> License shipments? "clients version of the OS"?
> Well, I'm just happy they didn't question the 'Linux company' 401k
> plan... Sheesh.

The issue here is pretty simple - Linux companies release their ISO's as soon 
as they start selling their distribution (not talking about SuSE - which 
doesn't) and create a very small willingness to go buy a copy, so they don't 
make almost any money from sales. Red Hat sells their Red Hat Advanced server 
for $800, but you can get the parts that needed if you're smart enough to 
know where to look for - freely.

Companies like Mandrake "hopes" to make money from Support and their "Mandrake 
club" - but I can hardly see how they plan to survive in the next few years. 
Sure - they post that they make money, but the amount is very very small, and 
not always cover the costs of sponsoring developers, QA, documentation etc. 
They also don't have a QA - their users are their QA (which really shows when 
you test the beta's - I tested Mandrake 9 beta 2 and found over 30 RPMS with 
unresolved symbols (not dependency problems!)..

If those companies where a bit smarter - they would have delayed their free 
ISO's for 60-90 days and only sell packages - like Yellow Dog Linux..

Thanks,
Hetz

================================================================To unsubscribe, send 
mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command
echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Reply via email to