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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."
$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.
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
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
Your entire argument seems to rest on the fact that you believe bandwidth is free.
:) You may not pay by the byte, but Ximian does, as does almost every other company and individual running a server.
BANDWIDTH IS EXPENSIVE.
Okay? Hope that clears everything up
By allowing people to download stuff for free(although relatively slowly), they're still basically giving you money from their pockets.
So please, until you start providing servers with a 100Mbit connection to a good backbone, and provide all the bandwidth fees(thousands of dollars per month), then please don't bitch.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
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.
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.
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
There is no double standard here. Ximian gives away all of its software for free. MS doesn't. With Ximian you can pay for a faster download.
But you knew that and were trolling right?
Why bother with "an update per month" ? Who says you're going to need that update ? Let's say you just buy a month at a time, and only buy a month when you know there's an update waiting for you. Ximian (or any other company) will start producing minor half-assed updates just so you stay hooked onto the service every month. Now even though Ximian is a free-software house, they are still run by marketing and finance droids, so don't expect them to be any more honest than XYZ MegaCorp.
Once again, I declare that the net needs a micropayment system (with a warranty, if that's applicable at all). If you want to download 20 megs worth of updates, then pay for that 20 megs of bandwidth (let's say 2 dollars). If you spend the next year without needing or wanting an update, then you don't disburse another penny and life is good. This model is flawed because it will encourage them to release 'fat' patches, but there surely is a way to allow a reasonably honest and fair system for all.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
The problem is that cable companies essentially have to intrude on your network and figure out what you're running in order to offer their service. Ximian's service is a natural and reasonable one to offer. There is no 'customer policing' to make sure it works.
Also, I have no problem with the cable companies differentiating based on usage, but that should be based on usage, not what software you happen to be running. If they want to rate limit you and charge you extra to have it lifted, that's great. What I have a problem with is them telling you what you can and can't have on your network.
Essentially cable companies are trying to 'police' users for business mistakes they made. They shouldn't have assumed that all users would be docile downloading consumers, and structured their business and pricing plans accordingly. Instead, they want to blame consumers for their glaring error in offering unlimited bandwidth to home users isn't quite so apparent.
In short, the situations are not comparable.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
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.