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Mandrake Club


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How is click'n'run free if you have to pay for Lindows/Linspire? That was my point. They taut CNR as the great thing that makes Linspire worth paying for...

 

I disagree completely that Mdk marketing sucks. It only sucks partially, and your events happened some time ago - when they were really understaffed and overworked.

 

I like the idea of giving the previous OE for free the moment the new one becomes available. Then people have 3 choices: get the old OE, get the new but not so polished (but very current) CE, or pay for the new OE, which is CE with updates.

 

BTW all early adopters are basically beta testers, look at those who bought the first dvd video recorders, dvd burners, etcetc..

You can be the first to have something, but then you have to prepare for things like that.

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I pretty much think the whole marketing side sucks... not the product, just the marketing of it.

Once you know and understand Mandrake then you see they are not trying to rip you off but the impression for noobies is that they are...

 

Remember the discussions we had here for the change to OE/CE... and the confusion it caused not to mention inadequacies and errors on the web site describing it.

 

Mandrake concentrate on making a great distro, not business practices and marketing but even if they just put this as a caveat on the web site they would get better understanding...

Its like the mystery disk 4 or what packages do you get for joining the club etc.

All they have to do is give a bit of information ...

 

take urpmi, probably the single best thing for Mandrake but its not even mentioned..how would a noobie discovery urpmi sources etc.???

 

I like the idea of giving the previous OE for free the moment the new one becomes available. Then people have 3 choices: get the old OE, get the new but not so polished (but very current) CE, or pay for the new OE, which is CE with updates.

Yep its simple marketing....

Its a shame it takes me to come up with something so simple...

The idea of a CE and OE is great... its just they lack the implementaiton and commercialisation of it....

As usual its the implementation that wrecks an otherise great idea...

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bvc, great that for you devfs to udev worked; I upgraded 9.2 to 10.1rc1 to 10.1 and remember it took a very long time to log into kde, and noted boot messages that stated 'using devfs, can't start udev'... sure, I only later realised I should have changed the lilo boot command, but likely others will also....

Good to know that it can be done though.

 

 

Gowator,

Don't forget to add that lots of people are interpreting and shouting lots of things without being really in the know.

 

I understood from the beginning what CE and OE were about, from Mdk's press release, and it made sense.

 

Then lots of articles and reviews and forums (including this one) created more confusion by stating incorrect things about CE being an RC, what place it has etc etc.

 

Urpmi has been mentioned in every press release about a new Mdk release AFAICR.

And it is hailed in most reviews that I read about Mdklinux. Naturally I mention it on my site so whoever doesn't know about it didn't come to the right place to get started on Linux... :P

 

On second thought, it is nice that they don't wait all too long to give out OE, because then they get more users for that so better/more bugfixes, which means among other things, a better CE v.2 .. arguably, Mdk 10.0.2 is the nicest one to use right now. I vote for 10.1CE due to the improved usb stuff though..

BTW 10.0.2 CE is a nice extra for clubmembers. This one is not available at all as such.

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Don't forget to add that lots of people are interpreting and shouting lots of things without being really in the know.

the real point here is Mandrake really suck at informing the users...

 

Thats why were are all confused....

 

If being in the know involves having silver club membership then it is a bit of a self satisfying information loop...but not one in the real world...

 

If they actually listed what is on the Cd4 and said what the club benefits are or are not then people would not get the wrong impression.

 

Urpmi has been mentioned in every press release about a new Mdk release AFAICR.

Yep, perhaps as you or I understand it but not really in a way noobies do.

 

I have a friend who does documentation for scientific SW ... the secret is describig what is important and what isn't in a way noobies understand...

Mandrake mention urpmi but not how important it is to installing SW...

 

(just look how many people come here without knowing about it. )

 

Dont get me wrong, Im not against the club in any way, Im against how its presented. Im sure it has suckered quite a few people with problems into joining and although their cash may be good for mandrake their dissapointment isnt.

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The thing is that people don't read documentation from Mandrake, they don't go to the Mandrake websites, they just download some cd's and come here to get clued in, and if they don't make it here they don't get clued in.

 

And you want to blame Mandrake for that?

 

No, if people don't get the boxed product, and don't read the manuals that you can install that contain the same info as the books in the box, sorry, Mandrake has done what they can.

 

Ok, in some press releases they have been less than clear, but people also got confused about the whole CE thing due to all forums having threads explaining how CE was just another name for RC2.

