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Should You Donate Money to Companies?
John Buswell writes "This morning I received an email from MandrakeSoft, developers of the Linux-Mandrake distribution. One article in this e-newsletter they sent around disturbed me, they were looking for donations. Now, don't get me wrong, I am all for giving back to the community, however, if you look at their site, they are looking for donations for Mandrake specific projects like their installer (DrakX), their support websites and most disturbing of all Quality Assurance. This would be fine except that MandrakeSoft is a company, and these elements they are looking for donations for don't help anyone but their customers and their product. I know they are under a little financial strain, laying off employees and asking others to take pay cuts, but to me, this looks like they are trying to take advantage of the goodwill of the Linux community and their customers who might be a little afraid their Mandrake is going south.
Wouldn't you be outraged if a car company came out and asked for donations to improve safety features or fuel economy? These are company expenses to improve their product, so people buy more and they make more money. It's not something you ask for donations for. While I appreciate the many things Mandrake has done for Linux, I don't think they have the right to ask for money from their customers. If they were taking donations and giving funds to projects like Gnome, KDE, Apache or FSF, that would be fine, but these are ways to fund their products.
I think there are many useful projects that you can donate your money to, that are just developers working in their spare time from home, or non-profit organizations, and donating to those projects will still improve Mandrake's product, because they will definitely incorporate them into their latest releases. What does everyone else think? Is Mandrake justified in asking for donations or are they desperately seeking funds they can't obtain from their investors?"
My opinion is that to many people want cheese with their whine. This attitude trivializes the work that the real programmers do, but also the generosity of many of the major Linux companies who pay programmers to write code, and then pay ISP bills to let people download that code for free.
I don't really know much about Mandrake's financial situation. I doubt that optional donations will provide them a significant source of revenue. But I certainly don't have any problem with them providing the option to send money back to them. My distribution is Debian, and as a non-profit, I can donate money to them without offending John. But if I bought a shrink wrapped copy of Red Hat, I'd be sending a few bucks to them. What's the big deal about giving a few bucks when you download an ISO? And Mandrake has gone so far as giving donators a choice as to where those dollars go. When I give Red Hat my $50 or whatever for that box, do I get to say "Develop GNOME, please"?
Section 3B of the GPL provides for charging the distribution cost for source code, but afaik, every major distribution gives binaries away for free. Hemos and Uriah worked out that it costs OSDN something like 7 cents per ISO download on SourceForge, so I imagine it's similiar for MandrakeSoft. They don't have to provide them. It's a free service. They could charge you 7 cents. They could charge you the distribution costs if you wanted source. They aren't doing either of these things, they are giving you the option to do so, if you want. Which leads me to my main thought about this question: the attitude.
Do you complain over those "Suggested Donation Bins" at the museum? Would you complain if toll booths were optional? Of course neither analogy is perfect, but you get my point. Museums and roads cost money.
The attitude that John presents above scares me. I don't mean any offense to John, he seems like a smart guy, but I've seen so many 31337 h4x0r Linux types who've never contributed a line of code rant on about the evils of various free software companies. Yet I know many guys who've actually contributed huge chunks of code and, well, they just don't care. It's a case where the fanboys have invented some sort of cause that isn't all that important instead of doing something relevant. Those who can, code, those who don't complain.
Of course, I'm just a tool of one of the largest Linux companies, so what do I know. I'm tainted, evil, and part of the same conspiracy designed to keep free software out of everyone's hands by giving it away for free. I also know who killed JFK. But god forbid that hackers eat. And let's all complain about suggested donations too so that the only way to get copies of free software is through gnutella. Hope that 600-meg ISO doesn't abort half way.
if Shell Oil placed donation bins beside all the gas pumps, so rich people could help those less fortunate to have cheaper gas, that would be stupid (not because it's a bad idea, but because nobody would put any money in).
And what's the harm in that again? You're saying that it's not a bad idea, but then you back up to say it's stupid. Even if there are a few donations, wouldn't it be worthwhile beyond if they didn't try to put bins out in the first place?
I do think it's OK for RedHat and the likes to as for donations though, since they are providing a salary to many of the hackers that have made Linux what it is today.
Why again is Linux more important than gasoline?
I also like Mandrake's concept of specifying where you want your donation to go, but I don't think this is always a good thing. We'd all agree that support for obscenely powerful systems with 1.2 skjaterrabytes of memory is important to Linux on a grand scale, but how many people do you really think are going to check that box instead of '3d graphics acceleration' or 'GNOME'?
So...if most people want support for "obscenely powerful systems" why wouldn't they check that box? If 3D graphics acceleration is really what people want, then what's wrong with that?
The problem with your strategy is this: how do you get money to the other 26 people working on a project. Listen, it's good to send Linus money and all -- but what about the guy who works under him and spends 6 hours a day coding network drivers? Chances are, you've never heard of him unless you're a programmer. And he just got nothing from your gift certificate to Linus. Now, under the Mandrake model, Jeff Garzik gets fed! See, MandrakeSoft sponsors him with part of the money you paid for your boxed set...
- Jay
I finally said an opinion that someone didn't think was evil!
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
I believe allot of the people who write GPL code purposefully intend for people to use it *FOR FREE*.
Then they are using the wrong license. The GNU GPL explicitly allows anyone to sell copies of the licensed software for a fee, and RMS has repeatedly reiterated this point in interviews and FAQs.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I don't see this as a particularly bad idea, since it gives the customer a choice of how much to pay based on how much he/she thinks the product is worth. The usual method to make more money is to raise prices. However, in Mandrake's case, they're keeping the prices the same, but accepting donations - this means that the people who think Mandrake is worth $75 can give a donation to pay that much, while those who think it's worth whatever the retail price is don't have to.
In addition, there are many people who buy a boxed version of RedHat or Mandrake instead of downloading the ISO to "support the company." If you already downloaded the ISO, why waste paper, plastic, and manufacturing costs for a boxed copy you don't need, just to support the company, when you could just donate the money and support the company directly? Or buying a tshirt to support the company; why buy a tshirt if I'm never going to wear it and don't want it? Why not donate the $15 the tshirt costs directly to the company instead?
There's a few other companies using this sort of method, such as GetRight as well, and many are doing it at the request of customers who thought the product was worth much more than what they paid for it.
So really I don't think there's any problem with it. People already donate to companies, but it's in the form of buying stuff you don't need (tshirts, boxed software, mousepads, mugs, etc.) solely for the purpose of supporting the company. I'd argue that that's 90% a donation anyway, so just going the whole way and making it a donation explicitly isn't really a problem.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If you downloaded the ISO and you feel you owe Mandrake something, go out and buy the retail version.
This is what I don't get. If I downloaded the ISO and then decided it was worth more than the $0 I paid and wanted to support the company, why should I go buy the retail version? I already have the ISO; I don't need the retail version. Buying it is just a waste of paper, plastic, and manufacturing costs, and the only reason I'd be doing it is to support the company. So why not just take the money I would've spent on a retail version and donate it directly, producing less garbage in the process?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
is a poor one.
Wouldn't you be outraged if a car company came out and asked for donations to improve safety features or fuel economy? These are company expenses to improve their product, so people buy more and they make more money. It's not something you ask for donations for.
Not the best analogy to use. You pay $20,000+ for a new car. For that kind of money, you're damn right the automakers better not be begging me for money.
However, I've paid nothing to Mandrake to download the ISO and blow a copy. Way I see it, they're asking "pay what you think its worth to you." I don't have a problem with that.
VENI! VIDI! VICI!
Posted by polar_bear:
Perhaps they're trying to figure out what areas of development they should be concentrating on, or where to direct their efforts? I dunno, they make everything GPL'ed and available for free...complaining about a voluntary program seems kind of churlish, even if it isn't well-thought out. Let's face it, Linux isn't geared towards the normal bloodsucking business model - so anyone who is pro-Linux/Free Software should be willing to go with the flow and try to help these companies figure out ways to support us. Particularly when they have been "Doing the Right Thing" as long as Linux-Mandrake. I hate to see greed or selfishness in companies or individuals...
Why would posting a comment be "hiding" your opinion? You could simply post comment #1, and when it's moderated +5 insightful, it'll be right at the top in the same place it is now.
I think adding a little one-liner to the end of a story is different from a detailed attack on the original author in a fashion that doesn't allow him to respond.
That makes me really uneasy. So the FSF or Eric Raymond or Cowboy Neal is going to be in charge of which project receives support from a huge pool of "Free Software" donations? Can you imagine the nightmare of nepotism and political squabbling that will create? --update()
This is really a minor debating point. Personally, I disagree with you that selecting some general purpose funds to go to all projects under the umbrella would turn into a financial and political debacle. However, if those general purpose funds were used strictly for community disk, CVS, and project web space similar to sourceforge, this alone would be a good start. We all hope sourceforge continues providing it's excellent service, but should VA Linux go out of business something similar ought to be re-created by a tax exempt charity as I describe above. JMO.
Cheers,
--Maynard
However, gratis is also incompatible with most rational business models. That Redhat wants to sell support instead of software might be a sustainable business model, but I think no one yet knows this for sure. That Eazel wanted to sell network storage and "services", just like Microsoft intends, and spent it's entire vulture capital outlay on a loss leader file manager is clearly not a viable business model; their bankruptcy attests to this fact. We'll see if any of the other support/service business models actually succeed... they may or may not.
So given Mandrake's position with its huge user base, free ISO images offered before boxed versions hit the shelves, and a development staff paid for by those sales -- how is Mandrake going to position it's product in order to generate revenue while it gives the product away for free (before commercial release) via ftp?
This is the quandry -- do we (as a community) value hiring developers to manage and enhance Free Software toward specific community (or end-user) driven goals, or should it all be created haphazard by volunteers in a great bazzaar? I think we're at the point where for free OS's and applications to succeed, we'll HAVE to create a system whereby developers are hired and paid to create community sponsored projects which then get released under the GPL (or other free licenses).
Bruce Perens, among others, has argued for a street performer type system, whereby developers request donations for the value of the projects they create. The only serious problem with this mechanism is that it could force each project to hire a lawyer in order to obtain tax deductible charity status (such as the Free Software Foundation possesses). I think a better aproach would be for either the FSF, or some other umbrella organization, to be created with the express purpose of funneling donations to most any free project. Donors could specify who they wanted receive the donation, or it could be spread about the entire collection of projects under the umbrella. I like this for several reasons:
It's voluntary. Just like it's voluntary to use and write free software, so should it be voluntary to donate.
