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Ximian Adds Subscription
Nat Friedman of Ximian points out that the introduction of the subscription service doesn't mean a reduction in the availability of free downloads, from Ximian and the 40 associated mirror sites. "We've actually grown the pipe by 500% over the past 4 to 6 months," he says. "We also have a mirror coordinator." He cites ever-increasing numbers of Red Carpet sessions as the reason for introducing a subscription; November alone saw three quarters of a million sessions.
That number seems likely to increase, in part because of Ximian partnerships with companies like HP, now shipping a preview release of Ximian Gnome on HP-UX, but also because the Red Carpet software update system no longer requires Ximan Gnome; Friedman passed along this link to distribution-specific static binaries which work with other distributions as well.
Despite new servers and more bandwidth, Friedman asserts that some users downloading software for free will inevitably hit servers at times "when they're getting 8k downloads and they'd rather be getting 50k, and that's really who the subscription is for."
I can fault them if they want me to give 'em 9.95$ per month. I wouldn't flinch if they asked for 9.95$ per year, but per month! Fuck that.
:wq
I dont trust 'auto-update/download' type of tools anyway. The tar.gz file is the only way to go.
Guess 9.95 isn't so bad....
"Can't fault a company for trying to make some money - hope it works. " UNLESS IT'S MICR$OFT!
I could see paying for the service if it supported updating KDE as well....but usually installing the gnome ximian packages does some things I dont like to KDE:
1) KDE's menu loses various programs like gimp, gphoto, etc.... (because the RPMS are now labeled *-ximian.*
2) It breaks KDE-pim rpm, basically you cant run KpilotDaemon anymore
3) I forget what else, but there are more.
anyways, thats just my 2 cents about the service.
I SURVIVED THE GREAT SLASHDOT BLACKOUT OF 2002!
$9.95 a month is too expensive. Hell, I can buy hosting for $9.95 a month! I wouldn't mind supporting them and getting the benefit of higher bandwidth, but a fair market price as far as I'm concerned would be about $9.95 a quarter.
apt-get wins it over for me. Everything else is just eye-candy. And now expensive eye-candy.
It's nice that even in this increasingly commercialised Open Source world, that there's still a few idealists left.
How will they deal with people who don't want to pay $8/month but still think critical bugs should be fixed? Hmm.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
I know everyone has to pay for their expenses but what's the deal? The only value added that you get is "bandwidth".
How can consumers be sure they're not just throttling what they used to give away for free and that what they're charging is fair?
If you compare this to Salon charging for content, Salon actually provides content that is above and beyond their standard content. This goes back to the whole discussion of, "How can you take what's free away and try to sell it?"
I don't see the value in providing bandwidth except to larger corporations who do massive amounts of updates but again, how far as Linux and Ximian penetrated corporations as a desktop?
But that's 9.95 per month more than Microsoft...
Come on, give it a year and you'll have half a license for XP or something.
RHN is fast and free...
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
Can't fault a company for trying to make some money - hope it works.
/.
Yeah, apart from when it's Microsoft - hypocrasy abound again on
I agree, it would be nice to see them make money, and this is really in the spirit of give the product away, charge for services. But the reporting is done with such a double standard.
If MS was to institute this sort of plan, the response would not be "can't fault a company for trying to make money". Granted, they already make enough money as it is, but if you're going to be critical of MS for considering subscription-ware, you ought to be critical of Ximian.
Of course, the updates are still free, but the automatic service costs. Of course, with MS this fact would be completely overlooked and the flaming would commence.
All that said, I think it is very valid to charge for this. For home users, this is only a mild inconvenience, manually updating is both fast enough and mostly trivial. If you are more adventuresome, you can rig an auto-update setup with scripts and cron. Where this really shines is for large deployments (companies) that could afford the subscriptions anyway.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Can't fault a company for trying to make some money
/. readers do it all the time.
why not?
I Heart Sorting Networks
I'd be willing to pay for fast software updates, but not $8-$10/month. I'm thinking half that or so.
But let me poll here - what's it worth? I've been using Evolution for two weeks now, and am pretty happy with it, but have avoided the whole "red carpet" thing because I've never liked "we're here to take of your machine" type apps. What sort of an improvement is Red Carpet over RH7.2 vanilla GNOME?
(Note, I'm still secure saying that it isn't worth the price without knowing what it is, because my opinion on the price is the value of fast updates, not the value of the software itself.)
It appears from the website that it is not 7.95 for
the first two months if you sign up now, but 7.95
per month until june if you sign up before february
28th.
I tried using it back when I was running RedHat (ok, it was only a few months ago that I switched to debian), it broke Gnome enough that I had to rip it all out (rpm -e'ing all the *ximian* packages, and all the gnome-related ones as well). But by then I had already seen the full splendor (horror) of what was Gnome 1.4 and I never went back to them or Gnome. Right now if there's anything on my linux box that I can't do in console mode ... I don't do it.
If it were any other company trying to make money off subscription services everyone on this site would be lambasting them. But Ximian, everyone's favorite open-source poster child, apparently gets exemption from being criticised for a flawed business model. Hey, I pay $9.95 a month for my eMusic.com account, but they have loads of content. Is anyone going to pay for access to stuff you could just as easily grab off an FTP server?
Even if you buy every release of Red Hat Linux, it won't cost you $120 per year. And that's an entire operating system (with GNOME included!), not just a pretty GUI.
Remember, folks, it's still legal to mirror this stuff. It's all GPL.
--Patrick, who will continue paying $0 per year for software
You better hope /. readers feel the same....
I mean, when a company offers software for free like they do, the least you can do is pay them back for their effort.....but no......., the freebie, linux-loving, utopian-masked, logic-blinded hippies want everything for free...
Uh, Uh.
In addition to the basic updating service freely available to Red Carpet Users, updating is also delivered through two premium subscription services:
Red Carpet Express provides users with priority high-bandwidth access to Ximian applications and leading third-party software for faster installations and updates.
Red Carpet CorporateConnect provides centralized Red Carpet updating to corporations and workgroups, including special features which allow system administrators to distribute their own in-house applications to their users - quickly and securely - through the Red Carpet interface.
So, it seems that there's still a 'normal' version, for use with 'normal' programs, using 'normal' server and a commercial one, with high-bandwith servers and some commercial soft.
No problems, just use the one you prefer depending, pay if you want/can and use the free version otherwise.
Of course, let's hope that there will still be free updates available.
#include "coucou.h"
They have GOT to be kidding! This is NOT going to make them money. It's not going to do ANYTHING for them. Before long, someone will write their own updater to grab the stuff off of the mirrors. Heck there may even be extra mirrors setup already. Personally, they need to kick some butt on the Evolution stuff (ability to automagically order or prompt you to order gifts for B-days through them, reminders to buy ink and stuff through them and other things like this). Also, things like the Outlook plugin would be things I could see companies buying. They should also work on a Novell Groupwise plugin (we'd buy it!!! We are Novell shop still). But to start a updating service for 9.95 a month is just dumb. Unless they can GUARANTEE fast servers and things such as this, it would NOT be worth it. Ask Red Hat how much money they make off of up2date subscriptions...:)
Gorkman
I have no problem with them trying to find ways to make money, but this one isn't going to work.
Let's say you're using RedHat. It'll be a similar story with other distributions, but that's the one with which I'm most familiar.
With Ximian, you get GNOME slightly ahead of what RedHat has, major hassles with upgrading RedHat to a new version, and you pay for updates.
With Redhat and no Ximian, you get GNOME slightly behind the curve, easy upgrades to new versions, and updates are free but not quite as easy to use as Ximian.
So basically, I'm supposed to pay a monthly fee so that I can have GNOME be the most recent build, instead of a couple months old? Please; if I'm in a position where that's really important, I'm someone who can fix it myself.
I don't think that many people are going to find value in this particular service.
Oh; and I should add, I hope I'm wrong. I wish no ill-will to Ximian, and I'd love to be wrong about this.
Now, if they were offering to send me a CD every month. Heck, send me a CD-RW that I could erase and reuse, say 1 CD-RW per month, plus 1 CD-RW per quarter, containing everything from the beginning of the year until that CD-RW is burnt.... The monthly CD-RW would be for stuff changed since the previous month, the quarterly CD-RWs would be "rolling patches", now that I'd buy (if YDL or some PPC Linux did it).
Paying per quarter or year makes much more sense. It's a strange feeling to pay for something monthly that you wouldn't use at least once a month (at least I hope they don't make one release per month). I could see 4 upgrades a year, so pay every quarter. But if I can dial up to the entire internet for $19.95/mo (granted 56K), why pay $9.95/mo just to upgrade a small portion of my software?