 

Go ahead, find those threads here on this forum, and find my comments on those. I took the time to read the press release and to me it was quite clear that CE-OE was no repeat of standard practise (exept maybe 9.2.1 clubmember edition being the equivalent of OE).

Everyone else had it wrong, and they got listened to. Mandrake explained clearly enough (I'm not even a native English speaker and I got the message fine), .... people just prefer to listen to other sources than take things from the horses mouth.

 

I haven't read a single good review about Mandrake that doesn't mention urpmi or rpmdrake with dependency resolution (can turn that around too, if they don't mention either, they're bad reviews imho).

Still lots of people don't know. Why? Maybe the crowd on slashdot is too loud in yelling: forget rpm based distros, apt-get rulzzz..

 

How much money should Mandrake spend on this marketing? I prefer they spend it on developers and development. Noobies won't read the marketing anyway.

 

As for the club, no, I think those people who got put off just had the wrong idea about it, and since it's still growing, it's not half bad.

There will always be unhappy customers, no way around that one.

Don't forget, you can't just change your business model based on comments of the few that are unhappy.

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The whole idea on Linux and the Open Source software is exactly that it is open and free. Starting to ask money for it in any way shape or fashion defeats the purpose of it.

 

Where is that line where it says: If you contribute whatever you can to the open community you get all the other efforts in return, for free!

 

I do like the mandrake distribution and its ease of use and i dont mind contributing to it as i am doing in my limited capacity. But i firmly object against any effort from Mandrake to push for commercial benefits under the umbrella of the free and open world. Once they start that way, it wont take long before they act like Micro$oft. As soon as i dont have the access to the necessary updates or downloads i will simply stop using it and advise anybody else to do exactly the same. Besides i believe that Mandrake can better put the marketing efforts into developing and improving the community, we will follow the good products and there is no need to pull us in.

 

:thanks:

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Well Open is not always FREE. 

Mandrake have employees they need to pay etc. 

I dont begrudge paying for a distro or even paying to get the updates 2 weeks ahead for a new release so long as updates are always available for free to everyone. 

 

I wouldnt mind paying for the club if they ask me nicely... I just don't like the way they do it. 

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Please Gowator, I'm asking you nicely, pay for the club!

:jester:

 

SpikeyKlitske,

you got it wrong man.

Linus gets paid to work on Linux, that's money right there that comes from somewhere.

 

Mandrake offers a service, and if not enough people pay for that, they won't be able to continue to offer that service. Simple as 1+1 really.

If enough people pay for it, they can keep offering this service.

If even more people pay for it, they can improve it.

 

Mandrake is the first line of attack of the open source world against the MS monopoly. Sure, there are others, some more viable than the next, but Mandrakelinux is for most switchers the first step because it is the the easiest to get and use Linux distro. Note that I'm discounting any non-open source distro (they are not in the desired field).

So Mandrake (and others) are instrumental in getting rid of the MS monopoly, and increase momentum for Linux - which is what all linux users (should) want, since that is the only way to make hard and software makers notice us and cater to us.

Now I don't really care much about non open source software, but I do like to be able to buy any piece of hardware and use it.

 

The Linux users that say: "I don't care if the rest of the world uses MSWin, as long as I can use Linux" just don't get it. They will not be able to continue to use Linux if the world and their dog stay on windows. At some point there would be no supported hardware (tcpa/palladium freaky stuff, drm, etc.. wear your thin foil hats guys).

 

So, an increase of Linux momentum is good for all of us (including MSwin users!) computer users, and the best way to do that is to add to open source. And if you want to add to open source, why not add to a linux distribution maker who's services you use?

You can also opt to add to OOo, KDE, GNOME, FSF, or whatever.

 

In 98 people where projecting 15% of desktop use of linux, now we barely have 5%. Why? Because not enough money goes around in the Linux/FLOSS world.

Talk is cheap, and closed wallets don't help.

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Please Gowator, I'm asking you nicely, pay for the club!

:jester:

Nope they have to ask...thats the point. If I pay to join I have voted ..I know i could join and make a fuss inside but then the management/marketing will be more concerned with my membership money than opinion.

 

I just paid for suse... supporting Opensource and I paid to Support linspire's court cases ($100 got me a lifetime membership) and I dont even like Suse or Linspire....

 

next I might buy an iBook .. even that will help linux....