It creates a positive economic feedback loop for each project. However much money is donated to the SAMBA project (for example) is by definition a statement of their "value" to the community as a whole. However much money they receive is what can be spent on developers, administrative costs, and conferences. As long as financial community support persists, the project has a functional business model for hiring staff.
It evens out the success of certain low profile projects that are still critical, for example the DRI project over at sourceforge. There's no economic model supporting DRI whatsoever, other than developer interest. The best they get is maybe some money from the distributions which are relying on 3D support to succeed. Thus donations become a mechanism whereby USERS can target economic incentives toward specific projects they consider necessary for their future use and needs.
Frankly, all those who deride Mandrake for sticking their hat out begging miss the point. I've never given money to Mandrake, but then again I don't use Mandrake. I have given money to the OpenBSD project, the FSF, the EFF, the ACLU, and I've bought numerous Redhat distributions; because I agree with and want to support these projects. Those individuals who donate to Mandrake might have very good economic and personal reasons for doing so. They have an OS investment in Mandrake, a desired feature set they wish implemented in the next release, and are part of a community they wish to see succeed. If those community members decide that offering donations (among box sales) will support Mandrake well enough to meet its budgetary needs for hiring developers and staff, why not pursue that revenue stream? It's no different from NPR or PBS holding their hat out to their listeners/viewers, and over the last twenty years NPR and PBS have shown that their pledge drives do succeed at paying a significant portion of their budget.
I encourage all free software projects to request donations; and most of all I encourage the creation of some charity as described above which could be used to funnel money toward any and every free project around. Maybe this is where sourceforge should go if/when VA Linux goes down the tubes?
J. Maynard Gelinas
"By oneself evil is done; by oneself one suffers; by oneself evil is undone; by oneself one is purified." --Gautama Sakyamuni
I signed up for the LinuXFund credit card. A (small) portion of the purchase goes to the fund,
and they find projects that people submit for funding!
Ten years ago or so, I ended up doing the United Way thing, after telling myself I'd send a check to Boy Scouts, and a year later I hadn't, so I signed up for payroll deduction!
When you suck down a gig and a half of ISO off someone's site, you're costing THEM money.
When you suck down updates, you're costing THEM money.
All the coders they have working for them cost THEM money.
Yes, they can make up a lot of that in boxed sales. But still, some people WANT to contribute. Those who can, contribute code. Those who's coding skills are marginal to nonexistant (like me) can contribute money to support the coders.
Remember, the donations are OPTIONAL. Nobody's MAKING you pay a damn thing.
Personally, I buy the boxed x.0 release and tend to leech point releases.
Personally, I won't miss an occasional $5/$10 bucks every now and again.
As the saying goes. I spent half of my money on wine, women, and song. The rest, I just WASTED.
Now I can waste a little less.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
If you ALREADY have the distro on a CD-R, why are you going to contribute to the dead-tree+waste plastic version a couple weeks after you burnt your own copy?
Unless you're buying the PowerPack or Enterprise version. And unless you actually NEED something on one of those disks, it's simply WASTE.
This way, if you want to contribute the $20/30 and already have the distro, you can give the money DIRECTLY to them and cut out production costs (as someone else can buy the the boxed copy that you avoided).
And believe me, they DO get bought. ALL of the Best Buys, CompUSA, and Computer City stores in my area (about two dozen), had been out of Mandrake 7.2 for a couple weeks following the release of 8.0. And let me assure you. The boxes were NOT pulled off the shelves by employees.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
It's more like: "If you don't feel the need to buy our product or donate money, don't. If you do feel the need, but don't need to buy the boxed version, here's a way."
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Giving a company your business or outright donating money to support a company you like are very similar decisions that as consumers we make every day. I avoid McDonald's because I don't like the company - even though I do actually like some of their food. I'm willing to go out of my way and even pay a little bit extra for friendly, polite, quality service. How are these decisions different from making a donation? To me they are the same. If you value service provided, you express your thanks - with cash (or code, or docs, or postcards). The Mandrake donation page makes that easier for people. How is that a problem?
I personally think that soliciting donations in return for providing alot of high quality software for free download is not only acceptable, it is quite commendable. More power to them, I hope the people using their free services have the decency to donate some cash. Those who don't donate are just ungrateful leeches. TAANSTAFL, etc.
It's really a shame that some quite vocal segments of the free software community seem to be a bit confused about things like this. They reflect badly on the rest of us.
--
Host your own websites, anywhere!
Who said anything about fighting those who gets in your way, if that's what someone wants to do, it is their choice and there are trade offs in doing so. Socialism breeds laziness, oppression, and a sense of entitlement, it rewards needs NOT talent. Capitalism relies on self choice, you can choose to sell yourself out to make as much money as you can, or you to do something else with your time, socialism doesn't allow such choices. In practice socialism has repeatedly failed, capitalism has it's problems, getting rid the estate tax will make them worse, but as a whole it has worked much better than socialism. It's funny to me that the people who I know who have most sung the praises of socialism have much bigger opportunities than those who believe in self reliance and have had nothing given to them.
Not exactly about the estate tax. I really believe that we should live in a meritocracy, and large estates handed down creates a aristocracy of wealth. I am not a big fan of that, although for the most part the children of the rich are downwardly mobile. There was an NY times Opt Ed piece a few months ago that I really liked, instead of an estate tax we should have a gift tax (for receiving gifts) such that you have a lifetime of $1 Million tax free gifts that you can receive, after that a draconian tax is levied. That would reward spreading your wealth out to more than just one or two children, and non-profits at the same time.
He said "might consider making". He never said "owe". He didn't even imply "owe".
instead of buying. If you bought the distro CD's and manuals then this might be asking a bit much.
I hope it helps...they make good software...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I have trouble trusting someone who is doing 'somthing' for 'nothing'. Don't get me wrong I am sure they are out there but the rest of us have trouble grasping what makes a person like that tick. If I can see that someone is making a profit, be it money or not, I can better judge their motives. I am not saying there is not a line over which profits become obscene but I am not sure where to draw that line in the sand.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
The GPL does no such thing. As an example, XEmacs was at one point used in a commercial GPL'd project whose name I have forgotten. It was an IDE on steroids. (Who knows, maybe it's still around?). Anyway, the company behind it charged significantly more than 1kUSD for it.
The GPL only limits how much you can charge for the source if someone you provided with only binaries asks you for it. If you charge 1kUSD there is a risk that RMS will buy a copy and distribute it, of course. Due to the general distrust of software that you don't have to pay for, that is a very minor problem.
PS Why doesn't blockquote type="cite" work here?
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
...purportedly for doing good things, which in the case of, say, the Salvation Army is at least believable. Many churches make immense profits and hoard staggering wealth (statues in St Paul's Basilica, for example, are worth $billions each). So why can't Mandrake, who have been doing good things (including, recently, giving a trendy Yankee marketing-bedazzled CEO the bum's rush), not be a target for donations?
And to relate to you more directly, BeCool, WWJD? Well, not go to school for starters - Jesus trained at home to be a responsible citizen and a carpenter. He didn't suffer the damage that factory-school-based ``socialisation'' (regimentation) inflicts.
When Jesus switched careers at maturity (age 30) to full-time public speaker, recruiting officer, pharmacopoeia-less healer and occasional caterer, the new job description included giving good stuff away (life, healing, salvation, assurance, information) for free and living on donations. Is there a parallel with Mandrake? (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Hear, hear!
Go and have a look back at, for example, the old Mandrake Cooker archives (I'm a list member there). Time and time again, people wrote to say ``Hey, I really like your distro but downloaded it instead of buying a boxed set because the box was [too slow/unavailable in my area/Had extras I didn't want/etc]. Is there some way I can give you some money to offset the cost of providing that free download?'' Mandrake caved in after about a year of this and provided the donations link.
I am left with the impression that Mandrake management didn't quite believe it, until the money started flowing...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
John Buswell replied the following to his own article on imaclinux.net:I understand the concept, my problem is with calling it a donation and trying to present it in a way that tries to blur the line between donating to Mandrake and donating to open source projects. Out of the entire Mandrake distribution, I'd guess that less than 30% of it is actually work done by MandrakeSoft themselves, while the remaining 70% is work done by other open source projects. Up until now, I've seen MandrakeSoft's willingness to put their distribution up for free for all (unlike other vendors) was their good faith and good will towards the open souce community, and their way to contribute back in a big way. I mean after all, think of all the money they've made from retail sales and deployment of corporate solutions over the years. You don't see them sharing the spoils with various open source projects that make their distribution, sure I realise that is unpractical, but if they want to put up some kind of contribution page, they should have it state clearly that it is for people who don't want to purchase the retail and want to give back. Also eliminating the automatic price of $19.99 that pops up would show that they are not trying to sell something... I wonder if they are liable for tax on donations?
Totally off-topic but thank you for the proportional representation link. I absolutely agree with that campaign.
Cheers!
The museum example was entirely bogus because museums are paid for by our money in the first place, and secondly they're non-profit. If Mandrake get out of their financial slump then do you ever expect them to turn around and share their profits with their customers? It'd be cool, but I doubt it.
If the community gave them $10,000 and that paid for several programmers to actually be able to spend their days programming (rather than getting a "real" job), and then Mandrake releases that code under the GPL, then that is what they're giving back.
Jeez, give him a break, it's only a single point, f'God's sake. I believe the phrase "Get a life" applies...
I know there isn't a legal requirement to post binaries or source under the GPL (it just requires that if you give someone the binary, you have to give them the source, too), but it would be awfully nice if Mandrake would be nice about their programs. I use Debian, but I used to use Mandrake. When I installed Debian, I kept my Mandrake installation, too, just in case Debian didn't work out. Turned out, I wanted to use DrakX. No problem, right? Just copy the files. Well, no, that didn't work, even after doing various complicated things. Eventually, I got it working long enough to do what I wanted, but I had to edit a bunch of scripts and stuff. Now, that's Mandrake's prerogative, if they want to make their programs only work with their distro. But it would be very nice, and would lend credence to their claims of "giving back to the community," if they would release their programs in the usual way, with a reference on Freshmeat, with tarballs and RPMs, so that they would run on normal; Linux systems. Or at least have it on their site so people could find it. Similarly, Corel (a Debian-based distro) refuses to release .debs for WordPerfect. I know it's not Free, but it's free-as-in-beer, and anyone can get the tarballs. If they do, though, they will find that WP doesn't work on a Debian or Storm system, and as far as I can tell, you can't get it to. So why can't we non-Corel users get in on that WP-lovin' action? Not fair, sez I.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
All the users that no longer bought the store released product from Mandrake wanted some way of giving back to the company that put out (arguably) one of the best Linux distributions for them. And made it available for free download. Thus the idea of a donation page. Where users that downloaded isos would be able to give a little back to Mandrake for their nice work.