I agree with their strategy of charging, no problem there. In fact they should charge for their services. But they need to come up with a better pay model. Maybe charge more monthly for corporate upgrades, less for home users.
Developers: We can use your help.
I like Transgaming's product, winex, but I do have a problem with the subscription service. You would expect to be able to download a new version every month if you are paying a monthly fee. But you don't get that at all. They have only had one update since I signed on in October, and paid for three months. Ximian better have an update per month(at least) or it would not be worth it at all.
Can't fault a company for trying to make some money - hope it works.
/. wishes them luck
Actually, this parallels the story on Monday "VPN Clients Not Allowed On Residential Service"
EXCEPT then it was unacceptable for a cable company to charge extra for a business account
Again, my criticism then was not of people dailing in from home to remote a server, my criticism was of people saying
"YEAH, I use it all day long telecommuting for business but I don't want to be charged a business rate. My business can't afford THAT! They have no right to differentiate me based on my use or time of use"
Now Ximian differentiates their service levels and
*ironic wistle as I walk away shaking head*
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
As for myself, my time is actually worth something so I'm more than happy to spend 10 bucks a month on a useful service that gets my updates to me faster.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
Linux needs an automatic updater like Red Carpet. Why? First, because of WindowsUpdate. It's quick, easy, and on the mark when updating the OS and MS's addons. You've bought the OS, sure, but the updates are free. At $9.95/month, now you have a free OS that ends up costing you the same as the full version of XP Home after just over a year and a half.
Second, because updating Linux without a tool like that is just impossible for the average user. People here often complain about the inaccessibility of MS updates to bug fixes and security holes, but at least they're in one place, on one site (even if you have to dig to see them), and usually end up on WindowsUpdate. How to the Linux Elite expect an average user to keep up with every possible package, dependency, bug fix, security hole and update? Linux's greatest strength, openness and diversity, is also it's greatest weakness. There is no central repository to keep your system running smoothly...except tools like Red Carpet.
What about for corporate situations? I'm telling you, Debian scares me, but a local apt-get cache for my users is looking more and more attractive every day.
Is this the new trend for Linux? "Yes, our OS is free (as in beer *and* speech!), but in the long run, it'll cost you more than Windows if you want to actually keep it updated." I dunno...that doesn't sound appealing to me, and it doesn't sound like it fits within the creedo that has been trumpeted for the last 10 years.
--SC
You read fiction? I write it! Lemme know what you th
Red carpet is a great tool for people learning what's going on in their system, and providing explanations of what all the packages are for. After you've got mor than a few boxes, it becomes really unruly to keep them 'current'. I'm running about 80 redhat boxes here, all of which are nicely kept up to date using autoupdate. The update server fetches from ximian and redhat nightly, and the workstations update themselves from there weekly. No worries about bandwidth!
No sig for you.
This is not surprising at all. I was initially turned off by this (and a similar offering from Red Hat with their up2date service), but then I remembered the basic business model of Open Source. Open the source code, but sell services based around it. AFAIK (and it's not that far ;) anyone with a big enough pipe and enough patience can get Ximian GNOME and its updates. They're just selling an update service around it. This is not a problem and I wish them luck. It's not something that I need, but some people might.
-sig
Why should I sympathise with you? Really? I haven't read one good reason to feel like
You seem to want to imply that Linux just isn't a Desktop OS for you. That means you aren't really relevant in this discussion now are you?Why don't you tell us in detail we can all verify for ourselves exactly what the full splendor (horror) of what was Gnome 1.4 actually means? Maybe you can't because you spend too much time getting bent-over and loved-gently by Microsoft?
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
Or something like that.
=)
As much as i want this to work, because I like (but dont use) Ximian and don't want to see another OpenSource company go under. I know it won't. There's no way for them to sell boxed copies without giving it away for free online. What they really should consider is higher priced box copies, in which the price contains costs for boxing and production costs, but also a small amount that helps them make up the cost of bandwidth for the subscription service for say 6 months. Then they could put on the box FREE 6 MONTH SUBSCRIPTION. Or maybe partner up with RedHat to include something similar. As it stands I don't see people wanting to pay $120 a year todo automatic updates of something that is free right now. But, I wish Ximian good luck anD fortune in this and all other business endevors! You guys rock!
... to sell products if you are a rich company. And it is wrong to get your products to market as fast as possible to meet demand from consumers. And it is wrong to charge a high price, even though consumers are paying for it.
I think it might disappoint you but this is just how capitalism works.
(Yeah, I know, monopoly, etc etc)
I Heart Sorting Networks
first of all, ximian still offers their software for free, so the comment about "free fast updates" being a thing of the past is misleading at best.
secondly, ximian is responsible to its customers to provide a usable service, and as much as we would like bandwidth to be free, it isn't.
a friend and i used this model when we started a student internet service at our college. the basic service was available for a small fee, and more heavy-duty bandwidth could be purchased at an additional cost. it worked really well because those who used the service extensively payed more for its upkeep.
props to ximian for finding a method that may help them avoid the fate of adcritic.com
You guys are all such hypocrits.
Okay, repeat this three times:
Free Ximian Red Carpet updates will still be available.
The subscription fee is only for the new premium service, Red Carpet Express.
Nothing to see here. Move on.
If MS was to institute this sort of plan ...
Are you kidding? Slashdot would flame the holy living hell out of them! The kneejerk reaction of the non-MS crowd would be that "Micro-shaft" is trying to stick it to the consumer.
Let's get real here.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
This latest move is a noble attempt at trying to make some money, but I'd rather see companies like Redhat get an easy to use automatic software updater that keeps every package on my system up to date, and give me the "express treatment" when I enter a UPC code from the boxed version of the software I bought at a retail store. I think this would be a much better solution since it doesn't mean me paying every month, and Redhat is still making money off of retail sales, in addition to racking up more brick and mortar sales numbers.
$45 per U Colocation Special
Ximian is just another classic case of "too little, too late." How do they expect to make money through offering "faster" updates if anyone could just download the freely available updates and then mirror them on a high-bandwidth connection? I mean, it's already been established that people are benevolent with their bandwidth (just look at all the other Free Software mirrors), so why wouldn't they do this with Ximian?
I suppose Ximian's business strategy could best be summed up as "give everything away for free and hope the investors don't notice."
Is your company running tools written by ma
$10/month for Ximian.
Hmm.
That's absurd. Imagine paying $10/month for each of GNOME, the kernel, your office suite, etc etc.
As another poster mentioned, that's $10 ($30, $40..) more than MS is asking for per month for automatic updates.
I'd actually think about paying $10/month for fast auto updates for the entirety of my distribution...it'd be nice to go to *one* site, make three clicks, wait for the download, and have my entire system up to date with the latest patches. Even better if it were done automatically.
But paying $10/month for one [albeit large] component of my system just invites others to charge for other components.
So much for avoiding the MS license if that happens, right?
I think you've hit on a key point here. The $9.95/month seems to attempt to cover bandwidth costs paid by Ximian.
Perhaps some sort of distributed mirroring system needs to be implemented for smaller companies that don't have $billions$ coming in every year to spend on bandwidth.
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
osx is $129 and regular updates are free (including 10.1). i have just read some comments about a substantial number of casual linux users switching to osx. does this match anybody's experience? btw, i do use osx but need to work in 9.2 most often, and i surf on a windows 2000 machine.
Added to which, whats to stop aggresive mirroring from getting software out to free sites within hours of it being available to Ximian subscribers??? I just don't see the benefit.
Uninnovate - Only the finest in engineering.
$119+/yr for updates? MS doesn't even charge for updates and has more functionality. I don't care how much more linux is stable and secure, if I have to continually pay for it, and am getting a less functional OS, forget it. I'll stick with windows.
I predict Ximian folding if they keep this up.
I'm thinking of signing up and probably will if i can use it to update all my linux machines with one subscription. $100/year is a little steep, I'd bet that they would get more than twice the number of subscribers at $50. It comes down to choosing to use them for free until they go the same way as Eazel et all. Or to pay to keep a decent good quality open source software house around.
To the people that compare the cost to the cost of M$ software, yes it is worth it.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
This is way overpriced in my opinion. I am an IT manager for a company with about 30 Linux desktops. According to this pricing I would have to pay about $3000 per year to keep my Linux boxes updated. I don't think I would ever get anything like that approved by the management. If it was less than a $1000 it might be doable but $3k is a little bit too much.
