I Think like many, you have received this e-mail from Mandriva:At last we can promote Mandriva the way Ubuntu does, but at last i found out that you have to pay for the cd's.
Why, i don't know. We as MCNL promote Mandriva all the time just like the MUB but still we have to pay. We are been asked to organize a install party for 2008 Spring, we have asked for promotion stuff but got nothing.
How will the community will be able to promote Mandriva if whe have to pay for everything or get no promotion material from Mandriva, maybe not all the members but at least the admins and the crewmembers should get cd's and stickers for free.

This is my opinion, please respond.


[moved from Talk-Talk by spinynorman]

The way I see it Mandriva are making the CD's, and therefore are charging for those CD's. This in my opinion is perfectly fine, since they have to cover the costs of providing the CD's - why should they do it for free? If you had to burn a load of CD's, would you just give them away? You'd at least want to cover the costs of having to purchase the CD's in the first place, as well as your time spent on burning those CD's as well as maybe printing something on the CD as well. To me it seems reasonable. It's the same of the CD's you can buy that burn Debian, Mandriva, or whatever distro for a few dollars or whatever. Although, I don't know what Mandriva are charging for the CD's they are making.

I don't see where Mandriva are asking you to organise a Linux party though - although if you were to, then this would be your choice not Mandriva forcing you to do so.

If I have burned a CD and am not going to use it again, then I just give it away so that it will benefit someone.

Mandriva holds install parties whenever a new release is out. Although burning CDs have a cost companies usually provide promotion stuff for free.

I don't know who did you ask to rpovide those CDs for you but AFAIK Mandriva does give install party CDs for free as well as stickers.
Anyway I'm not a Mandriva official. None of us are here. You better ask Adam.

Why do you have to pay for the CD's?

Because buying, burning, and shipping a CD costs money - and Mandriva isn't backed by a millionaire (i.e. Ubuntu). Don't get me wrong, it's nice that Ubuntu gives out free CD's, but it's just that - nice. I don't expect Mandriva to go shelling out cash for something that won't provide them with any funds in return - it's a business, not a charity.

If you want the CD's for "free", download the ISO, go to your local office supply store, pick up a stack of CD's and start burning.

Otherwise, shutup and stop being a freeloader.

A lot of business do give things away, it's called advertising. It's quite a common and legitimate investment for companies that want to try and broaden their customer base. It can be risky, Mandriva seems to be trying to mitigate that risk by going against common practice and charging for the privilege of promoting (the mention of install parties to some degree implies promotion) their product. that kinda puts people off when they are already devoting their time and effort for free to promote the product.


I find that remark to be rather aggressive and bang out of order.

I don't see it as charging to promote. You can promote without giving them a dime, and it's their right to charge for something that costs them money. For years, install-fests have gone on without Linux companies providing CD's. But as soon as one (Ubuntu) does it, every other Linux company is expected to do it too.Yeah, it was aggressive. I don't think it's completely out of order, though. I find expecting a company to provide - for free - something that costs them money to be out of order. The last time I got something from a company for free that promoted that company, it was at a trade show, and it was a pen. An extremely cheap pen. And had they not had that pen, I wouldn't be running around complaining about it. That's their choice, and I have no right to expect them to give me anything for free. Besides all that, Mandriva already provides the ISO for free, so it's not like you HAVE to buy this stuff from them.

You might not agree with it, but it's something that happens a lot and works well in the business world.

You're missing my point. It's up to the company to decide whether or not they want to do it, and the user has no right to expect it. I don't care whether or not it happens a lot or works, that still doesn't give end users the right to complain when a company chooses not to give stuff away for free.

For the record, i've buy always my version of Mandriva, except for 2007(1) that didn't work on my laptop. First i try One and then buy the Powerpack.

If Mandriva want's to promote their software i aspect to give me or other members some material, so whe can give it away. Euro 13 for 10 cd is not much, but if i have to promote a company and pay for it . i find it not correct.

Maybe a mod can put a lock on this topic, it's getting nowhere

But that's just it, you can still promote Mandriva without paying for it. The ISO is still free.

I apologize if you feel I've killed your topic.

The iso is free, correct. But a cd with a official print in a nice case looks better and people want to try it sooner then for instance a home burned cd.
Why is (K)ubuntu such a succes.