I bought an XBOX but no games.... that should support linux too since they make a loss on each box and I put on linux....

 

I quietly evangelise, promote and support....

 

 

 

but aRTee is right folks...

 

you cant just sit here and think hey linux just is and always willbe...

MS is doing its level best to level linux..and they have a LOT of cash...

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Don't get me wrong aRTEE, i do not expect anything for nothing and I do not mind contributing even in cash to support the linux environment and make sure we will brake the monopoly of Micro$oft. I am just carefull not to create yet another resemblence of a money hungry monopolist.

 

Also I believe that the hardware manufacturors are the ones that could do more financial support to the Linux developers as they will help them sell their products. Even the large corporations with their big server farms have the leverage to financially support the linux developers. It strikes me that all expect the end users to (continuously) pay for it whereas them using it already creates the multy billion market the industry is proffiting from already. We have to stop thinking that the end users can cough up and spent ever more cash, THAT is why I support Linux!

 

We are wasting tons of resources simply to keep the economic profit growing of a select few and I refuse to continue supporting that treadmill. Again I do not mind spending cash to support Linux but on the right terms and not to create yet another marketig$ machine. I am willing to contribute my time to test, evaluate and improve the product (all for free) and I am willing to buy the gismo's, books or the hardware to operate Linux on, but let the industry pay the developers to make the hardware do what it is supposed to do. That way I do not have to pay to get something and pay again to make it work or pay yet again to fight the one I payed already over and again.

Edited by SpikeyKlitske
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I've been condering joining Mandrake Club but there is one thing from keeping me from doing it. I've heard that there are alot of commercial programs which you can download if you are a club member. I'm interested in joining only if these commercial programs will be useful to me, but I can't find anyplace inwhich I can see what programs there are, what they do, etc. If someone could provide me a link to where I can look at (not download) the programs I would be most appreciative.

 

That sounds a bit selfish to me. When you join Mandrakeclub you are contributing to the open source software development, helping Mandrakesoft to survive and continue with Mandrakelinux development and so on.

How was it? : Dont ask what the open source software can do for you, but what can you do for it.

You can join the club for 60 euros/dollars a year, that is 5 $/€ a month !!! Is it really that much ??... Or you can pay 120 $/€ and be able to download all de Powerpacks Mandrake releases within that year, 10€/$ a month doesnt seem that expensive to me...

Im not saying that you should join, but i just dont like the way you put it, i dont think its fear, where is the sense of community if you are only looking for your own personal benefit (ie.: I'm interested in joining only if these commercial programs will be useful to me)?

 

 

Personally, I contributed to Mandrake (and the promotion of Linux in general), by puchasing the $80 Mandrake 10 Official Power Pack, when I did not really need to - I had already purchased the 9$ 4 CDs of Mandrake community from one of the online Linux CD vendors. With this purchase, got some extra goodies (extra software, printed manuals), but I still did not need to fork out $80. But it was worth it, and Mandrake deserves it.

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It's always difficult to pay for something that anyone can get for free. But it's what makes free software special. Use it and if you like it give something back -- whether it is code, money or support to other users.

 

I am a club member not for the so-called "advantages" but simply because I like using Mandrake. I feel I owe Mandrake team something because I don't think I would have tried linux if it weren't for their distribution. When I switched to linux two years ago I was able to install and use the distribution without any help, which was good because I didn't know any linux user at the time (I still don't --- Microsoft Planet??).

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  • 3 weeks later...

BTW - I've considered joining the Mandrake club, but I was a part of it for a month as part of my Mandrakelinux PowerPack purchase. Mandrake club was not that exciting for me, so I decided to bypass getting a year substription of it.

 

I think Mandrake club is a great idea, though. I like the community spirit it brings. It's sort of like contributing to your local PBS station, even though you don't need to, because you are helping maintain the value it brings.

 

However, I would like to see Mandrake offer more things of actual value in Mandrake club, other than early downloads of things that will become available for free later on.

 

Until then, I will continue to support my favorite Linux disto (Mandrakelinux) by purchasing the PowerPack for major releases (perhaps my next purchase will be 11.0), and also perhaps purchasing some Mandrakesoft goodies, like T shirts, coffee mugs, city bag, etc. And the next time I need a new PC, it will be from MandrakeStore (hopefully, they'll have PCs available for purchase outside France and Benelux, and in North America in particular).

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