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Difference between 2005 LE Commercial and Free?


theo
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Hi,

 

What is the main difference (packages) between Mandriva 2005 LE Commercial Edition and Free Edition?

 

I know commercial edition includes commercial software (Flash/Java plugins, JDK, etc.) and non-free drivers (Nvidia and ATI video cards) but that does not justify the 2 GB of difference between those two editions!

 

Commercial Edition: 4.1 GB

Free Edition: 2.05 GB (half the size of the commercial edition)

 

Thank you in advance for this info!

 

Theo.

 

[moved from Installing Mandrake by spinynorman]

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commercial also has a 4th cd that doesn't come with the free edition. IIRC, this fourth CD is just the contrib packages. It also contains the non-free/commercial stuff you mentioned.

 

adamw could probably give you a more correct answer, but that's what I remember from previous versions.

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All the rest of the difference is just extra packages from main and contrib. There's really three 'versions' of 2005 been made; the 3 CD download version, the 4 CD version for Club standard members which is the 3 CDs plus the extra CD of commercial stuff (and I think a few extra contrib packages to pad out the space), and a 6 CD version which is CDs 1-4 plus two CDs of extra packages from main and contrib. The 4.2GB DVD is the six CD version, the 2.1GB DVD is the three CD version. Apart from the commercial stuff, there's nothing on the 4.2GB DVD you can't get from urpmi for the download version.

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Guest Sophgoat

So not to beat a dead horse but two quick questions on this subject: first, does this mean that online vendors who are offering 6 CDs are likely selling "pirated" versions of the commercial release? I bought 8.2 and 10 directly from then-Mandrake, got 10.1 from linuxcd.org (which only offers the 3 CDs) as I've got dialup. Can't afford to go whole hog for every version but I don't want to support anyone who's gutting Mandriva.

 

And, if a person were a purist, averse to using any non-free software but wants to stay with Mandriva, would the 3 CD version would work for them?

 

Thanks.

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Thanks tymark & adamw for your quick and complete answer :beer:

 

I bought Mandrake 10.1 DVD in January 2005. I can't afford to buy every new versions ( :screwy: ) but wish/want to upgrade my system anyway ... That's the reason of my question ...

 

I take a look at Ubuntu, Gentoo, ... who are completly free distros ... :juggle:

But I like Mandrake/Mandriva anyway ...

 

That does'nt disturb me to have to manually install nvidia, flash, adobe reader and so more non-free apps :P

 

Thanks.

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So not to beat a dead horse but two quick questions on this subject:  first, does this mean that online vendors who are offering 6 CDs are likely selling "pirated" versions of the commercial release?

 

 

You know, I've wondered that myself. The odd thing is, I don't think there's anything in those CD's that isn't freely distributable, so I'm not sure that it is technicaly pirating to redistribute them. It's still all freeware (in the free beer sense of free). I'm sure Mandriva would rather they not be redistributed, but as several well known sites I know of have been giving out what must have been 'club' versions for quite some time, for the usual price of a CDR, including cheapbytes. The 10.1 DVD I bought from them said power-pack in the installer. You'd think mandriva would do something about it if this were the case.

 

Of course, if their pricing structure wasn't so insane, they'd have 10 times as many members in the club, and nobody would ever bother with places like cheapbytes unless they had dial-up. It just seems stupid, especialy now that they are on an anual release to charge $760.00 to download the powerpack, when you can buy it from cheapbytes for $10 or Mandriva in a pretty box for $60.

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The Bulk of the $750 dollars is to cover the help service offered with the package.

Businesses would likely and usually do want that kind of backup, which is where the package is targeted.

Ordinary uses generally prefer to take their chances and get help where they can such as here at MUB.

I think it totally unfair to make such broard criticisms in this regard. I am sure that those offering the 6cd sets are NOT pirating as you loosely put it.

If they were they would have been stomped on years ago. This free software being freely distributed and those selling the sets are not making money on those sales. The price barely covers costs and like elsewhere in the Linux world such things are done as a service to the Linux community. The businesses make their money for the other services and other products they can offer to their Linux customers.

 

Be thankful that you can get Mandriva for free or nearly no cost from some one somewhere without being tagged a pirate or having your usage of the software being restricted in some way.

 

Cheers. John.

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Guest Sophgoat

I don't mean to suggest that every vendor out there is doing something illegal. Sorry if that irritated you, Aussie John. Thanks for your thoughts.