While some of Rob's analogies are a bit...off, I actually sort of agree with him. If you're going to download a distro's ISO image off their servers you ought to think about passing a few bucks their way. Yes they are corporations but no it isn't like Ford or Chevy asking for donations to improve safety. They are companies developing software they MUST give away. They're also companies you might particularly want to see survive a period of cutbacks and a tough market. Chip in when you download an ISO if you've got an extra ten bucks.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Hmm, I never thought about it that way but
it looks like Linux distros are pioneering
the street performer protocol in a more or
less unadulterated form. Neat.
This does not match real-life experience, but it is word for word quoted propaganda used in communistic education. Talk about scam. They try it on little children, becaouse the bigger ones would be too smart to believe it.
( I have 10+ years experience in both communistic education and later another 10+ in religion).
Why would anyone ever bother about where do other poeple donate their own money? Is it simple and innocent envy or just unintentional disrespect and intolerance?
Coward NOT anonymous.
Did you ever wonder, to which community have you become by adopting Linux? Five years ago we were willing to donate most of our small excexss to whomever, who would help to building technically superior and commercialy viable alternative solution ot the misery of Windows.
Five years ago I would hardly see anybody suspiciously watching pocket of someone else. Donation was obvious, and the rule was donate time and/or code, if you have some or donate money - if you got some.
Where all these people came from now? Why don't they just hold on tight on their own penny and keep their mouth shut?
Do they appeal on morals?
Who ever said that it is moral not to pay the workers good money for good work?
Who ever said it is moral to contemplate, if someone else did, does, will or would get by accident too much money?
Did you ever hear of anyone to care equally well whether any of the workers in Linux companies make enough for themselfs and their families for decent living?
I have a vision of a GEJ (Greed, Envy, Jealousy) project. one more category would be added to posts clasification, that is GEJ. The GEJ posts would be copied to a separate space and ranked separatedly by independent votes. The ten most malicious GEJ posts would receive slashdot GEJ award and a brand new, shrink wrapped copy of Microsoft Windows XP.
Does anybody have server space available to start the project?
Petrus
If I want to support a company I'll buy some of it's shares. Even if it's OTC, it's a better way than simply "giving" the company money. Stock doesn't necessarily gain interest or returns, but in the end you get something for your $ - you own a small part of the company.
I donate to charities because it is a good thing to do - help other people / causes / etc.
I do not "donate" to companies that exist to make profit. The notion is so absurd that I will stop writing this post.
---
Computer Science: solving today's problems tomorrow.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
One good reason to donate money for a downloaded ISO instead of byuing one is to avoid taxes. Importing software over the net is currently free, but we pay about 20% sales tax for shrinkwrapped software - in Norway that is. I would rather my money go to the creator of the ISO.
Let's not forget that we are talking about FREE software. We are paying for the service of getting it assembled, not for the software itself. Even if you could find the parts to your car for free, most people would probably want to hire a mechanic to do the assembly.
There arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind. (Francis Bacon)
1) They say DONATION. It's pretty hard to claim you didn't understand what 'donation' meant.
2) You do get something from mandrake. They may be a for-profit company, but you can get all their work for free online, whenever you want.
Some people would buy mandrake if they could, to support the company, but it's not available in the stores where they live, so they download it for free. This gives them a way to donate back.
Kind of hard for us to talk about the new economy and then whine about companies doing something different.
Taco's response was well-written, well thought-of and insightful. No matter what you say, I give his response a +1 Insightful.
Yea, I thought, *for once*, you deserved a bit of credit =) Maybe someday I'll say something nice about Katz...
Maybe not.
... That last paragraph you wrote is because people bitch and complain too much, and you know it.
Give it to 'em, they bitch. Charge 'em for it, they bitch.
Post it and don't comment, they laugh at your journalism. Post it and comment about it, they bitch at your site and opinions.
I'm glad I'm not in your shoes.
As has been mentioned, Mandrakesofts donations page came about after numerous requests from the users. I for one am glad to see it -- I've used Mandrake since years ago, and until now I've never paid a cent for it. I love the distro and I would like some way to show it monetarily :-) But I wouldn't go out and by a boxed set because I wouldn't read the manual, I'd throw the box away, I wouldn't need support (if that's even included) and I know retailers probably make more than Mandrakesoft from these sales anyway.
Now the great thing about Mandrakesoft is that they hire lots of developers from many free software projects, like KDE, GNOME, PHP-Nuke, Plex86, Apache and many others. When you make a donation, you can mark those money for, say, KDE development. This way KDE will get better, KDE developers will eat, Mandrakesoft will save some dough and I can sleep at night.
In my opinion Mandrakesoft is heading in the right direction -- their way of income is a lot better than that of SuSE, which seeks to sell more boxes by making it extremely difficult to download their distro. And it's better than that of Red Hat, which charges for services such as automated software updates (which is included free with Mandrake).
Indeed, I think Mandrakesoft is discovering the future ideal way of making free software and still eat three meals a day. Their method is in many ways compliant with The Street Performer Protocol, in that users will pay up if and only if they actually like what they get.
--
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
If you have too much money you should consider giving it to charity or something instead of funding unsound business models. I a company can't make money perhaps they should convert to a non-profit organization. Keeping unhealthy companies alive by charity is just a waste of resources, especially when considering that the average .com personel should be capable of taking care of themselves.
If I look at Mandrake, I see a company with a nice product (i.e. they should be capable of selling it too customers). However they are competing with free products. In fact the only value Mandrake adds to their products is support, integration, testing (could be better though) and ease of use. Keeping the distance with their numerous competitors is a lost battle since it requires constant investments in research and development (growing cost and they are also helping their competitors).
The linux market is growing rapidly, there's plenty of new customers. Not being able to make a profit is a symptom of a bad business model (i.e. there's a structural problem with the revenue vs. the cost).
Perhaps a good business model for an open source company would be to separate the source of cost from the source of revenue. Mandrake could for instance host their development team in a non-profit organization like debian (thus stimulating external developers to partipate) and create a consulting/support company to support the products the non profit organization produces. Cost can then be regulated by limiting funding of the non profit organization. The for profit organization can then focus on the stuff that really matters (i.e. selling support & services and shipping cd's) while the non profit organization is no longer bothered with marketing departments and so on. There wouldn't be any problem with intellectual property since the company was already putting their stuff under GPL anyway. The only real value in an open source company is knowledge of the software, not the software itself.
The idea above is already being applied in Mozilla, open office, netbeans and other projects. In the case of netbeans you have netbeans.org working on the development and Sun shipping commercial products (forte) based on netbeans releases (check it out if you haven't already).
Jilles
My solution has always been simple: after I've been using a product for a few months, and I've really got a good handle on its shortcomings, and after I've seen how it treats my support needs (or lack thereof), I re-evaluate the purchase price. If I feel like I got way, way more than I bargained for, and the stuff is really good, I give money where it counts - THE DEVELOPERS directly.
You'd be surprised (or maybe not) how easy it is to find out who the key developers are on any given software project. Rather than just mailing them a check, send them a gift certificate for something useful. It tells them that you are thankful for the great job they did, and it makes them more likely to improve the product and take your comments seriously.
Even better, if you're selective about where you buy the gift certificates, you can actually kill two birds with one stone. It goes without saying that you shouldn't be giving away Amazon gift certificates, but ThinkGeek might be a good candidate for you.
You can make a statement to the developer that they're doing a great job, and you can make a statement about the kind of company you'd like to support.
After saying all this, it should be pretty clear that I don't endorse sending money directly to the companies themselves. If they go down the tubes because they're not smart enough to price their products successfully and market them, that's their own dang problem.
What's your damage, Heather?
I don't understand your position; you will buy shrinkwrapped for money when you could download for free, and you say you do it to support their efforts, from which I infer that you would, all other things being equal, be just as happy with a straight download.
You're paying $70 for something, and the parts of it you apparantly value, you could get for free. You're giving them $70 you don't have to give them, because you want to see them succeed.
That is a donation.
Sure, you get a physical CD, and a manual, and a nice box, but if you value those things at less than $70, you're donating the difference. When you donate to PBS during a pledge drive, they give you some toys or posters or shirts or things, but it's still a donation, because they tend to give you those things at a donation level far higher than those things might otherwise be worth. People pay the extra, because they want to donate, just as you are donating.
It would be far more efficient if you just gave them the $70 via the donation system, because then they wouldn't incur the costs of the physical artifacts you don't really want.
I didn't mean to imply that I think anyone's under any moral obligation - this isn't shareware, it's freeware. I just pointed out that if you've downloaded or bought from cheapbytes then you havn't helped Mandrake, and that would IMO be when it might be appropriate to donate (if you want to support them).
IMO SuSE is definitely going to be one of the survivors - they are doing very well (diminant in Europe, I believe), and have a philosophy that distinguishes them from RedHat and Mandrake. I see more and more people who've been former RedHat/Mandrake users who subsequently move to SuSE.
Whether Debian and Slackware can both continue, I'm not sure. Maybe they'll survive (or at least one of them) as more niche orientated for server use, since for desktop use they're IMO going to have a hard time competeing with the wealth of packages available in the RPM format (unless of course they switch).
As a former RedHat and current but dissatisfied Mandrake user, I'm looking at the next release of Libranet (debian based) or Slackware as my next upgrade. It seems Slackware current is about to go Beta, and is surprisingly up-to-date in terms of having all the latest X, KDE, GNOME etc releases, along with a nice solid 2.95.3 gcc.
If you use Mandrake and bought it from them or retail, then you owe them nothing. However if you use it and downloaded it or bought if from cheapbytes then Mandrake got nothing from you, and you might consider making a donation.
The botom line though is that's the business model Mandrake have chosen, and if it doesn't work then it's up to them to change it.
The phoney "consumer demand" I complained about is the sort that contrives features, then tries to justify them as "what people want."
The Mandrake donations thing I consider genuine and positive -- they actually *are* providing a good means to simultaneously gather / understand what people want and actually help effect it. It makes good sense to me, and I've been seeing it for a little while mentioned on mandrakeforum as well.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Companies frequently talk about "consumer demand" as if it exists as a steady stream into their corporate headquarters. ("We introduced the new Floozbitznitz2000 to answer our customers' demand for a combination flashlight / vaccuum cleaner / all-terrain vehicle / toothbrush -- and for a limited time we're offering it for special prices!")
