Should You Donate Money to Companies? 191
John Buswell writes "This morning I received an email from MandrakeSoft, developers of the Linux-Mandrake distribution. One article in this e-newsletter they sent around disturbed me, they were looking for donations. Now, don't get me wrong, I am all for giving back to the community, however, if you look at their site, they are looking for donations for Mandrake specific projects like their installer (DrakX), their support websites and most disturbing of all Quality Assurance. This would be fine except that MandrakeSoft is a company, and these elements they are looking for donations for don't help anyone but their customers and their product. I know they are under a little financial strain, laying off employees and asking others to take pay cuts, but to me, this looks like they are trying to take advantage of the goodwill of the Linux community and their customers who might be a little afraid their Mandrake is going south.
Wouldn't you be outraged if a car company came out and asked for donations to improve safety features or fuel economy? These are company expenses to improve their product, so people buy more and they make more money. It's not something you ask for donations for. While I appreciate the many things Mandrake has done for Linux, I don't think they have the right to ask for money from their customers. If they were taking donations and giving funds to projects like Gnome, KDE, Apache or FSF, that would be fine, but these are ways to fund their products.
I think there are many useful projects that you can donate your money to, that are just developers working in their spare time from home, or non-profit organizations, and donating to those projects will still improve Mandrake's product, because they will definitely incorporate them into their latest releases. What does everyone else think? Is Mandrake justified in asking for donations or are they desperately seeking funds they can't obtain from their investors?"
My opinion is that to many people want cheese with their whine. This attitude trivializes the work that the real programmers do, but also the generosity of many of the major Linux companies who pay programmers to write code, and then pay ISP bills to let people download that code for free.
I don't really know much about Mandrake's financial situation. I doubt that optional donations will provide them a significant source of revenue. But I certainly don't have any problem with them providing the option to send money back to them. My distribution is Debian, and as a non-profit, I can donate money to them without offending John. But if I bought a shrink wrapped copy of Red Hat, I'd be sending a few bucks to them. What's the big deal about giving a few bucks when you download an ISO? And Mandrake has gone so far as giving donators a choice as to where those dollars go. When I give Red Hat my $50 or whatever for that box, do I get to say "Develop GNOME, please"?
Section 3B of the GPL provides for charging the distribution cost for source code, but afaik, every major distribution gives binaries away for free. Hemos and Uriah worked out that it costs OSDN something like 7 cents per ISO download on SourceForge, so I imagine it's similiar for MandrakeSoft. They don't have to provide them. It's a free service. They could charge you 7 cents. They could charge you the distribution costs if you wanted source. They aren't doing either of these things, they are giving you the option to do so, if you want. Which leads me to my main thought about this question: the attitude.
Do you complain over those "Suggested Donation Bins" at the museum? Would you complain if toll booths were optional? Of course neither analogy is perfect, but you get my point. Museums and roads cost money.
The attitude that John presents above scares me. I don't mean any offense to John, he seems like a smart guy, but I've seen so many 31337 h4x0r Linux types who've never contributed a line of code rant on about the evils of various free software companies. Yet I know many guys who've actually contributed huge chunks of code and, well, they just don't care. It's a case where the fanboys have invented some sort of cause that isn't all that important instead of doing something relevant. Those who can, code, those who don't complain.
Of course, I'm just a tool of one of the largest Linux companies, so what do I know. I'm tainted, evil, and part of the same conspiracy designed to keep free software out of everyone's hands by giving it away for free. I also know who killed JFK. But god forbid that hackers eat. And let's all complain about suggested donations too so that the only way to get copies of free software is through gnutella. Hope that 600-meg ISO doesn't abort half way.
Re:In general, no. (Score:1)
if Shell Oil placed donation bins beside all the gas pumps, so rich people could help those less fortunate to have cheaper gas, that would be stupid (not because it's a bad idea, but because nobody would put any money in).
And what's the harm in that again? You're saying that it's not a bad idea, but then you back up to say it's stupid. Even if there are a few donations, wouldn't it be worthwhile beyond if they didn't try to put bins out in the first place?
