If you go to cheapbytes.com or linuxmall.com you can get Linux distro for $3 or
less, plus shipping.
If you know anyone that has the distro that you are looking at, you can legally
burn yourself a copy for the $1.50 it costs for the cd-r.
Who is selling a distro for $80? The highest I've seen was around $50.
Any way look at any commerical unix, 1) they cost anywhere from $300 and up, 2)
they do not include source 3) they wheren't designed from x86 hardware
(expect BSD/OS, SCO).
A stable, robust unix OS that runs on minium hardware and provides millions of
lines of source code for only $80, that is a good deal the way I see it.
Try buying a source license for unlimited number of users for IRIX or AIX,
/ALOT/ more than $80. Plus the hardware that most commerical UNIX run on cost
2-10 times as much as PC hardware.
Plus most distro offer a manual, package system, tech support and other goodies.
A book included with your distro can easily run $30-$50 if you would have
bought it from Barnes & Noble, etc. Then the distro company has to pay the
people that package the system, sales team, tech support team. They have to pay
a (ussually) thrid party company to burn the cd, another company to make a
professional looking box/cd case. Then the company has to pay for high speed
lines so people can download the distro/update/patches. etc/etc.
When they say Free it is in "Free to modify anything you see fit", not the
price of the distro. Free as in freedom, not beer.
If you go to your local Linux Group or College, someone should be able to hook
you up with RH6.0 for min cost.
If you give me you address I will ship you Red Hat 6.0 (without manual) for no
cost to you, or another distro/GPL software I have on hand.
Jack
>Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 19:41:21 -0500
>From: rude bwoy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>To: linux-newbie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: y does free s/w cost so much??
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>X-Loop: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>X-Orcpt: rfc822;linux-newbie-outgoing
>
>have any of u checked out what linux is
>retailing for these days?
>
>it's like $70 or $80 for the cd!
>
>i got a new h/d and and i was gonna put
>rehat 6.0 on it. when i realized what
>they were selling "free" s/w for i decided
>to install 5.1 on the drive and download
>the rpm's i need.
>
>i understand that effort goes into packaging
>and distribution - but the people who should
>be getting the money (the programmers) are
>not!
>
>what's the deal???
>
>the rude
>
