On Sunday 22 April 2001 16:26, Nadav Har'El wrote:
> <<<<<< pay special attention to this >>>>>
> We may not be able to generate revenue from sales of Official Red Hat
> Linux if users can more quickly download it from the Internet.
> Anyone can download a free copy of official Red Hat Linux from the
> Internet. However, because this download can take up to 36 hours
> using a standard telephone connection, many of our users choose to
> buy the shrink-wrapped version of Official Red Hat Linux. If hardware
> and data transmission technology advances in the future to the point
> where increased bandwidth allows users to more quickly download our
> products from the Internet, users may no longer choose to purchase
> Official Red Hat Linux. This could lead to a significant loss of
> product revenue.
I believe that this is also the reason why SuSE doesn't put ISO images
of its full distribution on its ftp server, or even ISO images of the
complete FTP tree, though they give several other reasons, which don't
seem strong enough to me:
http://sdb.suse.de/sdb/en/html/lmuelle_suselinux_internet.html
(scroll down almost to the bottom, to the section "ISO images of SuSE
Linux")
I think that if it turns out that FTP-based install is done by many
users, they'll also remove the FTP installation option, and settle for
what the GPL requires, namely, to provide the source code, not the RPMs.
Saying that it's hard to make a living on open source shouldn't be all
surprising to you. The movement is not about making money, but about
making quality and answering user needs. It's like other things you do
"for the good of humanity", from saving the rainforests to feeding the
hungry, or even educating children. You either have to rely on a
government to do these non-revenue-generating-but-necessary things,
because a government's main interest is to get votes rather than make
money, or you have to volunteer (or donate money). [yes, I know
governments also need to handle budgets, but they need to do so in
order to maintain political stability/get votes, not the other way
around].
Herouth
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