In 5 words, "bullshit."
Mandrake though *is* actually opening themselves up to customer demand by saying "Hey, what features or projects are you so interested in that you would not only *pledge* to give money, but *actually* give money for?"
Don't want to give money? Don't. (To Mandrake, the local public TV station, bum down the street -- heck, there are thousands of organizations and individuals you can choose to not give money to!")
I for one am happy to see something close to micropayments for free software projects, organized by a company that sponsors and releases many kilolines of free software, as well as makes a very nice distro to wrap it in.
I'd like to see an option to send money to specific developers, too (the Linus Torvalds 10th Anniv. of Linux Fun Fund?), or to support specific sub-projects. (I'd pay $10 toward a Merlin modem for a developer who'd make them work more nicely with Linux -- anyone else?)
That it happens to be a private, distro-making company organizing this seems to tweak people a lot, but to me it's a perfect demonstration of what makes Free software work -- voluntary interactions that make people happy.
And as someone else has already pointed out, Ford doesn't have a mechanism to let you choose what aspects of their cars your purchase price of a new car goes to improve -- with software, the idea that the future will be what you want it to me makes a lot more sense than it does with nearly any other type of product.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
For-profit companies should be managed toward maximizing shareholder returns. This pursuit is a very tricky balancing act, and the companies that succeed will and should be the ones that survive.
Donations to such companies would inject cash without providing incentives to become more efficient and productive -- in fact, it could well be a disincentive. And donations in no way help a company measure results or understand how to build and market successful products. Those benefits come from offering a product and quantifying its value and demand by revenue.
I'm all for donating to Open Source projects and other non-profit enterprises, but once you start asking for donations to a for-profit company, you're advertising your imminent doom.
I'm afraid donations to Mandrake may be counterproductive to the company, the industry, and even the person who's donating, since one indirect result is eventually likely to be a Dead Company who cannot pursue the activities you chose to use your cash to promote.
-Standfast.
In light of your analogy to car manufacturing:
If car manufactureres let you just walk up to their factory and take the components and assemble themselves, we might be closer to what mandrake, and all other linux operating systems distributions do. THEY LET YOU DOWNLOAD THEIR PRODUCT FOR FREE. Let us not forget this. I think that of the possible methods to ask for some cash back for all those people who just sample mandrake, or who download the ISO of every new distro, just to play with it, asking for donations is a much less onerous version than some other distro's who have started charging for ANY acquistion of their product.
It's like buying software without the licence. And I'm all for it.
hmmmm?
Rather than considering it a "donation" which is encumered with the feeling of "diverting money from non-profits" and "helping companies with unsound business models", think of it simply as dynamic pricing, where the decision of how much to charge is based on the real data of how much the customer is willing to pay.
Finally, dynamic pricing that works!
Project : KOffice.
I don't know about others or I don't care about the 'right thing'. I have been using Mandrake exclusively for 3 years and I want to give something back for the company. In the past I occasionally buy the shirnk wrapped Mandrake just for the sake of giving money to them. (I normally download ISOs. If I remember correctly, Mandrake was the first one to provide ready to go ISO! Then every one else followed).
Recently I have been too busy (or lazy) to go out and buy a packaged version. And I don't want to pay the $80 for their delux (or what ever it is called nowadays) version. On the other hand, paying $20 online is very convenient, so I just did that.
Mandrake is a great distribution and a great company. I hope they pull through this shaky economic times and continue to set the bar for other distributions.
LinuxLover
Actually, Red Hat already did ask for donations two years ago, on August 11th 1999. Many people gave them $800, and people were so enthusiastic that Red Hat had to turn away donations... Some of the refused donators got really upset about this.
No, because everyone is not as morally perfect as you imagine yourself to be. For example, I know that I will work harder to benefit myself than I will to benefit anonymous strangers. If that makes me greedy and selfish, so be it.
Either your desire is to make the world a better place or it is not.
Capitalism and profit are not inconsistent with your goals. Advances in technology and medicine have made the world a better place, and they are largely done by entities motivated by self-interest. Socialism denies human nature; capitalism accepts it and channels it toward the public good.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
> Or, if you prefer, go build your own kernel, your own version of the Gnu tools, your own version of your favourite window manager, and so on... Good luck...
Or use Debian. Debian is not a company. Aside from incongruencies in your comparison between software and public transport. But please let's not start a flamewar on THAT again...
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
> In 5 words, "bullshit."
Well, actually that't not true. There REALLY was a lot of demand on the Cooker mailinglist (and also others) that Mandrake should put up a donations page. IIRC, it started around last December.
I know that there was demand, since I also wanted to have something like this!
Alexander Skwar -- Homepage: http://www.digitalprojects.com | http://www.iso-top.de iso-top.de - Die
My opinion is that to many people want cheese with their whine.
That should be too not "to". Heaven forbid if CmdTaco ever moved to a true printed medium and had to deal with editors!
When I was commuting, I used to get my petrol from one particular vendor. They consistently kept their prices low after the other stations put up their prices weekly and brought them down again as soon as they could.
I appreciated that. So I took to regularly buying some of their overpriced oil and overpriced drinks my small way of thanking them.
I don't think it's too much of a stretch to realise that if I got something from Mandrake for free (which I haven't; I don't use their distro), I'd be more likely to give them something back, whether it's money, bug reports, documentation or code.
If you don't want to give Mandrake money, don't. You also don't have to tip the waiter. They get paid, after all. You don't have to tip the busker who's entertaining you as you walk by. The only difference between this and Mandrake is that with the waiter or the busker, there isn't the person standing in front you with the proverbial cap in hand and thus the social pressure to tip.
Part of the free software economy is to share and share alike. It can be summed up best using the words of a wise man: "You received without payment; give without payment". If you can't give code, bug fixes, documentation or other things, consider giving money instead. All up to you.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
as multiple articles have no reported the misinformation about layoffs. I won't point them out there, but there were multiple on Slashdot, itself. Also, the donation page was created at _user request_. Come on, let's work on getting our facts straight, shall we? =)
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
Why retail? Because in the end it helps the market analyst drones realize that people are using the stuff and are buying it off-the-shelf. I now have a second option that more directly benefits the creators of the distribution and cuts out the middle-men. My dilemma is that I then don't count as a Linux user in the eyes of the world.
Unfortunately Debian is getting shortchaned in the process. Maybe I should contribute to Debian as well... Where is Debian's donations page?
I have one question for Mr. Buswell: Have YOU contributed any code to Linux? Have YOU bought your distribution? If the answer is yes to any one of these then your conscience should be clear. However, if the answer is no and you are leeching your distributions from the net without giving anything back, then I have the utmost contempt for you sir.
--- Che Leno
Mandrakesoft is in business to make money. I know, it is a tired old phrase. I think that they can be successful by doing a few things differently.
The should be making most of their money through media purchases and support contracts. I doubt if they are profiting from free downloads. People want free downloads, because people are stingy. Give them free downloads, but don't put them in packaged format. Compile binaries and dump them in an ftp directory. How many people would want to piece an OS application by application?
Donations for QA testing? That is a little absurd. Although, I was directly approached by a Mandrakesoft senior executive once, who asked if I could help in QA testing a piece of their software. I think it is time for a revamp of the business model. Perhaps Linux companies should start selling hardware in addition to their OS distribution. Sun, IBM, and Hewlett Packard make a little money selling hardware.
About 10 yrs ago, I canceled my cable TV and have never had any desire to resubscribe.
When they announced their annual price hike that year, they made the mistake of touting huge improvements, including much better picture quality and the addition of digital stereo sound. I certainly had not noticed ANY picture improvement and I didn't think I was getting digital stereo.
So, I called them and asked about it. "What is your address?", she asked. When I told her, she replied, "Oh, that won't be available in your area for another two to three years". "Well, I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for it, now. Just cancel my service".
I have never looked back.
Mandrake is a great Linux Distro for reasons we all know and love. But this Donation thing demonstrates a selfishness that has outdone Microsoft at their worst. Open Letter to Mandrake: If you want to raise some funds, sell some equity or barrow the money. If you feel that your work is a charity, declare yourself as a non-profit organization.
Someone you trust is one of us.
I liked Mandrake up before 7.2. Had always just downloaded ISOs. Felt like I should support the project. So I bought the box with their stupid 7.2 distribution. This was a buggy piece of crap regardless, but those of us who bought the box didn't even get the buggy piece of crap the rest of you did. We got pre-release KDE and other stuff, since the box was shipped early to meet the Christmas rush. After downloading over 500MB worth of patches and still having a flaky system, I decided that this contribution to Mandrake would be my last. Even if they get it together, I'll go back to downloading ISOs. Why? Because supporting a company as a customer only works if they support you as well. This is not a charity.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
If I'm watching TV and I see a Mandrake commercial with Sally Struthers, I'm immediately switching to debian
Let me preface my comment by saying that I use Mandrake both for personal use and for corporate use. I do not download ISOs; I buy retail because I believe in the company and the product they produce.
On to my opinion:
When I left full time corporate work to pursue my own ventures, I did it with the simple premise...make money. As I realized I could no longer accept the liabilities and exposures of doing business as a private individual, I formed a business as a corporate entity. Still for the goal of making money.
AFAIK, MandrakeSoft is not a non-profit although their investors probably not so sure. As a for-profit company, Mandrake needs to increase their profits or reduce expenses. I do not agree with a for-profit accepting donations.
Mandrake is in business for money. A for-profit company has no nobler goal than to make money. There is no higher power. There is no lofty ideal. Some companies work to make money in more ethical ways than others, but the end goal is the same.
In the end, if Mandrake wants to charge to download, so be it. If they want to leave the downloads free, again so be it. For me, I will buy shrink wrapped to support their efforts. I will not, however, donate to a for-profit corporation. Let them earn their operating expenses the old-fashioned way.
"Draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion." Sun Tzu
I think that they way all services should work is that you give as much as you feel the product is worth. Would you rather be able to us Mandrake, or have an extra $100 in your pocket? What about $50 or $20 or $10? Pay as much as you think it is worth. If I thought is was even remotely possible to run a business this way, PhenomINET would already be doing it, but I think most people (appearantely some slashdot posters included) are simply to abusive of the system for it to work.