I do think it's OK for RedHat and the likes to as for donations though, since they are providing a salary to many of the hackers that have made Linux what it is today.
Why again is Linux more important than gasoline?
I also like Mandrake's concept of specifying where you want your donation to go, but I don't think this is always a good thing. We'd all agree that support for obscenely powerful systems with 1.2 skjaterrabytes of memory is important to Linux on a grand scale, but how many people do you really think are going to check that box instead of '3d graphics acceleration' or 'GNOME'?
So...if most people want support for "obscenely powerful systems" why wouldn't they check that box? If 3D graphics acceleration is really what people want, then what's wrong with that?
Re:Give where it counts - the developers. (Score:2)
The problem with your strategy is this: how do you get money to the other 26 people working on a project. Listen, it's good to send Linus money and all -- but what about the guy who works under him and spends 6 hours a day coding network drivers? Chances are, you've never heard of him unless you're a programmer. And he just got nothing from your gift certificate to Linus. Now, under the Mandrake model, Jeff Garzik gets fed! See, MandrakeSoft sponsors him with part of the money you paid for your boxed set...
- Jay
Re:Hats off to Taco [Hooray!] (Score:2)
Re:Guilty Conscience? (Score:2)
Then they are using the wrong license. The GNU GPL explicitly allows anyone to sell copies of the licensed software for a fee, and RMS has repeatedly reiterated this point in interviews and FAQs.
People already do this (buying shirts, mugs, etc.) (Score:3)
In addition, there are many people who buy a boxed version of RedHat or Mandrake instead of downloading the ISO to "support the company." If you already downloaded the ISO, why waste paper, plastic, and manufacturing costs for a boxed copy you don't need, just to support the company, when you could just donate the money and support the company directly? Or buying a tshirt to support the company; why buy a tshirt if I'm never going to wear it and don't want it? Why not donate the $15 the tshirt costs directly to the company instead?
There's a few other companies using this sort of method, such as GetRight [getright.com] as well, and many are doing it at the request of customers who thought the product was worth much more than what they paid for it.
So really I don't think there's any problem with it. People already donate to companies, but it's in the form of buying stuff you don't need (tshirts, boxed software, mousepads, mugs, etc.) solely for the purpose of supporting the company. I'd argue that that's 90% a donation anyway, so just going the whole way and making it a donation explicitly isn't really a problem.
Re:Even Simpler (Score:5)
This is what I don't get. If I downloaded the ISO and then decided it was worth more than the $0 I paid and wanted to support the company, why should I go buy the retail version? I already have the ISO; I don't need the retail version. Buying it is just a waste of paper, plastic, and manufacturing costs, and the only reason I'd be doing it is to support the company. So why not just take the money I would've spent on a retail version and donate it directly, producing less garbage in the process?
John's analogy... (Score:1)
Wouldn't you be outraged if a car company came out and asked for donations to improve safety features or fuel economy? These are company expenses to improve their product, so people buy more and they make more money. It's not something you ask for donations for.
Not the best analogy to use. You pay $20,000+ for a new car. For that kind of money, you're damn right the automakers better not be begging me for money.
However, I've paid nothing to Mandrake to download the ISO and blow a copy. Way I see it, they're asking "pay what you think its worth to you." I don't have a problem with that.
Should be phrased better (Score:1)
Perhaps they're trying to figure out what areas of development they should be concentrating on, or where to direct their efforts? I dunno, they make everything GPL'ed and available for free...complaining about a voluntary program seems kind of churlish, even if it isn't well-thought out. Let's face it, Linux isn't geared towards the normal bloodsucking business model - so anyone who is pro-Linux/Free Software should be willing to go with the flow and try to help these companies figure out ways to support us. Particularly when they have been "Doing the Right Thing" as long as Linux-Mandrake. I hate to see greed or selfishness in companies or individuals...
Re:Move the editorial to a comment (Score:2)
Why would posting a comment be "hiding" your opinion? You could simply post comment #1, and when it's moderated +5 insightful, it'll be right at the top in the same place it is now.
I think adding a little one-liner to the end of a story is different from a detailed attack on the original author in a fashion that doesn't allow him to respond.