At one point I spoke to one of the Ximian sales reps (who in ultimate irony uses Microsoft Outlook as his e-mail reader) who told me that supposedly an average Linux administrator uses 1-3 hours of his time a week trying to update the software, dealing with software dependencies etc. I don't remember spending so much time dealing with dependencies and such. I also wish them good luck but I am pretty sure we won't be subscribing to Red Carpet Express.
I agree that they need a business model such as this if they want to make money -- however, 10 bucks a month is a bit much I am afraid. I may be on a rampage, but I am getting a bit selective about which Internet software/service plans I go with nowdays because the bottom line is that my paycheck only divides by $9.95 so many times...And I am afraid (for them) that I am in the majority here. maybe $29.99 a year? maybe $9.99 a quarter?
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I was wondering how long they were going to be allowing free downloads. When they were Helixcode, they used Akamai, but pushing a Gig of data to a lot of users must have cost way too much. So now it looks like they use their own colo, and some mirrors, including rpmfind, to cut costs.
This was the obvious next move. I think their product is good, yet one of the main reasons I first downloaded it a year or so ago was to get gnome 1.4, which is now in redhat 7 anyway. Evolution is a cool tool, but you have to pay for the Microsoft Exchange interface (around 60 bucks, I think it what the price is set to be once that functionality is available), so between the updates and optionaly software, it could get pricey.
But the point of a business is to make money. I see a lot on here about 'This is as bad as Microsoft' etc etc. Thats terrible. Its not like this company is making hundreds of million a year... they are trying to post a positive cash flow. Haven't there been enough articles on slashdot about online companies going bust?
I am sick and damned tired of people bitching about modest fees from previously free open-source sites. I mean, really. ESPECIALLY when they still offer a free alternative.
We're all smart people. If there's one thing we should have learned about the dot-bomb era, it's that organizations (businesses, companies, hacker efforts, the red cross...) NEED MONEY TO STAY ALIVE. That's just how it is, people.
We have lots of control over organizations, simply by choosing who to support with our $. (Guess what? Ximian might be a good opportunity to further the cause.)
All of you people that are out there bitching about paying some small fee for good access, what don't you get about this? What is so hard to understand about needing $$$ to support the effort?
Money is a basic requirement for effectively bringing anything to the masses, be it charity, goodwill, and even open-source software.
Everyone bitching on here, take a step back and look at the big picture. You need to do your part. FYI, your part is NOT bitching about what amounts to a sustenance model for something you care about.
If you love and care about important stuff like this, suck it up, and spring for the 33 fucking cents/day it might cost you.
I, for one, have already signed up to pay the paltry $9.95/month to support something that I care about and love, which I don't want to go away.
Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.
>How can consumers be sure they're not just
>throttling what they used to give away for
>free and that what they're charging is fair?
GNU/Linux isn't profitable and it isn't profitable for anyone to start a business doing it unless they are willing to do things that are value-added with it and charge a fee.
Anything you do in life costs something. The fact that MS has acted outrageously doesn't mean that all companies are into predatory pricing and super-aggressive marketing.
Can't fault a company for trying to make some money
Unless, of course, that company is trying to stop casual copying of its operating system or office suite.
RQ: How fast does Red Carpet serve information?
A: Speeds vary depending upon time of day and the actual number of downloads that are occurring at any moment.
That's pretty much the deal with any server, free or not free.
Who's the deciding factor on adding more bandwith? How many people have to subscribe or complain before they add another 500GB a month?
KDE doesn't charge for updates.
Seriously, what is with this? Whenever people talk about Evolution or Red Carpet I get this feeling that I have some secret that nobody else knows about. I know debian is harder to get installed than other distros but *come on*.... it is a one time cost. You would think it was next to impossible the way people avoid it.
Every couple of weeks I pop open KPackage and use the debian servers to and shop around for upgrades. If I ever find myself needing software I don't have... I go to KPackage.
I don't understand. Why does Ximian need to charge money for bandwidth and Debian not? Are their operating costs a lot higher? I think it must be because Debian is not-for-profit so people must feel more responsability to make donations. I just don't feel philanthropy towards a for-profit business.
Just some thoughts.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
-Frank Lloyd Wright
Please go check http://news.gnome.org/, people -- the free servers continue to exist. Only access to new, faster, bigger bandwidth servers are charged.
Presumably this could even make the free servers faster for users who choose not to subscribe, since the existing servers may be somewhat offloaded.
In any case, the same service exists in Debian -- and it covers the whole operating system, not only Gnome.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Mandrake Update works fine (as of version 8.1) and automatically updates you with security and bug fixes whether you paid for Mandrake's product or just downloaded it from a mirror.
I have a feeling that Ximian is on the way out the door...
"Grandpa! Grandpa! Tell us about Linux when you were a boy!"
"Well, children, when I just had married your mother, Linux was still FREE, as with all open source! Then Ximian started their pay service, and some hobbiest still stayed with it and paid for it. Then they realized that after two years, they can better spend their money, and Linux Companies slowly died... Linux only stayed alive with people that dedicated their non-working time to it."
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
"Can't fault a company for trying to make some money - hope it works. "
Hypocrite. Imagine if MS started charging $X a month for updates to Y. This forum would be LIVID with rage. You can't have it both ways.
Redhat apparently has some sort of tool (up2date or something) which performs a similar task.
red-carpet was pretty cool, but IIRC the Ximian gnome didn't get along too well with Debian (Mainly dependency naming issues IIRC) so I wiped it off my desktop and installed the standard gnome branch. I really can't tell the difference, either. And getting Ximian off my desktop was a much more miserable experience than it had to be, though this was more Debian's packaging system's fault than anything else. The dependencies cascaded and X and all the X programs ended up getting uninstalled too.
If I were in a corporate situation and getting paid for keeping a Linux network healthy, I'd set everyone up with Debian, have their apts pointing to a machine inside the company and either set them on a cron job or hack out some method of kicking off a apt update on a remote signal. Then I'd thoroughly test new packages before releasing them to the live apt server.
Time will tell if this subscription model works for Ximian. I suspect that in its current form, it will not.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
1. I have no problem with a priemum service offered for getting Ximian updates quick.
_ __
2. They want too much money for it. ($10 a month give me a break half that is enough) I would pay $5 dollars a month maybe.
3. You can get updates for most distributions (mine is SuSE and they offer updates direct from SuSE) so you can update your OS not just the Ximian GUI desktop.
Interesting model but unless they get some big corp to go for this I do not see tha basic Linux user buying into this.
Linux users will pay for CDs they find in stores to save them the time of download. However, I can't see many going for the service.
I am not sure if that is sad but its definetly true.
_______________________________________________
ACK
sudo apt-get upgrade
Like others, I wonder if the $9.95/month price is too high just for better download times. However, we should remember the basic theory of economic price discrimination (which is a morally neutral term in economics, by the way, unlike other forms of discrimination.)
The point of price discrimination is to divide your consumers into groups based on their willingness to pay. Let's say that the profit-maximizing price -- if only one price is offered -- is p0. Then if a firm offers two levels of service at p1 and p2 (with p2 the higher price), it is likely that optimal p1 is less than p0 and optimal p2 is greater than p0. The reason is that the higher-priced service is aimed at a particular group of service-sensitive/price-insensitive consumers, not at the "average" consumer.
Now, take p0 as the Microsoft price -- we would expect Ximian's p1 to be less that the MS price and it is: zero. Correspondingly, we might expect that p2 could be even higher than the MS price, as it arguably is. It seems to me that most consumers would prefer the Ximian solution -- at least you have a zero-price choice.
Of course, while this argument is in favor of a relatively "high" price for the premium service, the firm still has to worry that even the service-sensitive folks will "defect" to the low-price service. Unless they make the free service really bad, I still wonder if $9.95/month isn't too high. Perhaps they should go for a $10/quarter "Premium" service and a $10/month "Elite" that has further support benefits.
What's worse, these ONLY support RPMs. There's nothing for SLP's, DEB's, perl modules, etc. Further, they generally only support one architecture (i386). Binaries for the 486, 586, 686, Athlon, etc, just don't seem to exist on these servers.
What is needed, IMHO, is a caching gateway for developers. A developer simply registers a directory, and forgets about it. (File-And-Forget). Every N hours, the gateway scans all registered directories, updates a database of who has the most recent version of what, and drops from its cache any out-of-date versions.
