Mandrake Clarifies its Future

fabiolrs writes "Mandrake Linux has an article in response to the message they sent on march 11th. They claim that because of user help they are "cash-flow positive"! That is great news since Linux community is now sure it will continue using one of the nicest distros available!"

Comments

Why the attitude of some users....

[linuxrunner]

Here's a quote from a prior post:

If Mandrake doesn't make it, another user-friendly GNU/Linux distro will take up the slack.

No offense to anyone, but is this the type of attitude we're supposed to have in the opensource community? Is this the best we can do? Just to have a revolving door, of when they don't make it, someone else will do it, until they fall too... repeat.

Are you that cheap?

The Open Source community should be about sharing code, sharing to make better, sharing to contribute, sharing to learn from... But not sharing to mooch off of.

I say go ahead and mooch at first. Learn about the product, etc... but if you like it, then support it. I know most MDK users are fanatics. I am one. I also know redhat users are fanatics, I am also one.
I support both buy purchasing future releases off of the web sites. I know the iso's are there... But I choose to support the distro's so they'll be there in the future with a BETTER product.

MDK needed help so they had to ask for money, yet people mock them for it.
MDK is not making star office 6.0 free since sun is not making it free, and people mock them.

Are you a linux user or not?

Are you going to support the cause? Or just talk about it?

How to use some of that money

[DrXym]

I wish a distro - ANY distro - would invest some money in usability. Linux is never going to be ready for the desktop until someone sits 100 volunteers in front of a computer and asks them to do stuff - copy text, format a disk, connect to the internet etc. and implements the findings. There is no distro or UI (KDE/GNOME) which comes even remotely close to being user friendly as OS X or XP define it. The prize for the first distro to pull it off will be huge.

While experts can find their way around existing distros, mere mortals will rightly conclude that XP or OS X is a better choice for them simply because it doesn't put up barriers at every stage. Even little things as more task orientation, hiding advanced settings in secondary dialogs and removal of needlessly jargon filled alerts can do much to simplify a UI.

Re:Its somewhat depressing...

[Omnifarious]

I think you persist in willfully misunderstanding their business plan in the service of the "You can't make money selling Libre Software" meme.

I use RedHat, and religiously buy a new box with every release so they get money and it stays on retail shelves. I know I don't _have_ to, but in my own cost/benefit analysis, the money I spend on their boxes is well worth it. I'm not making a 'donation', I'm consciously investing in my own future. I'm investing in the security updates I know I'll recieve. I'm investing in the next version that I know they are working on. RedHat has earned my trust in this regard, and I know that to continue to produce the things I need and/or treasure, they need my support.

It's not free software, it's Libre software. It takes time, and effort to produce. The people who put in that time and effort need to eat as much as the rest of us. When people like you spread the 'donation' meme, you devalue their work and falsely give the impression that it's voluntary and a 'gift' when what it really is is an investment in the future of a product you use daily.