A donated pie need not be fought over... (Score:1)
That makes me really uneasy. So the FSF or Eric Raymond or Cowboy Neal is going to be in charge of which project receives support from a huge pool of "Free Software" donations? Can you imagine the nightmare of nepotism and political squabbling that will create? --update()
This is really a minor debating point. Personally, I disagree with you that selecting some general purpose funds to go to all projects under the umbrella would turn into a financial and political debacle. However, if those general purpose funds were used strictly for community disk, CVS, and project web space similar to sourceforge, this alone would be a good start. We all hope sourceforge continues providing it's excellent service, but should VA Linux go out of business something similar ought to be re-created by a tax exempt charity as I describe above. JMO.
Cheers,
--Maynard
Donations *should* define economic success for FS (Score:4)
However, gratis is also incompatible with most rational business models. That Redhat wants to sell support instead of software might be a sustainable business model, but I think no one yet knows this for sure. That Eazel wanted to sell network storage and "services", just like Microsoft intends, and spent it's entire vulture capital outlay on a loss leader file manager is clearly not a viable business model; their bankruptcy attests to this fact. We'll see if any of the other support/service business models actually succeed... they may or may not.
So given Mandrake's position with its huge user base, free ISO images offered before boxed versions hit the shelves, and a development staff paid for by those sales -- how is Mandrake going to position it's product in order to generate revenue while it gives the product away for free (before commercial release) via ftp?
This is the quandry -- do we (as a community) value hiring developers to manage and enhance Free Software toward specific community (or end-user) driven goals, or should it all be created haphazard by volunteers in a great bazzaar? I think we're at the point where for free OS's and applications to succeed, we'll HAVE to create a system whereby developers are hired and paid to create community sponsored projects which then get released under the GPL (or other free licenses).
Bruce Perens, among others, has argued for a street performer type system, whereby developers request donations for the value of the projects they create. The only serious problem with this mechanism is that it could force each project to hire a lawyer in order to obtain tax deductible charity status (such as the Free Software Foundation possesses). I think a better aproach would be for either the FSF, or some other umbrella organization, to be created with the express purpose of funneling donations to most any free project. Donors could specify who they wanted receive the donation, or it could be spread about the entire collection of projects under the umbrella. I like this for several reasons:
It's voluntary. Just like it's voluntary to use and write free software, so should it be voluntary to donate.
It creates a positive economic feedback loop for each project. However much money is donated to the SAMBA project (for example) is by definition a statement of their "value" to the community as a whole. However much money they receive is what can be spent on developers, administrative costs, and conferences. As long as financial community support persists, the project has a functional business model for hiring staff.
It evens out the success of certain low profile projects that are still critical, for example the DRI project over at sourceforge. There's no economic model supporting DRI whatsoever, other than developer interest. The best they get is maybe some money from the distributions which are relying on 3D support to succeed. Thus donations become a mechanism whereby USERS can target economic incentives toward specific projects they consider necessary for their future use and needs.
Frankly, all those who deride Mandrake for sticking their hat out begging miss the point. I've never given money to Mandrake, but then again I don't use Mandrake. I have given money to the OpenBSD project, the FSF, the EFF, the ACLU, and I've bought numerous Redhat distributions; because I agree with and want to support these projects. Those individuals who donate to Mandrake might have very good economic and personal reasons for doing so. They have an OS investment in Mandrake, a desired feature set they wish implemented in the next release, and are part of a community they wish to see succeed. If those community members decide that offering donations (among box sales) will support Mandrake well enough to meet its budgetary needs for hiring developers and staff, why not pursue that revenue stream? It's no different from NPR or PBS holding their hat out to their listeners/viewers, and over the last twenty years NPR and PBS have shown that their pledge drives do succeed at paying a significant portion of their budget.
I encourage all free software projects to request donations; and most of all I encourage the creation of some charity as described above which could be used to funnel money toward any and every free project around. Maybe this is where sourceforge should go if/when VA Linux goes down the tubes?
J. Maynard Gelinas
"By oneself evil is done; by oneself one suffers; by oneself evil is undone; by oneself one is purified." --Gautama Sakyamuni
Donate! (Score:1)
and they find projects that people submit for funding!