 

What I mean is - or what I'm trying to better understand is - I believe that Mandriva has license agreements for certain software that allow them to offer it as part of their overall distro but that those licenses may not apply to third party vendors. At a minimum, I think there's a difference between the commercial release and the public/free release? Or am I totally wrong about this and it's all one and the same?

 

I am grateful to online vendors. I have dialup and can't afford to buy every new release directly from Mandriva - although I have bought 8.2 and 10 from them, and will probably buy 2006. So I'm not knocking those vendors at all, I just want to make sure that the one or ones I go to are not distirbuting a version of Mandriva that they aren't licensed to distribute.

 

I know that AdamW posted the other day asking that links to versions of the commercial not be posted.

 

Just trying to understand the situation better, that's all.

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You can not charge for the software, but you can charge for the time invested and services given, i.e., burning, packing, selling (+installing) the cd's. In free software case the fee should be minimal, but there are no restrictions given someone is eager to pay that sum.

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AussieJohn, I agree with you to a point, but I also think the price structure of the Club is badly fractured. Obviously, there are support options available to those willing to pay $55/month that are not available to the rest of us, and for someone running a company, those options may be worth the money.

 

However, the pricing structure is badly broken, and completely lacking in appropriate options for the consumer. We all want to support linux, and mandriva specificaly, but there are a lot of peopl out there who are not going to support them unless they feal it's a good value, and since every bit of usefullness that can be gotten out of the lower-end club mumberships, can be gotten here and at cheapbytes for a fraction of the cost, those people are unlikely to ever join the club.

 

The Club, which is marketed to consumers at least as strongly as to companies, has very little to offer in terms of services and extras for those community members. The mandrivaclub forum, last time I was there, was a hellish nightmare of rude people, confusing layout and slowness. I have even seen moderators on that board make fun of people who were there with serious concerns.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing club members or the club in it's entirety, I just feal very strongly that mandriva has failed to provide real value in the 'consumer' level club memebrships, and getting anything worth-while out of the club, normaly requires a huge investment.

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Sorry but I didn't realise we were discussing the inadequacies or otherwise of the Mandrake/Mandriva club.

I thought it was about whether some distributors were possibly being pirates for distributing 6 cdrom sets. I cannot talk about the Club because I have NO experience of it. I don't have a credit card (and never ever had one) so am unable to join online. If I could then I probably would just to find out for myself and anyway I would regard the fee more as a donation for all I have gotten out of Mandrake/Mandriva.

 

John

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Sorry but I didn't realise we were discussing the inadequacies or otherwise of the Mandrake/Mandriva club.

You are right. I won't hijack the thread further.

 

But, like Sophgoat, I'd still like to know more about how these places offer these disks. The thing about charging for the disks, and the free ware is not shraged for makes sense, especialy since I believe it is all free ware. But so far, we've only heard conjecture one way or another. I'd love to know for sure.

 

If it is in fact legal as I believed, I will contiue to partonize CheapBytes, as IMHO, it's a very good value, so far I have always bought CD's and DVD's from them ever since a very bad experience with the mandrake store.

 

However, I have stronger and stronger fealings about piracy these days, and if I were to find out that it is in fact illegal, or only legal because of being in different countries, or some such non-sense, then I will not ever shop from them again, unless they stop selling the offending products.

 

Again, sorry for the topic high-jacking

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It's not illegal to sell if they charge for the service and not particulary the software,

i.e. I can sell a project Gutenberg book, but can charge only for paper, printing, other services. I can not charge for the information/data that is free.

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(...)

Again, sorry for the topic high-jacking

No problemo, it's very interesting.

 

It's not illegal to sell if they charge for the service and not particulary the software,

i.e. I can sell a project Gutenberg book, but can charge only for paper, printing, other services. I can not charge for the information/data that is free.

I think you're right (IMHO).

 

But I would add: all depends on the license!

 

You can redistribute free softwares and open source softwares (do you see the difference here?) if the author authorizes it.

 

And in this case, I can build my own package (or distro) with a lot of authorized redistributable applications and sell it at the price I want (support & service)!

But if the author do not authorize to redistribute his softs, this is not legal, indeed.

 

Some authors refuse that their softs are distibuted on (general public) media (specification of the license).

 

Another problem is the 'open source' philosophy and the rejection of non 'open source' software (under GNU/GPL license or something like this). nVidia drivers, for example, are completely free (0 EUR) (And I'm very happy it's like that!) but does not satisfy the 'open source' philosophy.

 

And it is still other thing ...

 

Just my 2 €cts.

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