Actually, I already make suggestions to people regarding what service level is best for them, and I tell them straight up if our services aren't in their best interest (though I think that is extremely rare). I don't just try and sell them to the highest amount possible, I try to honestly make it worth their while. I'm a firm believer that business transactions should be beneficial for both sides, and I do everything I can to ensure that it is so. If everyone else did the same, we wouldn't have to worry about companies like Micro$oft.
-- Gnaeus Sabaco
This is SO educational! -- Kintaro Oe
I think all distros should put up a online payment page, with no specific price. Let me throw what I think is the right amount at Red Hat and not some arbitrary figure (I'd say 10 bucks when I first download it and maybe more later if I like it). Also, make it optional.
Gorkman
How could anyone possibly even think of complaining about this. They're not demanding payment. They're not forcing you to buy their product. They're in a touch financial situation and they want to continue supporting their community of users. They're ASKING for donations form people who want to help support them. I don't care if they're for profit or not. Clearly they're not making a good enough profit and they're trying to find a way to subsidize paying their people.
The fact that you get to choose, in some general way, how that money is used is just a bonus in my opinion.
You can't fault them for trying to stay in business by requesting donations. Not to mention, the donations will likely indicate which areas their customers really care about.
For $200 I got a T-shirt from the FSF. Now that was cool! (Expensive though ;*) Maybe something to think about for those "evil" donation-hungry corporations among us? :-)
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
So, basically, the only good thing for Mandrake to do is ban the end user from downloading their distro until the user put in his credit card number and sent them $50?
I hope all the slashdot hippies will excuse my non-pc vocabulary, but you, sir, are retarded.
Whoever this Linus Trovalds is, I bet he's wondering why he's getting all this money sent to him :)
I am like this I guess. I am not responsible for a business model, so they cannot blame me for downloading an ISO donating nothing. On the other hand donation can be good help for them, as long as I get a little piece of control - well I think that's fair because I'm willing to trust a tech, but I won't trust a sales/marketing guy, not even in the OpenSource world. In my opinion, the Mandrake deal is good, if I am to choose where the money goes, I get more motivated for donation. The way they *present* their request for donation is a PR thing, maybe they could do better on that.
--
Bizar technology?
I heard there are beggars/tramps/drug junkies making more money than me, perhaps in the order of 2500 U.S. Dollars or 2100 Euro per month. This is ofcourse without the tax reduction, but as the tax reduction is not applied, this is their net monthly income.
In third world countires begging is even more lucrative, as mature man usually mutulate childrens limbs (ie break them permanently) in order to make them even look worse :( , such that they make more money. Practices like this are mostly performend in countries like India :( . Perhaps if we would artificially disable children and send them onto the street here in the first world, we would make even more money than the ordinary tramp.
Amen
--
Bizar technology?
Until Mandrakesoft put up their 'Donations' page; I had not paid Mandrakesoft a single penny for their services - unfortunately there is no incentive to buy a boxed distro when you already have the software on freshly-burnt CD-R's.
(I know about Mandrake Powerpack - but it offers nothing that I cannot get elsewhere)
When I consider that I could potentially spend the equivalent of seven day's wages on a license to run Windows 2000 Advanced Server; it makes me feel guilty that I can download a significantly superior operating system from the Internet for next to nothing.
I have no objection to paying Mandrakesoft the same amount of money I would be paying to Microsoft in order to keep up to date with their 'latest and greatest' piece of crap. Here is how my donations are distributed:
30% - Kernel
30% - Advanced Extranet Server
30% - Security/Crypto
10% - No preference
I am only contributing to the development of the software I use; so in the end, I will benefit from the my donation and the donations of others... personally I don't see what the problem is ?
I am tired of reading that people should 'expect' Linux distributions to be free - excepting Debian (which is produced for the community by the community); most other distributions are produced by large corporates like Red Hat and Mandrake. I don't think many people understand the work that goes into producing a mix of kernel/userspace programs/GUI apps that just *works* straight out of the box. I don't mind supporting a company that provides exactly what I want and means I have to do less work at the end of the day in order to get it running... my time is money... and if their distro saves me even two hours a day by easing configuration and installation, it deserves some financial recompense.
Before all the GPL stalwarts start getting their flamethrowers out and attempt to give me a good roasting - the GPL prohibits charging for software under its license (except for duplication costs).
But, what if I *want* to pay for GPL software ?
Does the GPL take away my freedom to pay for software that I think is of commercial quality; so I can give the authors something to show my appreciation for their efforts ?
It also helps Mandrakesoft determine what people use their product for and helps them concentrate development on those parts that people appreciate the most.
As Mandrakesoft have already said, donations are entirely voluntary. So why the hell did this make the Slashdot front page ?.
"Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting wuntime ewwors!" - Elmer Fudd
Ah, but therein lies the problem.
/. editors. They post stupid (and sometimes flat-out incorrect) articles just to get people riled up, and then sit back and ignore any corrections made to their original premise.
/. is being run by Jon Katz.
This isn't a question of 'inform and discuss.'
It's more like 'misinform, inflame, and ignore' on the part of the
This is a crappy way of "informing" people, but an excellent way to generate traffic. Come to think of it, it sounds a lot like
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
So I see no harm in having a donation page. It allows people, me for instance, to pay what I can for the distribution without paying full price. I don't need the support, but I don't have the capabilities to make my own distro. I say be nice and give up what you can for the OS on your desk. Remember, this is voluntary, if you don't want to pay, you don't have to pay!
Basically, Slackware is now optional shareware. What's wrong with Mandrake doing the same? As long as it's optional, what does it matter?
+++
+++
NO CARRIER
The Mandrake Store puts an interesting spin on this as well. They now have a $5 "cheapo 2 CD burn set," and a $90 "fully featured, with manuals, 7 cd set." Note the lack of your standard Red Hat, SuSE, whathaveyou $30 boxed set. Basically, the only way Mandrake can make money now is off of the expensive boxed set, donations, or shirts/hats/mugs/whatever. I'm not quite sure where I'm goin with this, but it is interesting.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
It's called buying stock in them. That's how companies get funding. Sure, many people bought stock purely because they believed it would return money for them, but you could also buy stock because you believe in what the company was doing and want to see the work continue.
Unfortunately, that's the way it used to work. That's been ruined by the new 'day-trading' mentality, where so-called "investors" buy stocks not because they have any interest in, faith in, or even comprehension of, the long-term plans of the company, but simply as playing cards that they can hope to rack up points for dumping into another player's hand at the right time.
I find it hard to feel sorry for these day-traders, but what I really feel sorry for is the good companies they've managed to raise up and send hurtling down to destruction.
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
Common People. Look at their forum. You will be surprised that many of us have begged to send them money and to cut out the middle man. They resisted for as long as I can remember and I have been reading and occasionally posting to Mandrakeforum since it's creation. It's a donation. It's not required. It's not forced down your throat, it's optional, there is no set amount. If you don't want to do it, then don't do it. You can download the ISOs, you can get all the source code, you can buy the boxed set. GET OVER IT PEOPLE
This, AGAIN?
People! Mandrake's donation program was user requested. It is *well documented* in the forums on the Mandrake site, and goes back many, many months. The whole point of the program was to give users who download the ISO and don't want to spend $$$ on a full distribution a way to say "thanks" to the company who created it, without paying $80.
It's completely voluntary, and was initiated at the request of a number of Mandrake users on the website. Every time it seems this issue is settled, someone who doesn't know the history brings it up again. Perhaps it's time Mandrake put a FAQ up about it, to prevent articles such as this from making it onto Slashdot.
If Mandrake were in the service business model, they should call it a service charge for maintaining / improving your Mandrake software. You don't really need to pay the service fee, if you don't want Mandrake to do anything with the software. But others will.
And if nobody pays the fee and Mandrake goes under, that is because the community does want them to exist.
I think the most important request for donations from the userbase come from the need of making a distribution work on as many platforms as possible. Since there is a lot of different hardware around, it is necessary to be able to test the various implementations of kernels and installersoftware on most of them.
Then the obvious next step is to buy hardware, which costs money. Luckily alot of hardware manufacturers are happy to donate hardware to the kernel/installer hackers or even submit patches themselves, but unfortunately there are some who don't (especially NVidea, who doesn't want to give any specs on their hardware).
There are other parts of cost for hosting a free distribution, eg. servers, webhosting, administration. It's questionable if all these costs can be paid by the income from consumers buying their products instead of downloading them.
As a last (important) point there is the availability of highspeed internet to many users. Many users who'd first buy a CD are now able to download them, taking away income from the
distribution providers.
This is a replacement signature.
Imagine I set up a company packaging FBSD with a user obsequious installer. I could setthis up as a normal for-profit company and hope to eat from the profits, or I could set it up as a not for profit organisation and hire myself to run it at a sallary. In both cases I get the money.
profit and income only become interestingly different when the ownership of an organisation is wider.
Better to look at what the organisation is doing than it's notionla status wrt profit.
_O_
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
I'm getting the product. What's wrong with wanting to pay for it?
(I've done this with music, too; I burned a CD from a friend of mine, and gave her the cash to give to the artist. Again, I was getting the same thing I'd buy in stores (if she released her stuff in stores), and it's something I'm quite happy to pay for.)
Besides, everything Mandrake developes is Free (or at least free), so it's all benifitting the community anyway. And they make good stuff!
-Erf C.
-Erf C.
Cthulu always calls collect...
it both ways. When an article is posted about MS saying that giving away code is bad and likely not a sustainable business, everyone whines and bitches that MS and their ilk are a bunch of goons. When an article (such as this) is posted about how a free software corporation is looking for donations (user-requested or no), most everyone laughs and says "tough shit, that's their business model". It occurs to me that, as a matter of principle (sp), you should pick a side and stand behind it. Everyone here knows that it's going to be tough for companies like Redhat,et.al. to make money on services alone and with their primary product available for free, that's about the only revenue stream they have. After all if we, their advocates, won't even pick up the tab for a measly download, where are they going to be? Where are we going to be? I'll tell you where: we're going to have to sit in the middle and suck on it and the MS people, having been proven correct, *will* have the last laugh. They will have shown the world that the vast majority of the linux community is precisely what they said to begin with: a bunch of whining maggots who want everything for free. Go ahead, mod me down but you know I'm right.
Well, it depends on the type of shareware. Many are open-ended "if you like this, send me $10" types. And the rest are, realistically, the same thing. No one pays for shareware, and no one releases shareware with the intention that everyone is going to pay them. But I guess I'm more referring to what I'll call donationware, which there is a lot of out there.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Well, the thing is, companies are required by law to behave rationally. Thus, if something is legal, and it is in the best interests of the company to do it, they are required by law to do it.