You don't killed my topic, i just wanted a nice discusion

The same discusion is going on the mcnl

For official events we do still provide promotional materials (CDs, stickers etc) for free to groups that are organizing a party - you should mail lugs AT mandriva DOT com with details (the organization you represent, some info about the event you're organizing, and a physical address to mail the materials to). If you've done this and not received a reply, please email me and I'll sort it out. In general if you're putting on some kind of proper installfest, you can contact lugs@ and get some stuff mailed to you.

The sale of One CDs on the Store is simply because quite a lot of people asked us to do it. It's meant to be for more informal situations - people who like to give out CDs to friends and family, for instance, but want nice pre-printed ones. The price just covers the cost of duplication and distribution, which isn't cheap. Unfortunately we're nowhere near rich enough to simply absorb these costs as Canonical does for the Ubuntu ShipIt program.

now everybody please relax. Tyme has been way too agressive but at least he apologized. So let's forget about it.

Back on topic now:

I felt similar, willie, when I read that mail. Pay for it? When others offer it for free?... Yeah, that sounds weird at first, but then: The money spent is, if you calculate it thoroughly, not for making Mandriva rich. The way I see it, the costs they charge are almost exaclty the costs that evolve by producing the merchandise. They seem to sell the stuff without any bigger commercial interest behind it. And: If you do such stuff yourself (stickers and CD-labels), it is way more expensive. Mandrivas offer CAN be a bargain.... if there were no Ubuntu.

Only because Ubuntu gives CDs away for free doesn't mean that everyone should or could do it. Were there not Ubuntu, everyone would say "Cool, that's cheap!", I bet. And yes: It is still damn cheap.

Were it my company, I wouldn't give the stuff away for nothing, either. Whatever you do, first of all you have to make sure that you do not go bancrupt. Point.

Now arctic, when have you known me to be too aggressive?

everytime you wanted the corporate jet.

They didn't say that you have to promote it though. What it said was:



which is more like a suggestion than telling you that you have to promote Mandriva this way. There's nothing forcing you to buy them if you don't want to.

What I find is, that some people use Linux because it's free, and they expect everything they do with Linux to be free. Such as support, such as getting CD's or whatever else for free, without having to pay for anything. Yet, they aren't prepared to give anything in return for the help and support they get for all this free stuff that they are using. I find that to be rather a poor attitude to take that just because Linux is free, everything should be free, and nothing is given back in return.

The main reason why everyone can do everything they want in Linux is because so many people have given up their own time for free to help others with their problems. To help others have the packages that they want to use under Linux that they used to use under Windows, or equivalents of these packages. For me personally, I am only too glad to help others because of all of those who have helped me. And I'm even willing to pay to support Linux - so that it can succeed. You can't do everything for free and survive.

I agree with that, but you must agree that what (K)ubuntu does works. I know that there are a lot of folks (MUB and the MCNL) spending lots of time helping others with there problems in there free time. For example: the crew of MCNL have made MCNLive, give them a couple of cd's, also on the MUB are people who spend a lot of time in Mandriva (you're one of them).

This is my last post in this topic for now, tomorrow i'm going for two weeks on holyday and there are no hotspots.

Technically, chris b made it (I remember when she made her first LiveCD, it was called something else back then). Do you guys still maintain it now that she "retired"? I'm just curious, not trying to nit-pick.

Chris B made it that's correct but the crew of MCNL tested MCNLive from alpha till the final release. That's why i said MCNL made it. No sins Chris stopped there will be no new release of MCNLive. I think nobody has the skills r the time to take over.

Ubuntu does have one thing different though. It's backed by a millionaire who even paid to go into space. Mandriva filed for bankruptcy, recovered with the help of investment from VC's and are climbing their way back up again.

To be honest artic, if you actually ran a company you would realise that sometimes you may have to compromise your beliefs in order to make money. and if you can't you won't be in business much longer. It is possible to give something away and make a profit, any notion that you can't is pure ignorance.

Yes which is reflected in the strategy discussed by the O/P, it looks like the company has developed a risk neutral attitude as of late. Which might be enough to get them out of a rut, but it won't have them leading the market any time soon.

Maybe not, but at least it will stop them from going bankrupt again - something I don't particularly think they want to happen. Considering their situation, I can't blame them for being risk-neutral for the time being - makes perfect sense. Once they've recovered and can do something risky that could help them lead the market, then good luck to them!