On receiving a request, the gateway would check it's cache for a copy. If it has one, it send the file. If it doesn't, it locates what server does have a copy, grabs it, caches it, then forwards it.
Dependency checking would be simplified, because this kind of server would have a record of damn near every RPM, DEB, SLP, perl module, etc, out there. If the dependency couldn't be met directly, it can always use something like Alien to covert a different package format to the one needed to meet the dependency.
Such a system would also be much cheaper to run, as you don't need a gigantic machine. Remember, you're not storing all the binaries on the computer, only the ones likely to be needed. You also don't need to administrate such a machine, to keep it up-to-date, as it updates itself, with the help of the developers themselves.
All you'd need is a decent network connection. Geant would do nicely. Failing that, someone could practically run something like this out of their home, especially if you allowed a peer-to-peer arrangement of gateways, so that no one connection is saturated.
IMHO, this would utterly negate the need for any kind of commercial update tool, and provide a universal updating system for most Linux platforms.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
No, it's hypocrisy (sp) :-)
Let's say you have 100 people at your company. That gives you $12,000/year. For a thousand person company, well there you have it. I suppose it's better than the $30/desk-month that Red Hat wants.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
What would make this service worth it to me would be if they had a larger selection of partner software. If I could have one place where I could get all the Linux software I use and could get new versions and updates at high-speed, well then that would be worth it.
To the people that may say the service is still more expensive then just purchasing Windows, well it is but...
With windows you don't get every application that you need to run also (office suite, development tools, etc). Once you figure in all the other software that you are getting, this subscription would be much cheaper then buying all that software from Microsoft.
I just hope that if this works out a good deal of the profits go back into the open source community to fund the development of some of the smaller projects out there.
$9.95 per month for something that's free?!?!??!? They have GOT to be kidding!
This sort of reaction is so typical. "Why should I pay for something that's free? You're all crazy!!!!!" I agree that it may not be too likely to rake in the big bucks, but you can't blame them for trying. It's not like they're forcing it on you. It's no worse than shareware, or a site that asks for donations. If you like what they provide and want to support it's further development, help them out. If you don't like it, don't bother. But don't cry and bitch because they're trying to make a little cash.
do not read this line twice.
Lots of posters whine because they don't want to spend the 120$ a year for the "extended" service.
If I understood properly, they could also continue with the same slow service for free so, what do they criticize ?
It is Ximian's right (and necessity) to sell something. This something is potentially invaluable (and affordable, BTW) for corporations .
If you really want a quick service with auto updates for free, then take a Debian, but I hope you won't mind the learning curve.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
When I was running RedHat 6.2 I used Gnome, and got very used to it, and enjoyed it very much.
I initally used Gnome, not out of choice, but because I had to... I had linux on my laptop and KDE just wouldn't work for me.
I then switched to Linux Mandrake 8.0 on the same laptop... wouldn't you know it, now Gnome just won't work, and KDE works like a charm. Now I've gotten used to that, and enjoy using it too.
I guess what I'm getting at is people will like, and even love, what they use once they are used to it. You hate something when you can't find what your looking for.
You're right about one thing... One will emerge as a true leader. KDE does look to be playing the part, but as long as you give users the choice of either, both will be used.
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
$9.95 is pretty steep. Unfortunately, that seems to be the magical number on the Internet. The maximum minimum people are willing to pay per month.
Also, why is it ok if companies like Ximian try to make money, but when others (like MS, for example) try, then they are evil, dastardly corporations?
It's not a double standard, it's a different business model!
MS charges big money for the product and gives the software update subscriptions for free. (they still charge for support though...)
Ximian gives the product away, still gives you the software update for free if you don't mind slower downloads, but tries to make money on the side by providing a faster server to do so.
How is that a double standard? It's two different business models. You're trying to compare apples with oranges.
Hehehe. :)
These are the people who can't even put together a proper Solaris package for their product.
...I still see KDE pumping out releases whereas it still looks to me like the Gnome folks are refining their developing bureaucratic institution. I'm ambivalent on it, myself, but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that the Slashdot crowd would be annoyed.
Compare Ximian's story list with KDE's. Ximian's is all marketing smoke and mirrors (oh yeah, and release updates on a FILE BROWSER and TIME SCHEDULER (woo-hoo!)), whereas KDE can't stop churning out stuff.
Basically, if KDE were to throw this $9.95 service fee out there, I don't think people would complain as much, because they know what they're getting in return. Me, I haven't changed my GNOME in over a year (even though it's my primary X environment) because I haven't been impressed enough with all the wonderful things I'm supposed to upgrade to.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
The ports collection, and the CVS update of the OS.
It wouldn't take much -- change red-carpet to look for multiple mirror sites, subscribe to Ximian so you can mirror it at high speed, then provide lower cost or free alternative mirror sites. The software they are distributing is GPL, so I don't think there are any legal problems here (I ain't a lawyer, blah blah etc.).
I don't have a problem with this business model, but I won't subscribe. It isn't worth $10 a month to me. I try to closely watch my reocurring costs, its a little bit like taxes -- every little bit adds up to one big bill.
I'd be more inclined to subscribe to a per-meg or per-package update scheme. Buy 'credits' towards upgrades that you really want and download the rest over the slow link.
Brian
Remember Lexington Green!
I wish them the best, but I don't think this is going to succeed. The distributions that Ximian's updater supports, will all also include Gnome updates with their distribution updates. I suspect that most RedHat, Mandrake, etc. users are just going to get their updates from RedHat, Mandrake, etc instead of Ximian.
To make this work, they need to offer something the distros don't. Some proprietary software that the distros can't include, would work. But I suspect that would be a politically unpopular idea and generate a lot of flamage. But I don't have any other ideas at the moment. I'm glad I'm not in their shoes.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I notice the many conversions from free Linux software to a pay-based model. That's what happens when people realize they need to eat.
I think you're seeing the return of open source projects back to hobby apps and the whims of huge corps wishing to jab the competition (i.e. Sun's OpenOffice).
Why is every freakin' person so angry/bitter. We all knew this was coming. They said so when they first gave it to us!!!
.. too bad! :) Just don't use it. They're not FORCING you to do anything. It's your choice. Yeah .. choice. Something another company doesn't give you most of the time.
.. I know what I'll be turning to.
.. relax .. it's not a bad thing. It was to be expected. Simple as that.
A few things.
1) It's optional. I will continue to use the free service, albeit slower. I'm sure their are companies that will subsribe. It's not that much if you're managing a bunch of machines. (Which I'm pretty positive is the target for this)
2) If you don't like it, well
3) They're still gracious enough to offer the same thing for free for us! And yes, you CAN still get the RPMs elseware. But why? It's a nice ilttle packaged GUI that says 'hey! you need to update this' I'm all for it!
4) The bonus is that this money will go towards Evolution too! There are a few people at work that use it (I'm a PINE dude myself) and it looks really really sweet. If I ever require calendering stuff to book meetings
5) People
My $0.02CDN!
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
Well, you can still get the whole thing for free (as well as the updates) - it's all GPL stuff.
But you're making a good point. If you choose to subscribe to this thing, you'd be paying $100/year to maintain a piece of software. When with Windows you're paying $100 upfront, and the fat bandwidth download of updates is free (with the caveat that someday they'll stop supporting it and there won't be anymore updates).
I don't see this business model working at all. I can see paying $20/year for this, not $100. But you can't blame them for trying.
Calling Microsoft Windows "functionally on par" to Linux is like calling a shiny new battleship functionally on par to a piss-stained, shit-smeared canoe :)
I have observed that at times for a couple of weeks at stretch, Ximian had pushed out no update or release on their Gnome desktop. They also take a few days to show updated packages on the Redhat channel
This could be due to the fact that the packaging team might have been busy with things like Evolution 1.0 release or Red-Carpet Express release
However, when consumers are paying $9.95/month they might expect more frequent rollouts. What if there are no or very few updates in a month ?
Do RHN users feel shortchanged for their $19.95/month when they see very few updates
No its not. We aren't talking about simply the ability to download patches from a website. Ximian is still offering this at the same price as Microsoft is.
We're talking about Priority Access to patches and new releases. This is comparable to, say, the Microsoft Select program. Now, how much does that cost per year?
I do not believe that this service is aimed specifically at consumers. It is priced too high (in my opinion) for casual consumers. However, for a business (SOHO or larger), this price is quite reasonable.
How much does a SOHO pay for MS software similar to what you get with the Ximian suite? Can a SOHO get legitimate copies of MS software and its updates for free at all? They can with Ximian.
KDE doesn't charge for updates.
