...hold it right there. Ok. Time to take a step back, take a deep breath and de-escalate this discussion.
Upon re-reading, I realize, that some of my comments were ill-written and easily be taken as inflammatory. For this I offer my apologies. Cudos to those who were still able to come up with reasonable answers. However, I do stand by my statement that I will not pay for ad-ware (as in: Software forcing third party ads on me). I see Open Source/Free Software as a community effort, something that has fascinated me right from the start - especially as contrast to the 'doze world. My loyalty is to that community effort, and I live up to it within the limited resources I have by testing, writing bug reports (and sometimes fixes, if I can), running a packaging group for mutt, helping on mailing lists and Usenet (or real life...) - small things like that. That's what's *really* important to me - and it's what made Linux as well as the *BSDs what they are now. Linux companies are a necessary evil in my eyes. They're needed to help prevent monopolies from drowning the software world in proprietary lock-ins, as unfortunately, you need money for that. But they're not the essence of the movement in my opinion. They also provide convenience, something I have appreciated in the past and still do appreciate. On the other hand, with business comes vested interests and efforts to influence the whole thing, to use, and maybe even ab-use it (Caldera/SCO, anyone?). On that background, I was disappointed to see what Mandrake announced in http://www.mandrakesoft.com/partners/advertising - for me, it leaves a bad taste to put third party ads into a paid-for product. I have to respect that there seem to be people who think otherwise, but I do ask the same in return. On the other hand, I can accept having the ads in the no-cost product as being economically necessary, even though I don't like them, hence, you won't hear me complaining about them. So, no, I won't buy 9.2, at least not if Mandrake makes true what they write in the document mentioned. But I do have an idea for another product: Offer the boxed packages (Standard version, no books, would suffice) as an "ad-free" version at 10% extra. I'll buy it. You can hold me to that. Till then, it's the download version for me, knowing, that Mandrake at least still gets some money out of it. Cheerio, Thomas -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas Ribbrock http://www.ribbrock.org "You have to live on the edge of reality - to make your dreams come true!"
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