There are two major flaws to this distinction, however. First of all, I contend that it is always in a company (and an individuals) best interest to behave morally. I'm not talking about silent altruism, I'm talking about having morals, following them, and letting everyone know that you follow them. Indeed, it is even more in the best interest of a company, because they have perpetual life, and their reputations are much more public and widespread.
Secondly, I argue that just as many, if not most, corporations behave selfishly, humans, when acting anonymously and with regard to the general public, also tend to act selfishly. I'm not denying altruism, that is certainly part of human behavior, but altruism is usually directed at a particular special interest. In any case, I'd actually prefer to donate (money, or other limited resources) to a company than a random Joe Schmoe on the street. I can research the actions of a company, and find out exactly what it is they're going to do with it. With Joe Schmoe, for all I know s/he is going to use it to hire a contract killer.
Companies, just as humans (who happen to run the companies), are neither good nor evil. Just as you have your Hitlers, your Mother Theresas, and your Richard M. Stallmans (to pick a representative for someone in between), corporations are the same way.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
I completely agree with this argument, but look at it from the point of view of shareware, or donationware. It's pretty much the same thing, except it's a corporation (oo, bad bad) doing it, instead of an individual.
Personally, I don't believe in donations, either to a corporation, or to an individual, except to a non-profit corporation with a mission which I agree with. Which implies that the NPO itself does more than just donate the items off to individuals. Personally, I support Goodwill, which provides jobs and low cost goods, and generally improves society at both ends, not just handouts. Plus they're not Christian, and they don't try to force people to stop drinking alcohol, which is why I prefer them to something like Salvation Army.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
This is the price of doing business in the Linux arena. Many of these companies got funding by pointing to the number of downloads they where recieving from there companies.
This is not abouyt letting hackers eat. This is about poor marketing, and needing more cutomers to make money.
There is no reason to believe that if the current big distro houses go out of business, Linux will go away. Most these distro house started when there was no money to little money to make with Linux.
How much money will Mandrake donate to the people that they based there distro off of?
Anybody who thinks they can build a billion dollar empire off Linux distros is a moron, plain and simple. Thats not to say you can't make money, just that your not going to be as large as Microsoft, thats the cost of Free software, both in principle and cost.
Is it wrong for mandrake to ask you to donate? no, of course its within there rights to ask. If they start demanding people pay for the downloads, then maybe we should demand that Linus gets royalties? oops, there goes free software, beer and speech.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Simply put, they're telling the world they're strapped for cash and that they don't really have a clue how they're going to make any either.
Many .com's got caught in the .bomb... and if Mandrake isn't careful they'll be .gone
However, I am quite happy to pay a little for what I do get. The distributions are worth something to me.
The way I see it is that Mandrake is a commercial company who also provide a free service in addition to their commercial service. I am quite happy to donate to their free service. It will help other people who cannot afford to pay for the full distribution.
--
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
For-profit companies have accepted donations in the form of tips for ages. The parallels to Mandrake's donation request are actually very close once you get past the obvious differences.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
Slightly off-topic. This thread to and from CmdrTaco, emphasizes the general quality of users. It seems the lower the number, the more thoughtful the user. Of course, there are exceptions, like they guy below with a 45xxxx number over the FAQ/and good to discuss it.
I do think it's OK for RedHat and the likes to as for donations though, since they are providing a salary to many of the hackers that have made Linux what it is today. It's more or less essential to the Linux community that RedHat and others stay afloat; if they need donations to do it, so be it.
I also like Mandrake's concept of specifying where you want your donation to go, but I don't think this is always a good thing. We'd all agree that support for obscenely powerful systems with 1.2 skjaterrabytes of memory is important to Linux on a grand scale, but how many people do you really think are going to check that box instead of '3d graphics acceleration' or 'GNOME'? Maybe I'm being unfair in saying that Linux should be a server OS first, then a desktop, but this is my post damnit!
In any case, I don't think there's any problem with donations and such they way they are now, and everyone just needs to STOP BITCHING!!!
I don't think it's a question of "God forbid hackers should eat" as much as "God forbid free software hackers should eat."
There seems to be a double standard that once a company dabbles in Linux or anything else good or righteous, it must suddenly be held to a different standard.
It does make the world a bit neater, dividing it only into white hats for good and black hats for evil, but is it helpful or mature?
It happens on Slashdot often enough to be disturbing. I remember *Michael* emailing me with a refusal to announce Safeweb's distributed anti-censorship redirector Triangle Boy, in large part because Safeweb isn't free (speech). Yet five minutes later he posted something earth-shattering about a Nintendo colour gameboy.
Two un-free (speech) companies, two product launches, one for a global anti-censorship initiative, one for a toy, and a whopping double-standard.
If you're going go near anything worthwhile, you better go all the way. Else, watch out!
If you check his homepage he has posted a bit of an update down the page.
He says: my problem is with calling it a donation and trying to present it in a way that tries to blur the line between donating to Mandrake and donating to open source projects. Out of the entire Mandrake distribution, I'd guess that less than 30% of it is actually work done by MandrakeSoft themselves, while the remaining 70% is work done by other open source projects. Up until now, I've seen MandrakeSoft's willingness to put their distribution up for free for all (unlike other vendors) was their good faith and good will towards the open souce community, and their way to contribute back in a big way. I mean after all, think of all the money they've made from retail sales and deployment of corporate solutions over the years. You don't see them sharing the spoils with various open source projects that make their distribution, sure I realise that is unpractical, but if they want to put up some kind of contribution page, they should have it state clearly that it is for people who don't want to purchase the retail and want to give back. Also eliminating the automatic price of $19.99 that pops up would show that they are not trying to sell something...
All hes saying is one has the option to donate, if they fill like it.
SuSe doesn't. The only SuSe 7 ISO is the evaluation version that runs straight off the CD. The only way to get the full distro is to buy the boxed version.
If you want to make sure that the hackers eat (or even can afford new cars), then donate to the hackers, not the companies.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
While one persons' donation like this wouldn't be of consequence, many people's may. Is there an organisation set up to distribute donations to developers equitably? Is it possible? Sensible?
rr
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
They release often, and make isos available.
McMillan (or is it mCGrawHill?) makes more on the retail sales than they do (as they should... they lose money if no one buys it).
If you've got the bandwidth, dl'ing can be prefereable. Don't even need a CD-rom. I'd sure rather they put up a tip box, and me pay it, than they do what suse does... putting iso's up when they get around to it, with no install instructions.
I wonder if the story's author even stopped to think about the ramifications of having his rant posted to the front page of /.. "There's no such thing as bad publicity". Even without saying anything positive about the donation program, he just gave it more publicity than it had likely ever had in the past, and instead of keeping people away has likely SENT people to donate money to Mandrake.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
corporations such as mandrake are hardly turning a profit. It seems to me people are just bitter at the fact that money is involved at all. If open source is going to make it in the business world at all, its supporters are going to have to embrace ideas like this. How the hell is a company supposed to survive when advertisements, charging for service, charging money, and now donations are a bad idea?! I will answer this....They're not. Without some kind of money incentive, OpenSource will stay underground FOREVER.
And then if a Taco post gets mod'ed to +5 people would be claiming that he added the points himself. Either way he can't really win.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a brutal anal raping at airport security
No
If an organization wants to be altruistic and rely on good-will they should be non-profit. Make a non-profit company, sell linux products/services and I will donate. If you believe and are interested in providing a accessible, public benefit - make yourself a non-profit. If you are looking for 'commercial success and profit' - swim with the sharks - you'll get no sympathy from me. There is no reason a Non-Profit cannot sell a product to support itself - just like the goose-stepping capitalists. If you want to support the efforts of a for-profit you like - buy there product*.
Those who can, code, those who don't complain.
Of course, I'm just a tool of one of the largest Linux companies, so what do I know. I'm tainted, evil, and part of the same conspiracy designed to keep free software out of everyone's hands by giving it away for free. I also know who killed JFK. But god forbid that hackers eat. And let's all complain about suggested donations too so that the only way to get copies of free software is through gnutella. Hope that 600-meg ISO doesn't abort half way.
Please, I complain - all the damn time - Am i to stop running GNU/Linux because Im not a kernel hacker? I write a few lines of (bad) GPL code, I also contribute by advocating, submit bug reports etc. I do what I can. I run linux for the freedom - it aligns with my politics. It also aligns with my desires technically. Your comments above are very trollish...
*The only issue I have with that is the unnecessary waste associated with creating and moving a 'product' which is only a symbol of the support you have, which has no utilitarian value and simply ends up causing pollution - the planet then pays for it also in landfills, streams etc etc which are the Non-Captured costs associated with everything you buy, but I digress.
Or, if you prefer, go build your own kernel, your own version of the Gnu tools, your own version of your favourite window manager, and so on... Good luck...
I believe allot of the people who write GPL code purposefully intend for people to use it *FOR FREE*. If you are a company - which is trying to make money for YOURSELF - then i say "good luck" to *you*! You can then try and sell someone else's gratis (libre) work. Dont try and shift focus onto users to make them feel obligated to support for-profit ventures.
NOT EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS FOR PROFIT. Some people (myself) are actually interested in community. Some of us are interested in seeing an end to war, exploitation, poverty, despair, crime, ill-health and everything else that makes people unhappy. I have little interest in hording money and trinkets for myself. Your attitudes betray your priorities and your point-of-view. Is my Point-View 'realistic'? Yes. Either your desire is to make the world a better place or it is not. Making excuses about how difficult it is to eliminate the afore mentioned 'problems' because it is 'impossible' only serves to rest your own conscience... are you really fooling yourself - your not fooling me.
Greed, selfishness, hubris and myopia are never excused as far as Im concerned.
Or, if you prefer, go build your own kernel, your own version of the Gnu tools, your own version of your favourite window manager, and so on... Good luck...
It's even more simple than that.
If you downloaded the ISO and you feel you owe Mandrake something, go out and buy the retail version.
If you're too lazy to do that, order it from the Internet. You even get support.
If you feel you owe them even more than that, go ahead and buy some stock from the company and become an investor.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
If product A is free, and product B is not, going out and spending money on product B instead of using product A for free pretty much amounts to a donation. You're giving someone money that you don't have to give them. :)
--
Nothing wrong with that. No one forces Mandrake to supply ISOs - they are just "kind".
SuSE for example doesnt provide ISO downloads on their site.
Since Mandrake doesnt have the muscle of SuSE they have to ask kindly for money while trying to increase their market share.