And GNOME don't do it either. It's Ximian. You got it wrong.
Many companies call me to install GNU/Linux and they pay my fees for this service. Ximain Inc. is giving additional services for upgrade and I feel ok that they charge for their services.
Ximian can be downloaded free from other sources and you can install it. If you wish the speed of a red-carpet installation (and Premium $ervice) it is right that you pay for it.
>Perhaps some sort of distributed mirroring system needs to be implemented for smaller companies that don't have $billions$ coming in >every year to spend on bandwidth.
This would be a perfect example of a good use of those muchly RIAA despised P2P networks (Morpheus, Napster, WinMX, etc)
Steven V.
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
I agree. Though I haven't read the article, I thought to myself: "Hmmmmm, does this 'no fault' rule apply only to companies that Hemos likes?"
So?
Unless there's something here I'm missing, what's to prevent people mirroring the Ximian servers that serve up these patches to the client?
The patches are all open source to begin with.
If you think Ximian overcharges for their "express" service, why doesn't someone with lots of bandwidth set up an alternate site at a lower cost?
[ insert snide remark about tech geeks and their disdain for reading comprehension skills ]
service for over a year now. It saves me time and
keeps my software (including OS) up to date.
Although the main reason I paid is not for faster downloads, I paid because I want them to keep up the good work. Continue to develop useful software and release it as GPL. The faster downloads is just a bonus.
I don't really see how Ximian is going to make it. At the end of the day they are really just another Eazel - a company with a neat product that you can obtain for free. There simply is not a compelling reason to give Ximian money.
The best advice I could give them at this point is to develop some truly useful and unique linux apps and sell them. People will pay for something they cannot get elsewhere if it truly enhances the utility of their system.
For example, I would pay for a Real JukeBox type system that united all of the functions of the various linux music programs in one nice package.
The big boss of the heavy equip. comp I work for is already grumbling about the spirialing cost of software, it was his son (my boss) who got the office updated, computerized and committed to Msft. Yesterday a new girl with MSOffice Small Biz edition asks for PowerPoint - imagine my suprise to see the cost of the full version!
For some reason, nobody with the authority to do anything is concerned about monopoly price gouging. If the QuickE mart tries to charge $2.5 / gal of gas we can laugh and go to a competitor. But once the evil Msft get's you business by the testicles you just have to pay, pay, and pay all you can afford and then some - no choices allowed.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Red Carpet looks good as an updater and has direct support for Mandrake. This is a good thing. It doesn't (and doesn't seem likely to) have support for KDE. This is, as far as I'm concerned, a Bad Thing. I'd love to be able to keep KDE up to date but it's frustrating to do so through Package Manager. Red Carpet seems to do a great job of resolving those niggling library issues transparently in other systems although it has a cavalier attitude to the KDE menu system - it seems to make things disappear.
I'd love to be able to say that $10 is worth paying to keep my system up to date but I can't see its value until it becomes a Linux support tool instead of a Gnome support tool. I would consider paying for the odd big update if it was guaranteed safe and genuinely faster than the free service, but as it is, a faster download isn't one that's quite worth shelling out $100 a year for.
BTW, all these are also reasons why Microsoft is the richest software company in the world, and Ximian is striving to survive
Ciao
----
FB
We'd like to clarify a few of the facts around our new Red Carpet Express service.
:-)
Since we launched the Red Carpet service this past April, it has become immensely popular. In fact, usage of Red Carpet has grown over 500% since the service's inception, and we've had to scale our public server's network pipe accordingly. Today, hundreds of thousands of people use Red Carpet on a regular basis to keep their systems up to date. Almost since the day we launched it, we've had a number of users ask us to provide a subscription service to Red Carpet that would offer a higher level of bandwidth. That's what Red Carpet Express is.
Red Carpet Express is not a sign that we're backing away from our free Red Carpet service. As our userbase has grown, it has become harder for us to increase our available bandwidth -- and consequently our monthly colo bill -- to provide everyone with the fastest connection possible. And so, for the users who absolutely must have high speed all the time, there is Express. Red Carpet Express is made up of a new, dedicated network of machines located at major hubs, and doesn't cut into our free service at all. In fact, over the last few months, we have increased bandwidth to our free Red Carpet service dramatically as the userbase has grown.
Red Carpet Express is not a sign that we're backing away from our mirror network. We have a dedicated mirror coordinator who works with our over 40 mirror sites to make sure they have the latest content as quickly as possible. This isn't going to change with the launch of Red Carpet Express. In fact, I'd like to encourage those users of our free service to consider looking for a mirror site closer to them.
Anyway, we hope people give Express a shot. It's the perfect stocking stuffer!
I would pay 10-15 (maybe 20) bucks a quarter to update everything with no hassle... Using a program like Red Carpet, because it's definately user friendly.
:)
I wouldn't pay 10 bucks a month to update Gnome
Of course... I use KDE, so maybe one of you Gnome users know something I dont
There are whacks of people here who are more than happy to just set a local cache and use that for their corporate site. I already do something similar for my home site (and it is only two machines!)
What then is a viable alternative? How about releasing updates earlier? NOT security fixes, but the new versions of galeon, nautilus, evolution, etc. So under my scenario, the timeline would like this:
You still get the software, but you can pay to get it earlier. I have no problem with this. This obviously does not apply to security fixes!
So, what do you think?
Thats all i can say. Why should redcarpet be free? Theres no reason for it. Distribution should not be free, the information distributed SHOULD be free.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
From another angle, what legal recouse is there if a paid-for Red Carpet update breaks a system? I haven't read the small print, but what do Ximian think they're selling for their $10?
So, how many updates a month to they provide for my $9.95? I mean for 1/2 of an UNLIMITED ISP account, there better be a LOT of REAL updates available..
Otherwise, there's not a lot of value in that price...
Besides, how much money do these people think I have? $10/mo for Real, $10/mo for ximian, $10 for MP3.com, $10 for napster (maybe, someday)...
geez.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
But will you get photoshop for free with Windows? will the Windows GUI update? No, all you get is lame bug fixes.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
To take it a step further: why not just take the existing repository of practically every decent opensource software project in the universe, and add this type of auto-update functionality? IIRC, SourceForge already differentiates between "stable" and "development" releases, and is certainly already organized into "channels"!
(I mean, I know some people think VA is evil, but they're not that evil.)
I, for one, would pay $10 or more per month for automatic updates of EVERY SourceForge project. If, like Red Carpet, they could link into the distribution servers for distribution-specific updates (RedHat, Debian, Mandrake, etc.), I could even be persudaded to pay bit more.
For that matter, they could use the Napster-style pseudo-P2P arrangement described in the parent for any off-server content... distributions, independent projects, even commercial updates (a la CodeWeavers, Loki, VMware in Red Carpet). Here we have the best of both worlds, and with only a minimal increase in SourceForge's bandwidth costs (presuming that the majority of people downloading through the updater would otherwise find and download the updates themselves manually -- which may actually not be true).
For that matter, since the Ximian updates are still available, just slower to download, a central server could regularly initate sync jobs to high-speed mirrors and then provide Ximian updates as part of the service, still for one flat fee. Sounds worth it to me!
SourceForge/OSDN/VAlinux^H ^H^H^H^Hsoftware, are you listening?
"Anything is better than IE, and you can quote me on that." -- Wil Wheaton.
I use the free Red Carpet channels every day around 7 AM Central time and they are usually lightning fast.
Now, lately there've been some dependency problems I didn't quite like (/usr/share/magic.mime is a file, guys, not a a package), but these have been in the RedHat channel and it appears they are slowly being fixed.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
We use Ximian on maybe half of our 120 Solaris systems and maybe ten of our Linux systems. Our IT dept. made a very easy decision after reading this: use KDE or Gnome 1.4. Both work fine and cost nothing. We would continue using Ximian for maybe $20 a year, but not for $9.95 a month. Bad pricing and since price equals permission to buy...
...Goodbye Ximian!
That they're touting access to new content from the now defunct Loki. I wonder if I should start a subscription service for $2.00/month offering all the updates to a number of deactivated products.
The Gnutella network exists and would be an excellent haven for free content. So long as it is clear that you are expected to share whatever you download, this is basically free bandwidth for ximian, although it is still slow.
:) my idea and develop a free software distribution vehicle (apt-get? redcarpet? something new?) which is agnostic as to its transport mode but explicitly encourages the use of peer-to-peer networking for file transfers and only uses centralized servers for version listing updates. The legality of transferring files between users rather than from central distribution points is a huge advantage of free software- currently we're only capitalizing on it by downloading iso images or copying cdroms. We can do much much better.
