Various people said:
> And to be sure that 6.1 comes out I'm supporting SuSE by getting 6.0!
Greg Thomas said:
> However, it gets relatively expensive buying the full release 2 to 3
times a year.
Right.
I bought Red Hat 5.1 and SuSE 6.0 at full price but I have no intention
buying any further updates for full whack unless I decide I really need the
manual or something. A perfectly valid way to support Linux (and the
distro(s) you like best) is to be active on the lists and help keep Linux a
support-community. (Before anyone says "Who you? You don't do that!" I
spent all my time till now on the Red Hat list).
The whole philosophy of open-source is that you pay people for the work
they do for you i.e. if you want a pristine distro with support you pay for
it, if you put in the time yourself to research and implement an upgrade,
you did the work so pay yourself.
I like Linux and the people who distribute it but that doesn't mean I'm
going to pay again and again for something I already have. Microsoft
_force_ you into that pattern, but Red Hat, SuSE and Caldera etc.
*absolutely*do*not* require this kind of behaviour from us. Apart from
anything else, they know that the more their distributions are out there
being used, the more demand/business it'll generate for them. It's crazy
to buy every update because you like their business ethics when their
business ethics explicitly free you from this obligation.
As it happens, the time I've put into the Red Hat list is worth a lot more
than the �30 I sent Red Hat's way: they'd have a far harder time selling
their distro without the support the list gives and I'm sure the same goes
for the SuSE lists. But even if I'd never answered a single e-mail, I
wouldn't feel guilty for buying a cheap CD next time round. That's what
the GPL is about.
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