Whether you choose to buy direct from the company that created the distribution to ensure they make the most money possible from your purchase, or buy from a reseller is up to you. Either way there are advantages for the Linux movement. Increasing the number of boxed copies sold at retail encourages retailers to stock more Linux software, and improves the image and viability of Linux. As I said in my initial post, buying something physical is not your only option. Reputable Linux companies offer support contracts and services you can buy, which can be very useful.
Donations do not really help anyone, other than filling short term gaps in cash flow. If companies start acting like charities, then the business world will treat them like charities, and ignore them.
There are plenty of ways for free software companies to provide a mechanism for you to give them money, and to my mind simply asking for donations is not only crass, but it undermines the concept that they are a viable company.
If I want to give money to a free software company I will do so by buying a boxed version of their product, a support contract or something similar, and I expect any reputable company to suggest this as the best way to give them money. Even the free software foundation who are charity recommend that the easiest way to make a financial donation is to buy books, clothing and CDROMs from them.
A major Linux company asking for donations damages their image, damages the image of the Free Software movement, and should not be encouraged. If you like Mandrake and want to support future development, buy a copy, even if you already have one you downloaded.
Another point to consider are the rapidly emerging companies involved in distributes computing. Fine, I will admit that there is a nuance between this thread and setups like Seti@Home, but what about other companies, for example the much spoken of as of late United Devices. In some cases, a large number of people have downloaded the client numbercrunchers (be it to search for aliens or to fight cancer), unaware that a portion of the time spent is used on for-profit processing. In effect, there are undeniable similarities between these two situations, don't you think?
jungle is massive
The analogy about a car company asking for 'donations' to improve safety, etc., is about a flawed analogy as you can make. The primary thing wrong about it is that you HAVE to *purchase* a car. Car companies don't make their cars freely available. If they did, I'd bet money they'd ask for money to offset costs of creating the cars.
:) And it may make the long nights/weekends some of these people donate a little more bearable. :)
Honestly, I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with a company like this doing this sort of thing - I think I may go donate a few bucks. I like mandrake, but don't want to spend the $30 or so the stores are asking.
More companies should look at doing this on a larger scale - open source projects anyway. I offered to send a few bucks to the PHP APC project, and one of the developers politely declined, but I bet if a few hundred people donated a few bucks, they might think twice.
creation science book
If users want to send Mandrake money, let them. Obviously this indicates that their product is liked. I've been blasted here on Slashdot for saying that I buy Loki games in addition to the Windows versions I own in order to help Loki to survive.
Well, I want them to survive, so I'll buy their product. I'd even consider sending them a donation or two. Maybe some other people want Mandrake to survive, so they send Mandrake money. What's wrong with that?
Yes, I know: "But they're a commercial organization... marketplace... should have a viable product... etc..." Bullshit. If (for example) Loki goes out of business, I won't be able to buy their games anymore. I don't care if their games are a viable "product" in any given "marketplace" -- I just want to be able to keep playing them. In order for this to happen, Loki must keep making them. In order for Loki to keep making them, they've got to have some cash. So, I'm going to help out with as much cash as I can so that [hopefully] I can continue to play new Linux games. I suspect that other people may feel very much the same way about Mandrake. There's nothing wrong with being willing to pay extra for a specific product in order to allow it to survive. If you can't deal with it any other way, just look it as a personal extension of the essential selfishness of capital-based economies.
If you don't want to send money, don't. But I certainly don't see how this should turn into some kind of argument because you explicitly don't want other people to send their money wherever they want to send it.
Again, for those who didn't get it the first time, if you don't like Mandrake, don't donate. If you like Mandrake but don't want to donate, don't donate. If you like Mandrake and you feel like you want to donate just because you like Mandrake so damn much, send them as much cash as you want. If somebody gives you a hard time about you sending your own money wherever you damn well want to send it, accidentally spill your drink in their lap and get back to what you were doing.
Enough said.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
That might be a good idea.
That makes me really uneasy. So the FSF or Eric Raymond or Cowboy Neal is going to be in charge of which project receives support from a huge pool of "Free Software" donations? Can you imagine the nightmare of nepotism and political squabbling that will create?
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
2/ They pay all the taxes, so it's not legally a donation and they have the right to do it (there was an article about that on linuxtoday but I can't retrieve the URL because it's currently down).
3/ They give a large choice to everybody, from giving nothing and downloading the distro to giving money without getting anything back.
4/ They regularly give the community. The latest action was a check to FSF Europe in last january. Also employing people to work on open-source projects, like KDE, Linux kernel or... Mandrake-Linux! helps.
5/ I think the best option is to go public for them!!! Go Mandrake, go public you'll have all the community behind you and they can take a part of Mandrakesoft. I love this idea. I've heard because they have put this page lately on their website: http://www.mandrakesoft.com/ipo/
come on, this is plain old silly. maybe some of you cant possibly imagine circumstances, but let me tell you about my position.
1) the company i work for pays me double my last job.
2) i believe that the company i work for is special -- it has a very important part in society (research), and i very much respect the values and manner at which it goes about attaining its goals.
3) because of the stock market, the company is a little short on cash. our clients dont have the money to pay us, and our stock in our startups is not worth as much as it should be.
for these reasons, i want to help my company. i do not "donate" money to it, but i donate my time, which the company considers extremely valuable. typically i work longer than i need to without asking for overtime.
there's also some self-less motives that need to be involved in donating to...anything, and it seems that far too many people are too selfish to even consider that.
for example, a friend of yours would probably be considered for-profit, since, when he earns money, he would probably keep some of it. however, if he is in a pinch, would you donate to him?
..just say "no" if you don't want to contribute. Can I have money? There. See how easy it is to say "No?"
Sounds to me like Mandrake is in need of cash. They're looking for it from wherever they can find it and SO WHAT? At least they're not threatening to go under, but it's now time for Mandrake users to simply ask themselves if Mandrake is worth supporting. Go ahead and ask yourself. You still have two options.
* Please do not read my signature.
Lots of U.S. businesses spend their time begging, they just go for people with deeper pockets: senators and congressmen. Subsidies, tax breaks, resource bargains or giveaways, favorable legislation and outright handouts are a response to a lot of corporate begging. Major difference is the money they rebate to the givers in the form of contributions and jobs for friends.
Wouldn't you be outraged if a car company came out and asked for donations to improve safety features or fuel economy? If the car company gave me the car for free then asked for a donation I may well think about it...
You can't (legally) download M$ products for free, but you can download Mandrake Linux for free. If you do grab the ISO and like the distro, donating is good choice for those of us who really feel like Mandrake's worth supporting.
As for those who get upset because Mandrake, RedHat, etc... sell distros and didn't write all the code themselves - wake up!! The companies selling the distros spent a lot of payroll cash to put it all together for you. Take Mandrake 8.0 for example. The install auto-detected all my hardware, non-destructively re-sized my Windblows partition and set up a dual-boot for me. Mandrake had to go through a lot of work to get that install working so beautifully. They deserve every penny they can get.
--
WHy should we give money to a for profit company?
All these Linux Distros are like Dotcoms, there is no way any are going to be making any money, and sooner or later they will be trimmed down to just the best, Probably Debian, Slack, Redhat, and possibly Mandrake.
Although I do like Mandrakes Distro if I had a faster computer, because it is pretty Boggy, It doesn't give you any choice of what services you want running, but it does do some cool stuff, like setup Glide and OpenGL automatically for you, and installs a bunch of cool games, like Tux Racer.
I've moved most of my systems to KRUD, but I still have a lone Mandrake box and I'm moving my wife to linux (finally) and starting her out on Mandrake. I will definitely be donating because I am too impatient to wait for retail boxes so I download the ISO's.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
Many for-profit companies have a much better way to donate: buy their stock. You then reap the rewards of a successful company, or suffer the losses.
For a company that is making open-source software both sold retail AND available for download, some users would volentarely pay for the downloaded version. I would too, assuming I had enough money to spare (but then again, if I did, I'd go buy the retail version.)
Companies that are making billions of dollars, and/or companies that don't really do much (web sites devoted to providing cheats, etc... for games) asking for donations don't have any business doing so, in my opinion.
If you're going to request donations, you should (a) be doing something worthwhile (b) need the money and (c) make the donation a volentary contribution for their services, not just a random thing.
It even persuaded me to cough up some money!
I'm sorry, but I too have major problems donating to a for-profit company, regardless of what they do. That even goes as far as not participating in the distributed computing aids & cancer projects, because they are being run by a company that is making a profit off of it. The proper way to "donate" to a company is to a for-profit company is to BUY something from it. Think Mandrake is doing something worthwile? then go to their web site and order a distro from them. The analogy to toll roads & museums is just plain bad. Museums ARE not-for-profit, so donating is a good thing. Toll roads are for-profit, and you're paying to use their product(the road) & paying isnt optional.
The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout Apr 21-27
The thing is, they are asking for donations, not making you pay them. If you want to give them money, go ahead. If not, don't. No force (unlike some other company's ideas about yearly licensing).
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I can understand such a request. After all I have downloaded MDK 8.0, and have given it to five friends. And MDK didn't recieve any money. Yet it took plenty of hours to complete the distro. They have families, jobs, and other things. Look at Eazle, no money, no product.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Do always answer your questions? Yes I think you do.
__________________
Just a guy with an opinion
I was one of the ones that asked them to do it. There are lots of things that Mandrake does that benefit the community and don't come cheap. With the donation page you can pick what area that you want to contribute to and that is where the money goes. Mandrakeforum is a great feature that is not truly necessary but I love it. From their side it is not an area I would put any money into but as a Mandrake user I would hate to see it go. I'm donating to it and there are lots of other choices.
"If there is nothing you are willing to die for, then you are not really alive." Myself
The idea of accepting donations wasn't even Mandrake's. It was their customers. There are people out there that felt they owed Mandrake for letting them download some great software and asked for it. There are people who felt that Mandrakeforum is a great idea and would like to see it get more funding than it currently does. There are a lot of reasons for it but the company does not pressure anyone to donate. They have made it available to those who want to pay back some for the work that they have put into making Mandrake such a great distribution. You can also specify where you want the donation to go and if I remeber correctly some of the choices aren't even Mandrake projects. If Mandrake was out for every dime then they would not make iso's available for download and make everyone buy copies of their software. Go to Mandrakeforum and look back through old post and see how many of the users there were in favor of this idea. You all might find out something about community. Mandrake listens to its customers I find that rare enough out of a company of any kind so that I want them to stay in business.