This also solves the legitimacy problem that peer-to-peer systems often have. If the files are legal to redistribute as all GPL'd code is, then pow! - we have a clear non-infringing use for a network like this. Sorry Jack Valenti, networks are for kids.
It's a win-win. What's really needed is a list of projects that need to be shared from people's idle gnutella collections, so that the sharing can happen with a modicum of intelligence- or perhaps even just an announcement on the download page asking users to pledge to share the files they download (or some portion of them) on peer to peer networks like the gnutella network in order to guarantee their widespread distribution, and a place to enter their email address so they can be notified when a newer version has been released so they can start sharing the newer one. You probably can't offer a discount for this or anything since
If bandwidth is their only problem, I think this is a solvable problem so long as the content they are distributing truly is free.
Please, someone with more time and experience, steal (or hire me to implement
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
heh, I even used the preview button but I still missed this. Here's the broken sentence, restored:
You probably can't offer a discount for this or anything since people are largely prohibited from using their internet connections for commercial purposes, and when bandwidth kicks up the ISP's are going to look for an excuse to differentiate between music sharing (without which no one would pay for broadband, so it's tolerated even if technically against terms-of-service) and software sharing (which, if done for profit, violates terms-of-service in a different way). But then, the point of this is to distribute the cost of paying for software distribution bandwidth anyway, so if it works it takes away Ximian's purported claim that they are really just charging for the bandwidth.
Not that I care much: I'm tickled using Konqueror in blackbox all day long. I'm just sayin'.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
I hope this works. I have a friend who had been asking about such services, so I think that there is a demand for them.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Continuing your postal analogy:
...and if you put "FREE SERVICE FOR THE BLIND" (or something like that, I forget) where the stamp should go, they will deliver it for free, although it will take freaking 3 weeks to deliver it three houses down...
There's a new trend on the internet , now that businesses are starting to scramble just to make any kind of profit. The trend is charging for services that were once offered for free.
Operating costs have gone through the roof (admins, hardware, software, rack space) , which makes it a requirement for a company to find new ways to make money, such as charging for their services. This is similar to cable TV. The only difference is, cable TV is monopolized by a certain number of companies and usually one bill gets all. The internet is composed of many more, and that makes a difference. With cable, you pay your 30-75 bucks a month for your services with a few pay-per-view events. This equates to your monthly internet bill (your bandwidth), with a couple of bucks extra for some pay sites.
What makes this even more interesting is , it will lower realizations of ever getting lower income demographics onto the net. The net will become an upper class "privilege" and will soon fizzle to a novelty if everything is "pay per view" . Bottling water is one thing, but bottling everything - air, trees, grass, etc, is another.
Some of the comments are amazing. Apparently quite a bit a Linux users (or at least /.ers) feel that cost IS an issue, perhaps even more so than closed v. free.
Companies exist to make money. Period. Non-profits also have to make some money to cover their costs, otherwise they do not continue to exist.
Not that companies shouldn't have to maintain some accountability, or even incorporate some morality into their functioning, but covering costs is not a bad thing.
Ximian is providing a service and asking you to pay for it. Perhaps you can get around it, but is it really worth it? Isn't your time worth something? Maybe not for college students, maybe not for single folk, but for the working married ones, time = $$ and I'd be happy to pay for the product or service. So what if you pay the equivalent of one XP unit (are we now measuring all Linux products/services in terms of their MS counterparts?) over a year and half? You have received something AND you have helped to support a company.
How many of you that use Linux contribute something back? How many of you have found a bug/written a driver/provided some software? Very, very, VERY few of you. Probably most of you have downloaded RedHat/Debian or whatever distro you have without paying a dime! Where's your support? Posting on slashdot? Pah-leese!
Face reality and pay for what you use. You aren't being charged an exhorbitant amount and you are helping to support, expand, grow, and mature Linux products.
This will prolly be modded down as a troll, but it seems that the /. community doesn't fault companies, in general, for trying to make money, just Microsoft.
The only thing that would make them happy is if Microsoft decided to give away all of it's products (desktop/server OS, business apps, games, etc.) and support them for free. That seems to be the only acceptable business model.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
And that is exactly all open source business models have been failing.
But since it's a Linux vendor, I guess it's OK.
Another proud carrier of the $rtbl flag
Perhaps it is true that those of us who like Linux come from the i-can-tweak-better-than-you tradition, but when even my mother (my mother!!) prefers to use a Linux (mandrake 8) box over the windows one, this sense of Linux needing constant attention and support in order to type a document is simply not realistic anymore. Linux distros have done a fine job of recognizing the need to woo the desktop-user, and mandrake's releases continue to win over not just security geeks and sys admin, but real, regular users who think a computer is for writing letters, balancing checkbooks, and viewing pictures of their grandchildren. well, and to play freecell, of course.
I thought the purpose of Gnome was to make sure the core linux desktop was untainted by commercialism? Now the leaders piss on Gnome and form Ximian to make propriatary products and charge fees?? Hmmm, someone seems wrong here. We all got along for years without charging for software now all of a sudden everything should cost money?? I have to say I don't like where all this is going. I feel like the linux community is crashing under the spotlight. For years now we have made it a point to make free apps that were the equivalant of commercial ones, now we make free apps that are commercial in some way??
I do have a solution though. Use Debian or Mandrake and KDE. They sell non-crippled full versions of their software with free updates,and use KDE which also does not charge for updates(althought that may change).
Ultimatly in a few years, I think it will be down to Debian. I think once Mandrake starts to charge, which they will, We will only have one truly free linux distro. The funny thing is personally I don't even like Debian that much. But I'll be damned if I'll be nickled and dimed to death for software and services that have been and always should be free.
I'd be more than happy to pay for Ximian but I have a couple of big qualms so far. First, it obliterates the main menus in Mandrake and Redhat and replaces them with Ximian menus. wtf? Why not just add a Ximian section to the existing menus and leave people's configurations alone? Also, Ximian Gnome doesn't seem to integrate very well into Mandrake. It took a long long time to get Ximian for Mandrake 8 out and it Red Carpet still breaks things somewhat often that it doesn't break on Redhat.
I don't use or pay for Windows because it doesn't work. I use Linux because it works. I'm more than happy to pay for software or services that work but until these types of problems are resolved I think I'll stay with the old non-pay mirror system and live with the slower speeds.
Well, actually it is more special:
first 2 months at $7.95 instead of 2*$9.95=$19.90 saves you $11.95.
while 6 months (until june) for 7.95 a month saves
you 6 times $ 2: $ 12 !
It gets less special ofcourse if you sign up in January or February....
Ok. The title is harsh but I got your attention. How many are concerned about the financial situation of Ximian? I am concerned enought that I refuse to install Ximian on my server. I do have it installed on my workstation.
The problem with Ximian is that once you start updating your packages with it, your system becomes totally dependant on them. I have no problem with that as long as I believe that Ximian will remain around for a long time.
But what will happen if Ximian belly up? I'll be stuck with a machine which I cannot easily upgrade anymore. Yes, Gnome will continue, but somehow I will need to spend a weekend or two removing all the ximian stuff and installing pure Gnome if I ever want to upgrade and keep up with the evolution of the software.
Luckily, I have not subscribed to their RedHat upgrade service... That would be even a bigger mess.
Some might suggest that I re-install everything if such a day would come, but I do not like this idea since I tweaked my machine so much. Re-installing will not re-install my firewall config, apache, postgresql and many other tweaks I have brought to my system (I upgraded from RH4.0 to RH 7.1 since 1996 and you can imagine the number of tweaks I made).
The same logic would go for RedHat, but RedHat is financially sound and could possibly be a takeover target from IBM (I am currently kicking myself for not having purchased their stocks a few months ago; they are now a bit expensive). Maybe Ximian would become a takeover target also...
Here is a question. How would you feel if IBM would take over RedHat and Ximian and integrated both?
As for the subscription service, $9.95/month is even more expensive for non US citizens. Its over $15 CDN/month. Third world countries where Linux makes inroads will not be able to pay for such a service. Then again, there is no silver bullet because if Ximian would charge $1/month, their business plan would simply not cut it. Maybe Ximian should open a development shop in India to save costs.
