Really, this is not a Bad Thing(TM) IMHO. I am using a free downloaded Mandrake 9.1 at this moment, and I wouldn't mind what they are proposing. I am sure I could turn the ads off eventually anyway. Bookmarks are easily deleted, so BFD to that.
I am also using the free download version of Opera to post this. It contains ads in a portion of the browser. To stop them from being shown I would have to shell out $. I love Opera, but I am a tight-a$$, so I can live with the ads. If not, I could always pay or switch to another browser. Just like I could always switch to another distro of Linux if I wanted.
Personally, I think this method of trying to recoup the expenses for free download versions is long overdue in the Linux business model. People like me who want to continue to use Mandrake may now have the incentive to drop the paltry(compared to Windows) sum for a CD or DVD version with no ads.
I also think that if you are the type to roll-your-own Mandrake from the sources, you probably know enough to kill the ads features and still use your fave distro. Once again, no problem. Hell, I know a guy here at work who LIVES for any excuse to recompile/update/tweak. I will ask him for help with this when the final 9.2 sources are available. He uses Slack and Gentoo mostly, but if I offer him caffeine and snack-foods I am sure he would do it.:)
I talked my boss into letting me build and maintain our company's email server. I used Linux, Postfix and RAV for mail Servers. RAV is incredibly easy to install, configure and maintain. It checks for updates several times per day(cron) and has all the extra stuff like Reverse-DNS, RBL, WBL, and includes anti-spam abilities. It chugs away without adding any perceivable load on the server, yet works perfectly. Best $300 our company spent. Ever.
The part the boss liked the most was NOT using M$ Exchange, which he knew was high-maintenance as far as patches, etc. After 15 months of flawless uptime, one of our new execs(...aka PHB) asked how often mail is backed up. When I told her once a week she said that at her last company they did nightly backups of their Exchange server. Naturally, I didn't miss the opportunity to reply that if they were running that @$%^*&^! mailserver software, it would have to be backed up daily due to all the bugs, half-ass patches, and viruses that are targetting it all the time.
I spoke with RAE Internet on the phone when I was checking out RAV, and they answered the phone on the second ring each time I called. I got superb support each time, with follow-up emails that were detailed enough that I didn't need to ask for an explanation of an answer. When was the last time any of you actually had that positive an experience when making a call to support from a software vendor?
So MS bought them out? Well, I hope the Romanians got a big dumpster full of cash for it. It's worth it. I just don't like the thought of what MS will do to it.
... Are you concerned that M$ might decide to make a P2P system that works similarly to this and start bundling the client with Windows, or even as a part of their Media Player? They would then license the tech to the media companies to use for distributing movies, etc. Such a move could dramatically reduce the growth potential of BitTorrent (see "Netscape" and "RealPlayer"). Even if M$ just gave it away at first in order to take the biggest chunk of the market for later reaping, the impact on other products such as yours and Kazaa and others would be, well, bad.
The very first thing I did in Linux was set up a Postfix server for our small company, having only ever been a pc user and having no tech training. I had a book and a few cd's of software when I started. Our lan had internal only ip's and a firewall connecting us to the 'net. When I told postfix to accept mail for relay only from the ip range in my lan, I figured I would be safe.
Wrong.
Since an attempt to relay mail from a website script that was on the net to test such things reported back that relay was not possible, I had to go back and re-read the logs for clues.
Somebody was able to initiate a port 25 telnet session pointing at our external ip for the mail server on the firewall, which mapped it to the mail server, and then they could ehlo and send mail as the ip of the internal side of the firewall, which of course was part of that trusted network.
I had to re-figure the ip addresses for "My Network" in Postfix to eliminate this one ip in order to stop it. The firewall was controlled by another tech, and he refused to help me or do anything to the firewall, so that was the quickest fix I could figure out.
Let this be a lesson to all who point at "open relays"... An exploit is not the same as an open relay, even though it may look like one.
I have not used the 'Back' button since Opera included mouse-gestures. Quite frankly, I couldn't care less what they do to that button from now on 'til doomsday.
