrakeSoft money > isn't a normal business operation, it's charity by any other name...SuSE No actually Mandrake it the charity! When a soup kitchen gives out free food, it is the charity; if a poor tramp decides to donate some money to the soup kitchen, thats not charity, its payback. > and Red Hat both make the same decision and don't appear to be filing > for bankruptcy protection... Redhat have millions left over from a sucessful IPO, and SuSE have recently recived a shitload of cash from IBM (to stop them from going under), so the comparison is hardly fair. -- John Allen, Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