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
The other day, when I checked Red Carpet, I saw that 1.2 was out, so I installed it. Once I noticed the availability of Red Carpet Express, I bought the yearlong subscription (for $99). I haven't purchased software in three years or so, since everything I use is free. But I know that Red Carpet has saved me a great deal of time, which means more hours I can be productive. It is really easy to use, and unlike windows update, it takes care of *everything* on my computer. That's pretty damn nice. Not only that, but the software that Ximian puts out is excellent. At first I was hoping that the premium service would offer additional "stuff", like more channels, to make it a better value proposition for the customers. Although that would still be nice, Ximian already offers a huge value to their customers. If it isn't worth paying money for, I don't know what in the software/services world is.
I'd be thrilled if bill did that. That way i'd actually be able to stop windows update from making background connections to it's mothership and telling me i need to have it upgrade my system.
That way i could just stick to the old school idea of downloading service packs when i've got the time and bandwidth to do it.
In case you are lazy:
Does RMS still consider Ximian 'the good guys' or are they 'evil' now that Ximian introduces subscription charges ...
No. FSF also sell CDs with GNU software on it ( a much saner practice IMO than selling 'privileged bandwidth'). You can do the same, provided you do not impose restriction on use/modification/copy of what you sell [and Ximian do not add restriction].
Yes. Real politik may prevent him from saying it too loud [maybe he did and I did not hear], but I think this is one of the reason why he wanted to enter in the Gnome Foundation.
Ciao
----
FB
Ximian sez
"Red Carpet(TM) Express is a timesaving subscription service that provides end users with priority, high bandwidth Internet downloads and updates of Ximian(TM) and third party software hosted by Ximian."
I really, really hope this doesn't mean Ximian RPM releases will be delayed in the public servers. Narrower bandwidth, I don't mind much.
Red Carpet Express is not a sign that we're backing away from our mirror network.
So who are you actually appealing to? Red Carpet on its own in any form is only going to appeal to a fraction of users - those who perform their own major upgrades between distro versions. Now take this audience and reduce to only those who depserately need the highest bandwidth....so who exactly is this?
As it stands, it is incredibly easy to spoof your model - just sign up for one account and use it to distribute to free mirrors. The free sites would potetnially only be a half hour behind the paid update.
Let me get this straight, here...
I contributed work (and continue to contribute work) to Ximian's distribution. In return, I get to use their distribution for free. But now i'm going to be charged for accessing my own work?! Hooooray for free software!
Caveat emptor, folks. By going with this scam, you're essentially entering into a pay-per-download arrangement. You're allowing someone to charge you for material you are entitled to obtain freely.
Yes, yes, whiners... I know what the GPL says about charging a reasonable cost to cover mass production. This is neither reasonable, nor is it mass production, plus its been shown that network-based distribution of software does not incurr significant cost to the provider. Have a look at Debian's, Red Hat's, or Mandrake's mirror list if you don't believe me. Half of them have mirror sites in friggin Uganda.
Something tells me all the money goes towards affording progressively larger and larger hats to fit Miguel De Icaza's head.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Look, I donate to my favorite distro every once in a while by BUYING the full package. I do not believe in buying every point release though because sometimes a point release doesn't get ya much.
I also am not complaining about paying for it. If Ximian was as good as it was a while back (like when the first came out), then I probably would have paid. But now KDE has supplanted Ximian Gnome as my desktop of choice. Why did I change my mind? Well, Red Carpet did it for me. I had better luck with their old updater. There have been too many times that a Red Carpet update (ONLY the stable ones that is....I don't play with beta stuff that runs my desktop) has completely broken things and I had to delete all of my settings to fix it. Granted, I haven't used it in a while and these problems may be fixed, but I did install Ximian the other night and was using the 1.0 version of Evolution and I had a hard lock. Also, esd seemed to be creating burps of static on my creative card. I never had a problem on it in Windows, but KDE's aRts sound server is great! The only time I have had problem's with aRts is when I was using my crappy semi supported Aureal based sound card. KDE seems to be more professional then the "professionals" at Ximian. Oh and I can get it for free. KDE folks have no pretense of making money off of their stuff. Not that their is anything wrong with making money writing software, it's just that they realize they can't make anything off of it once they chose the license they chose.
Things that ARE worth 9.95 per month
Tivo
the VERY basic cable
Those are the two off of my head. There are many others, but my sugar muddled mind can't think just yet (damn office parties and cookies). Both of the above had advantages over what is available for free. Yes you can get the TV listings for free, but try plugging those into your Tivo. You can also get 90 percent of the very basic cable package off of a set of rabbit ears, but there are plenty of things that the cable folks put on there that make it worthwhile (better signal, weather radar and community access TV). What is their extra on Ximian? A slightly faster then slow server? This is better? This will make money?
It's not hard to write a script to grab this stuff overnight. Granted, grabbing the updates isn't as good because Red Carpet does do some dependency checking into other packages you'd need to run x package where as your script may not. Personally, it's not hard as long as you follow the instructions and starting a equivalent server that's free isn't hard either. My point is it is just as easy to write a script to grab this stuff over night and then install it later. Red Carpet just makes it easier and helps you handle the dependencies. To me, it ain't worth it. To a great many folks it won't be worth it. To some it might. I personally jsut don't think this is the direction they need to go.
It's not the money I am complaining about. It's just that these kinds of things aren't making bundles of cash. If Ximian is going to depend on this, well, they are going to go the way of Eazel. They need to do more things like the non GPL stuff they are doing with the Evolution plugin for outlook. Maybe they could even sell a Exchange replacement someday. They could make money if the leverage the free software. IBM is doing this with Linux. They are using free software to cut expenses in devlopment for other OS's and to sell lots of hardware. This is a smart move on IBM because the better the free stuff is, the better their servers work and the more they can sell. If they cut the cost of a AIX license off of the price they charge for a server, then it also saves their cusomer's money. Thta's good in both of their pocket books.
Gorkman
Wrong! Turns out my $100 subscription is good for only one computer. I carefully read the Terms of Agreement and concluded that it was limited on to one person not to one computer.
I think the T of A are very misleading and I am quite disappointed in Ximian. I would rather have given the $100 as a contribution and not been misled.
Oh, by the way, my one subscription has only worked twice out of a dozen of so attempts. I hope they are just working out the wrinkles. Otherwise, I guess I'll just trash it and consider my $100 as a contribution toward evolution (which I think is great!)
Oh, I was under the impression it was just another open source company trying to find a way to squeeze money from somthing they were once giving away.. But it's Ximian, so that's ok.
Check out these two projects:
Everything Over Freenet(EOF) http://eof.sourceforge.net/ - they have a version of apt-get running over Freenet already.
World Free Web
http://wfw.sourceforge.net/
Can your IM do this?
If $9.95/month is too expensive for you.. DON'T BUY IT. It's that simple. Nobody is forcing it on you. Not at all.
You want to use this particular service, in a particular way, fork out the cash. Otherwise, do things a slightly harder way.
It's called 'providing a service'.
If it's too expensive, it won't take off.. but that is Ximian's problem,not yours.
I've tried using both the french rpm mirrors and the UK based ones. I consistently get FTP file not found errors, so I switch it back to the default one.
Next time it occurs, I'll submit an email or something detailing when/where the problem was.
Mr Thinly Sliced
Er, you can turn auto-update notification off in both windows 98 and windows 2000. Dunno about XP, but I've a feeling its the same.
Mr Thinly Sliced
Linux distros don't charge for updates either.
This is about Red Carpet... an *updating service* Ximian is offering.
I repeat.. they are not charging you for updates, or in any way making it 'harder' for you to update.
What they ARE offering is a managed service to keep systems up to date. It will manage far more than Ximian Gnome as well. This is NOT 'Pay us $10/mo if you want Ximian updates'.. nothing of the sort.
You don't want the service, you are absolutely free to use any of the numerous tools available to you to update your system on your own.
I've been saying things similar to this for years--the difference being that charging for "connect time" or bandwidth use would marginalize the Internet. I don't think the death of the "content providers" will kill it off; there are plenty of passionate people with something to share that aren't money-grubbers that will continue to provide interesting stuff. But bandwidth or connect charges will do it in for sure.
Another proud carrier of the $rtbl flag
this was a joke. get it? you know planet of the apes. jeez
I am maintaining free software package with several dependencies (most from RedHat and Ximian GNOME distributions). Many users complain about not being able to install it. Publishing it as channel as Ximian would be perfect. Unfortunately Ximian does not allow 3rd parties to create and maintain software channels using thier technology.
Now then they started to charge money it is just matter of time until somebody will write free open source service analogous to Ximain which will allow developers to publish their own channels via WWW interface. Bandwidth would be moderate, because such server only needs to distribute XML files with pointers to packages on other sites.