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Mandrake has beta 1 of the 9.2 version for AMD64 available. Check their site for links.
I am also using the free download version of Opera to post this. It contains ads in a portion of the browser. To stop them from being shown I would have to shell out $. I love Opera, but I am a tight-a$$, so I can live with the ads. If not, I could always pay or switch to another browser. Just like I could always switch to another distro of Linux if I wanted.
Personally, I think this method of trying to recoup the expenses for free download versions is long overdue in the Linux business model. People like me who want to continue to use Mandrake may now have the incentive to drop the paltry(compared to Windows) sum for a CD or DVD version with no ads.
I also think that if you are the type to roll-your-own Mandrake from the sources, you probably know enough to kill the ads features and still use your fave distro. Once again, no problem. Hell, I know a guy here at work who LIVES for any excuse to recompile/update/tweak. I will ask him for help with this when the final 9.2 sources are available. He uses Slack and Gentoo mostly, but if I offer him caffeine and snack-foods I am sure he would do it. :)
I talked my boss into letting me build and maintain our company's email server. I used Linux, Postfix and RAV for mail Servers. RAV is incredibly easy to install, configure and maintain. It checks for updates several times per day(cron) and has all the extra stuff like Reverse-DNS, RBL, WBL, and includes anti-spam abilities. It chugs away without adding any perceivable load on the server, yet works perfectly. Best $300 our company spent. Ever.
The part the boss liked the most was NOT using M$ Exchange, which he knew was high-maintenance as far as patches, etc. After 15 months of flawless uptime, one of our new execs(...aka PHB) asked how often mail is backed up. When I told her once a week she said that at her last company they did nightly backups of their Exchange server. Naturally, I didn't miss the opportunity to reply that if they were running that @$%^*&^! mailserver software, it would have to be backed up daily due to all the bugs, half-ass patches, and viruses that are targetting it all the time.
I spoke with RAE Internet on the phone when I was checking out RAV, and they answered the phone on the second ring each time I called. I got superb support each time, with follow-up emails that were detailed enough that I didn't need to ask for an explanation of an answer. When was the last time any of you actually had that positive an experience when making a call to support from a software vendor?
So MS bought them out? Well, I hope the Romanians got a big dumpster full of cash for it. It's worth it. I just don't like the thought of what MS will do to it.
... Are you concerned that M$ might decide to make a P2P system that works similarly to this and start bundling the client with Windows, or even as a part of their Media Player? They would then license the tech to the media companies to use for distributing movies, etc. Such a move could dramatically reduce the growth potential of BitTorrent (see "Netscape" and "RealPlayer").
Even if M$ just gave it away at first in order to take the biggest chunk of the market for later reaping, the impact on other products such as yours and Kazaa and others would be, well, bad.
The very first thing I did in Linux was set up a Postfix server for our small company, having only ever been a pc user and having no tech training. I had a book and a few cd's of software when I started. Our lan had internal only ip's and a firewall connecting us to the 'net. When I told postfix to accept mail for relay only from the ip range in my lan, I figured I would be safe. Wrong. Since an attempt to relay mail from a website script that was on the net to test such things reported back that relay was not possible, I had to go back and re-read the logs for clues. Somebody was able to initiate a port 25 telnet session pointing at our external ip for the mail server on the firewall, which mapped it to the mail server, and then they could ehlo and send mail as the ip of the internal side of the firewall, which of course was part of that trusted network. I had to re-figure the ip addresses for "My Network" in Postfix to eliminate this one ip in order to stop it. The firewall was controlled by another tech, and he refused to help me or do anything to the firewall, so that was the quickest fix I could figure out. Let this be a lesson to all who point at "open relays"... An exploit is not the same as an open relay, even though it may look like one.
A way for the net-crushing worm writers to be able to bring the entire web down 10 times faster. Thanks, kid. ;^p
I have not used the 'Back' button since Opera included mouse-gestures. Quite frankly, I couldn't care less what they do to that button from now on 'til doomsday.