Gowator Posted January 5, 2006 Report Share Posted January 5, 2006 It's a business problem, Gowator. They want to make money. I have no problem with that at all. They should make money. But, they are trying to make money on a concept that they did not create and do not understand. That is the community. In business, one makes money from a community, not by making a community. They think that they can generate a community, e.g., the club, and then generate the money. The funny thing is if they actually provide services as a result, they could generate capital. But instead, their stand is to jump on the train, a train not of their making and one they tried to fight with at one time, and tell the community to pay up if you want to be a part! It's reall silly. If they focused their efforts upon marketing to that community, they would generate more income. But, they prefer to pretend to do whatever it is they think they are doing. And I agree that the contacts information is all show. It always has been. And no, successful businesses do not always make a show. Some actually take care of their community because they understand the concept of future sales from service. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I think it goes even beyond that.... If I go back to the photography example, Nikon are a sucessful business, they have a cult following some shops sell only Nikon products but this is a community which has just devloped through quality and marketing of that quality. However Nikon do not have a site asking me what I think of the last lens I bought etc. the contact site is very basic phone or write. There is no encouragement to pour out your ideas into a /dev/null redirection! Indeed they don't ask you to submit you are soooo happy with Nikon! On the other end is my photo processing software where they provide a forum with feedback and bug fixes etc. and you actually correspond with developers. The bibble software can be a little buggy: nothing serious but it can occaisionally crash but since when it does I get an answer and a fix from the developers I am happy to put up with it. On the other hand I wouldn't tolerate the same buggyness in Nikon software if I bought it because buggyness is easier to live with when you feel part of a community and you kow someone is actually trying to help. You see the same with scientific software, people are willing to put up with buggy SW if they get leading edge and if someone is actually listening to them making bug reports and getting back personally with fixes. From my POV Mandrake is trying to do as little as Nikon while giving the impression of being interested in the community like the bibble stuff. If you want to submit a bug then you either have the /dev/null forms or you join the club in order to submit a bug... which again leaves customers thinking hey... why do I have to pay to help out? Perhaps tyme is right and we expect to much but from my perspective Mandrake seems to want to exploit that community and hence I feel more like Ix thinking they are just trying to jump on a bandwagon. If mandrake could be a bit more focussed and actually explain simply what they want then I am sure enough people want to stick with them but as they are they simply drive away a percentage of their userbase every year. They seem content with replacing it with noobies instead of capitalising on the experienced users they are loosing and seem more worried with the number of Powerpacks sold than keeping the buyers happy and returning buyers. My main problem is people wasting my time. I hate it whether its SPAM, snail mail spam or submitting a bug report to someone who just trashes it. Like you and many others here I am quite willing to give away my time for free so long as it is appreciated but I am not happy to be encouraged to write something that is then pointedly trashed without reading, that is rude. Imagine inviting an after dinner speaker to some charity event where they work to write a speech for free about helping starving kids or some other worthy need. Then they arrive and just before their speech get told that there is no need for them to speak because they have done the job by attending and getting all those people to pay for a charity dinner! All you are saying is that you don't care what they have to say because you just want the money....they could generate for you. Some people might think well it is helping the kids that matters so even after wasting their time writing a speech they don't care but many would feel cheated and betrayed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelcole Posted January 5, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 5, 2006 It was a gripe.. Now it is two pages long. the FORS AND AGAINST Stuff.. We all Appreciate what Manrdiva has done and is doing for the future, it would be nice if they read this site once in a while which i am sure they would.. But yes they have a Business to run.. But i post fixes here on this site and comments, because i feel like i am part of a community, not a beta tester for a corporation.. I have worked for enough of them in the past.. I am a person and like the interaction, dev/null or even /dev/lp0 is not going to give me any satisfaction, whereas this site does... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted January 5, 2006 Report Share Posted January 5, 2006 It was a gripe.. Now it is two pages long. the FORS AND AGAINST Stuff.. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Often a sign something is deeply wrong Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted January 5, 2006 Report Share Posted January 5, 2006 Or a sign that forum members have too much time on their hands ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted January 5, 2006 Report Share Posted January 5, 2006 You mean, too much tyme on their hands? :lol: This is a subject that has been discussed over several years. The situation has actually improved over time. And I do think that the "magical changing tree" is an example of just how far away the users are to the production people when it comes to Mandriva. But it is better. They have not begged for money in quite some time. I count that as progress. B) Edit: I read an article in PC World concerning service. Their readers report that, while techtoys have improved in reliability and performance, their customer service has grown worse. Companies seem to think that the money used for good customer service is better spent upon relibale hardware/software and customer service can take a flying leep. They are forgetting that in human nature, negatives are broadcast and shared more than 10 times for a single event, where as positives are shared less than 3 times for a single event. That means any negative is potentially more damaging than any positive. The only way to combat human psychology is to really pile on the positives. Think of Gates making the benevolent news recently! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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