Install apache, use 'apt-move' to put the packages from apt's cache (in /var/cache/apt/archives) into the appropriate tree structure under the apache directory, add that as a source to your other machines, remember to 'apt-move update' after every dist-upgrade and yer done. Unless you do some additional (easy) setup packages which aren't installed on your primary machine won't be cached (so the secondary systems will still download them from outside sources as usual), but that's doable to (I just haven't bothered -- my primary machine has almost all the packages of my secondary systems).
Debian may take a little time to get used to, but get comfy with it and you won't go back.
Hats off to ya. :) I originally thought that perhaps integrity of binaries or source (who reads all their source? Really?) might be compromised in a P2P system, until I realized that companies could simply publish md5 checksums for their files on a central webpage.
That said, I have to say that your idea not only sounds implementable, but absolutely wonderful! And I don't think it would require much infrastructure change, either, considering we have P2P programs and networks galore. More a matter of what action the user chooses when they want to check for updates (use Red Carpet vs. hop on a Gnutella client...)
...it costs $99 a year to download updates quickly. (Downloading them slowly, or from a different mirror, is still free).
Furthermore, it's still Free in that anyone else could take over development if Ximian *did* decide to start charging (per-copy, subscriptions, whatever) -- and THAT's what makes Free Software so valuable.
I don't see any baloons being popped or any mantras looking like FUD -- except perhaps your own.
Personally, I like to get my Evolution nightly snapshots as fast as possible.
And what about the situation where you want to do something, and realize you don't have the program installed to do it? Fast downloads mean you're back to work faster. That happened to me just yesterday-- I downloaded a PDF and realized I'd forgotten to install xpdf.
With apt-move and any web server, Debian does exactly what you're speaking of -- and entirely for free.
A proper p2p network needs to scale to millions of nodes, provide consistent and spam-proof search capabilities, and have some notion of locality. That is, no operation should require a global broadcast, and downloads should be automatically directed to the closest available replica. Better yet, downloads should be interleaved from multiple nearby replicas.
Take everything that's good about FastTrack, Napster, CHORD, and CAN. Stir. Maybe then we'd have a p2p system worthy of our praise and our software.
--Patrick
One problem with doing it P2P is legitimacy-- you might trust the Duke University Mirror, but do you trust "anonuser@netmasq"?
You could have it check md5sums but those can be faked. One could presumably use PGP signatures, of course, and I don't know what the issues with that are.
Another problem is that there is no guarantee that you'll get the latest files, and no way to stop the continuing distribution of a faulty package, etc. etc.
To some extent I agree with you, but it's kind of like the way that mp3 isn't the best audio format out there- the installed user base makes it attractive. That, of course, plus the fact that it serves no corporate master, unlike at least the first two you mentioned.
If I'm missing a truly free (i.e., not dependent on a central server) network that has an installed user base as large as the gnutella network, please do let me know.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
How big is your WAN? Two nodes?
That should be "what DOES Ximian..."
Subject - verb agreement is a major sticking point with employers.
I've read Animal Farm.. please show me how that has anything to do with Ximian offering a service.
Controlling the desktop? What on EARTH doest his have to do with 'controlling the desktop'
This has *nothing* to do with being proprietary!
Once gain.. this 'service' is NOT really directly related to Ximian Gnome.. it is an *updating* service, used to keep your system automatically up to date.. much more than just Ximian Gnome.
I'd buy evolution ($60 bucks orsomething). And Ximian should honour that barcode for upgrades & stuff.
:-)
I'd pay for use. I refuse to pay any 'monthly subscription', it just reminds me of porn sites
this guy obviously can't even read a fucking annoncemnt (he must be illiterate) ... if he did he would've realised how far his dick was up his own ass and eaten his worthless fucking opinions with some BACOM.
I know debian is harder to get installed than other distros but *come on*.... it is a one time cost.
. 2/ redhat/RPMS.extra/
/etc/apt/sources.list
The Debian developers who wrote APT created it to be independent of packaging systems, and its been out on Connectiva and mandrake (and optional on Red hat) for ages.
Red Hat users:
Download the APT package from:
http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt/redhat-extra-7
and put the following in your
rpm http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt redhat-7.2-i386/redhat os
rpm http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt redhat-updates-7.2/redhat os
rpm http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt redhat-extra-7.2/redhat extra
rpm ftp://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/apt redhat-freshrpms-7.2/redhat
freshrpms
rpm-src http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt redhat-7.2-i386/redhat os
rpm-src http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt redhat-updates-7.2/redhat os
rpm-src http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/apt redhat-extra-7.2/redhat extra
Problem solved.
* Standard (i.e, RPM) packages.
* No difficult install.
* Current stable releases.
* Auto hardware detection, and other modern OS features
* APT
More mirrors would be great, and Debian's larger list of packages, better packaging policies and greater amount of mirrors help, but personally I think the other Red Hat features more than make up for this.
...it was pretty but slow, and I didn't have much use for the Ghome apps. Then I used Red Carpet to download a Red Carpet upgrade (1.2) and Red Carpet broke. Then I couldn't remove Red Carpet, since I needed Red Carpet to download the last good version. Then I removed Ximian and moved on.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
ANd support a wholesome corporation go with libranet. They make debian installs easy, and you can get FREE gnome (and everything else) updates from debian.
Screw ximian even without the fees, their packages are crap for anyone using debian other than potato.
Subscriptions will not support Ximian. Red Hat already offers a more compelling product - they'll update your entire OS, not just the UI.
No. And you'd know that was false if you ever used Red Carpet, which contains OS updates, GNOME updates, Loki game demos, Codeweavers Wine, Opera, GNOME CVS packages, and a lot more.
Your comment is so very not insightful.
There's nothing for SLP's, DEB's, perl modules, etc.
RPM 3.05 is the Linux Standard Base packaging format. Debian is only LSB complaint in that is supports RPM via alien, which is quite obviously poor support at best.
Additionally, whether SLPs are packages are not is debatable depending on whether you think a packaging system must have dependencies to exist.
Perl modules *are* RPMs.
And if you've got the braisn to compile from source, you've got the brains to write a SPEC file in the rare case where one doesn't exist.
If you look at the Ximian site it's not just about more bandwidth. They also say there is exculsive updates to software from their channel partners such as Loki & VMWare.
I've thought about this all day long. "Is it too much, do I get what I want, after I spend my money, will it be worth it?"
I'm not the best programmer in the world. I will never remake the wheel as Ximian has done. I don't know if I actually want to.
So, for my money and time, it is worth it. Every penny. Because the alternative is Microsoft. Yes, a micropayment systems are ABSOLUTELY necessary if we're going to equal the playing fields, and $10 bucks a month is a little steep.
But we have to put our money where our mouths are. There will be freeloaders (literally) and that's fine. My $10.00/month will defray their weight on the system.
And I since I refuse to give Micro$not another dime, I need to ensure my needs are being met by someone. Hopefully others will follow suit.
hmm... i used to think Ximiam installs were cool until i just tried a minimal install on a clean Red Hat 7.2 (enigma) system...
the install barfs with dependency errors!
i wonder how i would feel if i just signed up for the service?
or i guess that's what you have to pay money for? a working install?
The Red Carpet update adds more than just the Express service. Nobody seems to be noticing CorporateConnect. Here is what it says in Red Carpet under Premium Services:
About Premium Services
If you're not already signed up for Red Carpet Express or CorporateConnect services, find out more about how they can help you and your company:
Red Carpet Express
For only $9.95 a month, get priority access to our high-bandwidth servers for rapid updates and downloads.
Red Carpet CorporateConnect
Manage and control your company's Linux software. Create custom, private secure Red Carpet channels for the software you distribute and update internally."
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
md5 is just one of many one-way hash algorithms out there. If the companies distributing the original packages are *truly* paranoid, they should be providing the resulting checksums using *several* hashing algorithms.
Faking something that gives the same md5 and crc32 alone, is probably nearly impossible, which would be a good thing.
I would maintain that "getting the latest file" would be a user's habit: a matter of checking the official company webpage (say, Ximian), and seeing what the current filename for a package is, as well as the checksum lists. Heck, if they're going to be downloading new checksums from the official company webpage anyhow, they should also be checking to see they have the newest version.
I suppose that problems with distribution of faulty packages does continue to exist. But I don't know how major those are -- presumably, faulty stuff also gets mirrored in today's more conventional distribution schemes until their spread is stopped by word-of-mouth?