"If there is nothing you are willing to die for, then you are not really alive." Myself
Go to www.gnu.org and you'll find the FSF asking for donations in order further develop the software which we all know and love.
the GNU/Linux community has created a nice little microcosmic working socialism that functions pretty well as far as software development is concerned.
However as soon as you want to export this technology to the corporations and individuals who exist outside of this microcosm you need to get corporate and the Linux companies have to exist outside of the microcosm in order to properly communicate with their target audiences, they need to exist in the ugly capitalist society in order to pay the staff who need to eat and feed their families.
You complain that they ask for donations for aspects of software design that will only effect them and their users, well then only their users need donate. While it's not my style I've always thought Mandrake was an excellent distribution. Their tools work and their entire setup makes the Windows interface complex by comparison. If they need donations to keep this up, well that's an economic reality at least they're asking nicely and not restricting free downloads or any other such tactic.
All in all I can only say that a) you are an idiot and b) you are an idiot who does not know what this whole thing is about.
It's not all about free software for you.
I think donations should be made depending on how you feel. Sure you can't get onto a train without paying, but how else will the company make any money? It's not like they'll sell a boxed up version of their product.
Giving donations for a company like Mandrake is ridiculus. If you want to support them, just go buy their Linux distrib in stores. I remember last time I checked the price with Mandrake 6 a while ago.. it was like $70. A company that charges that much doesn't need donations.
The people who deserve the money are the coders who strain their eyes by working long hours to give you products that they don't even ask fifty cents for.
Hence, they should be able to ask for a donation.
If you get something (a download) for free, the giving entity should be able to ask for a donation.
When I was poor, I did not make donations for the free software that I used. I make money now, and so I can afford to pay for the things that I use. So I purchased a copy a linux. That was my way of donating. But I do not think that it is immoral to ask for a donation. To demand it would be.
Just because a musician gets some paying gigs does not mean that (s)he should not ask for donations at a gig where there is no cover.
-CrackElf
"Blake is an idealist, Jenna. He cannot afford to think." - Kerr Avon, Star One, Blakes 7
I wish more smart people got a free lunch ticket in our society.
Not livin big, but living like a normal human, with like a 30,000 a year pay.
But again, most software should be sponsored by the government, with a value added incentive. After people write software and submit it to the government, the companies get money based on how many people use it... But at the same time, people could build off it. Lots of problems with it, but some sort of intensive revision needs to be done.
God spoke to me
remember a while back when that obscure linux distro said that they would begin charging for downloading their distribution? While still not a last resort, that was more "alarming" to the linux community than Mandrake asking for donations.
I wasn't too alarmed to hear Mandrake ask for donations. Do not wish to donate? So don't. It wasn't like they spashed a "Please Support Your Favorite Distro" banner on their front page. There's much more scary buisness practices going on out there, we should concentrate on those. Actually this is bad exposure and they're probably just looking for a little help. 'll change my opinion if they start hounding users for donations but hopefully that won't happen. And we can't forget the hackers who put together KDE, GNOME, the Kernel, etc. They deserve as much if not more than the distro people, although that's not the point.
I think adding a little one-liner to the end of a story is different from a detailed attack on the original author in a fashion that doesn't allow him to respond.
Look at the icon that the story is submitted under - editorial. This means you should expect some editorial text which is longer than a one liner which which contains some sort of editorial point of view.Personally, I think its better to have two conflicting views in the article as this provides more scope for discussion of the issues involved.
I disagree about the original authors ability to repsond to CmdrTaco's comments - he can post a defence of his views as a comment and, if it is moderated up, everyone will be able to see it.
I like seeing conflicting views in the article and expect editorial to have a point of view - if they don't then they are little more than a filter for interesting stories.
Because you like their product, so you hope they will continue to exist to make that product?
Having installed it from ftp and downloaded ISOs, I felt like giving something back to Mandrake's hackers (the ones working on desktop stuff like kde and hardware drivers) so I sought out their donations page. But seeing all their fancy web design, retail ads and suchlike made me realize that even if the donation I made would go straight to, say, the kernel hackers,
So I'm following Mandrake's advice and giving $50 to the Free Software Foundation, who I expect to spend my money efficiently and wisely.
A lot of people seem to think the only acceptable way to support a for profit is by the traditional means- buying their shrink wrapped product. Everything else is unacceptable. But this is seems so closed minded- and limiting! I don't want to buy a boxed set- I have a reasonable connection, don't need the support, and don't want more dead trees and yet another set of out-of date CD's. And there's a complete continuum of customers in between me, and needing/wanting the box and support. If Mandrake (and their ilk) tried to offer 'shrink wrapped' packages to suit all of us, they'd never have any resources left over to do anything! Mandrake was never forced to release their ISO's for free. They did it for GOODWILL. Yes, they're for profit- since when did they become illegal? But they don't seem to be in it simply for profit- they also want to foster GOODWILL between and among the people in their community. What's wrong with this?! Why does a for-profit company HAVE TO chase maximum returns at the cost of all else? Oh that's right, if it's a public company it has a 'responsibilty' to the investors. Joe public. You and I. We get to force the company to solely chase money (because if it isn't maximally profitable we'll pull our investments). It'll have to forget about any other concerns- community, social costs, environmental costs, etc- because they're not built into current economic models- our means of measuring profitability. And here's the real kicker- we get to blame big, faceless coorporations for trying to coerce us with advertising, destroying our societies, making us work long hours, and destroying our environment. The investors take no personal responsibility. And yet by choosing how they invest, they've dictated big business's direction. I believe you and I are just as- if not more- responsible for the way of the world as the big coorporations- we should be responsible for our own greed. So I say good on you Mandrake- stay private and in control of your own priorities. Thanks for giving us some choices and alternatives to the 'normal' business model. Thanks for risking something new and rising the ire of Joe Public. Thanks for the goodwill you've shown us via the free ISOs, the free and searchable forums, and all the other pages you pay for. And thanks for giving us a chance to extend our goodwill back to you. And before you flame me, why don't you ask yourself why? Is it cynacism? If so, instead of complaining, what could you do to make the system better?
However, with the same $80 I could download an ISO, burn it to a disk, read some online documentation, and rest easy in the knowledge that *all* of my hard-earned money is in the hands of the people I truly want to support.
~
Mandrake Linux is a really cool distro - altough I'm debian too - the installer is fantastic, so what's wrong to give some money to Mandrake to give them an extra reward for their good work.
As I am using great software without 'paying' (well .. the ISP costs ..) for it I don't mind to donate some money for good projects or improving Mandrake ;>
The way I see it, donating to Mandrake is not only okay, it should be encourage by the Linux community. After all, Linux and the GPL tools Mandrake works on are released open-source, right? So basically, when you give money to Mandrake, you're helping highly skilled programmers write new GPL code which you yourself can then download and use for anything you like without paying a dime.
How many private, non-corporate users actually pay a dime for their distribs anyway? The difference between Ford and Mandrake asking for cash to fund development is that Ford is guaranteed cash from their users, while Mandrake is not. Who are we to get upset when they ask politely for an optional donation to help program code that we ourselves can then use? I don't see Ford posting how-tos on their web site for building their newest V8.
I'm the stranger...posting to
There is also a practical problem with donating: it doesn't show up as sales or installed base, and it's hard for people to "buy" Mandrake that way for corporate use. At the very least, they should have a pro-forma bundle of Mandrake with some non-free software and sell a downloadable license.
Still, I think a community-supported organization is probably best done as a "not-for-profit". They are financially more transparent. It inspires a bit more trust that donations aren't just going to go to finance someone's sports car. It may even make donations tax deductible. In particular if Mandrake is in trouble, I think they should seriously consider this. Of course, it doesn't hold the promise of instant riches that an IPO does.
My apologies for the off-topic post, but I've never been first before. Obviously a donation to any cause which you feel is worthy, whether it is non-profit or profit, is just and moral. Just because someone is trying to turn a profit does not mean that they are not striving to reach an important and ethical goal.
Basically, all that's happening here is voluntary donation. This is pretty much the same thing that happens if you buy a Redhat boxed set. You don't need to buy Redhat-in-a-box to get the distro, but you can, and it pretty much constitutes a donation to the company.
It boils down to this: If you think the company is providing a worthwhile service that you would like to see continue, then by all means, donate if you feel like helping out. Otherwise, this needn't bother you at all. Mandrake are to be applauded for not employing coercive methods to augment their income.
Do you complain over those "Suggested Donation Bins" at the museum? Would you complain if toll booths were optional? Of course neither analogy is perfect, but you get my point. Museums and roads cost money. You sound just like Craig Mundie! Software costs money too. Amazing how a site read by programmers puts out the insistent message that we should work for free -- and we believe it! Normative behavior reinforcement, I guess. But now it's that we should pay a company out of honor, not commerce. Still can't admit that capitalism thing.
Uh... Have you been in love with him or something? That's about what it sounded like when my last girlfriend broke up with me.
Um... I didn't do it!
People give away money to for-profit companies all the time, never to see it again.
They're called investors... ;p
Seems to me to be a problem of semantics. Certainly you shouldn't donate to a company. You can contribute if you like. I believe Mandrake has reworded the page by now.
RE: support by buying the boxed set. Support Mandrake by filling landfills with more plastic and paper? By giving a big comission to the retailer when you can download direct without the middle-man? Just give them the money directly. They will get more money and your grandchildren will have a better envronment to live in.
I am stuck in PR China on a dirty 33.6k line and so ISOs are not an option for me. I ended up building my own Debian-based distro package-at-a-time over many months. I would be more than happy to CONTRIBUTE a reasonable ammount to my distro producer (if I had the means to do it - no international credit cards here) be they comercial or voluntary. As it is I cannot contribute cash so am looking at doing bug reporting and other time-based donations... whoops - CONTRIBUTIONS.
The man with no surname and a silly hat
On the universe: It's bunk.
Why do programmers have to give away everything for free and be forced into a life of begging for a living? This makes no sense at all. I'm getting somewhat annoyed at the concept that peoople who charge money for software are evil and those who give it away are good. If someone is independently wealthy and chooses to give software away --- that's great. And I support the free software community. I pay for my RedHat Linux because I'm getting something of value and I want to help make sure they stay in business.
There are a lot of anti-programmer consumers who are are trying to shame programmers into a life of virtual slavery. I have a problem with those who expect everything for free. Those who provide free software are making a gift to the community and are people who should be both honored and supported for their generosity --- and not shamed into giving through some false sense that programmers charging money is immoral.
Have purchased three diff retail packages of mandrake linux. no donations from me. out, jk