Ten years ago or so, I ended up doing the United Way thing, after telling myself I'd send a check to Boy Scouts, and a year later I hadn't, so I signed up for payroll deduction!
The problem is, you're NOT using it for free. (Score:1)
When you suck down a gig and a half of ISO off someone's site, you're costing THEM money.
When you suck down updates, you're costing THEM money.
All the coders they have working for them cost THEM money.
Yes, they can make up a lot of that in boxed sales. But still, some people WANT to contribute. Those who can, contribute code. Those who's coding skills are marginal to nonexistant (like me) can contribute money to support the coders.
Remember, the donations are OPTIONAL. Nobody's MAKING you pay a damn thing.
Personally, I buy the boxed x.0 release and tend to leech point releases.
Personally, I won't miss an occasional $5/$10 bucks every now and again.
As the saying goes. I spent half of my money on wine, women, and song. The rest, I just WASTED.
Now I can waste a little less.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Why "buy the boxed version" is a dumb argument. (Score:1)
If you ALREADY have the distro on a CD-R, why are you going to contribute to the dead-tree+waste plastic version a couple weeks after you burnt your own copy?
Unless you're buying the PowerPack or Enterprise version. And unless you actually NEED something on one of those disks, it's simply WASTE.
This way, if you want to contribute the $20/30 and already have the distro, you can give the money DIRECTLY to them and cut out production costs (as someone else can buy the the boxed copy that you avoided).
And believe me, they DO get bought. ALL of the Best Buys, CompUSA, and Computer City stores in my area (about two dozen), had been out of Mandrake 7.2 for a couple weeks following the release of 8.0. And let me assure you. The boxes were NOT pulled off the shelves by employees.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Quite the opposite. (Score:1)
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Companies are just groups of people (Score:1)
Giving a company your business or outright donating money to support a company you like are very similar decisions that as consumers we make every day. I avoid McDonald's because I don't like the company - even though I do actually like some of their food. I'm willing to go out of my way and even pay a little bit extra for friendly, polite, quality service. How are these decisions different from making a donation? To me they are the same. If you value service provided, you express your thanks - with cash (or code, or docs, or postcards). The Mandrake donation page makes that easier for people. How is that a problem?
I personally think that soliciting donations in return for providing alot of high quality software for free download is not only acceptable, it is quite commendable. More power to them, I hope the people using their free services have the decency to donate some cash. Those who don't donate are just ungrateful leeches. TAANSTAFL, etc.
It's really a shame that some quite vocal segments of the free software community seem to be a bit confused about things like this. They reflect badly on the rest of us.
--
Re:Oh, the "human nature" (Score:1)
Re:Oh, the "human nature" (Score:1)
Re:Simple (Score:1)
This is a good idea if you are downloading (Score:1)
I hope it helps...they make good software...
Altruist ? (Score:1)
Re:Yes... it is only right! (Score:2)
The GPL does no such thing. As an example, XEmacs was at one point used in a commercial GPL'd project whose name I have forgotten. It was an IDE on steroids. (Who knows, maybe it's still around?). Anyway, the company behind it charged significantly more than 1kUSD for it.
The GPL only limits how much you can charge for the source if someone you provided with only binaries asks you for it. If you charge 1kUSD there is a risk that RMS will buy a copy and distribute it, of course. Due to the general distrust of software that you don't have to pay for, that is a very minor problem.
PS Why doesn't blockquote type="cite" work here?
Churches get donations... (Score:2)
And to relate to you more directly, BeCool, WWJD? Well, not go to school for starters - Jesus trained at home to be a responsible citizen and a carpenter. He didn't suffer the damage that factory-school-based ``socialisation'' (regimentation) inflicts.
When Jesus switched careers at maturity (age 30) to full-time public speaker, recruiting officer, pharmacopoeia-less healer and occasional caterer, the new job description included giving good stuff away (life, healing, salvation, assurance, information) for free and living on donations. Is there a parallel with Mandrake? (-:
Actually, the users *DEMANDED* that they do this! (Score:5)
Hear, hear!
Go and have a look back at, for example, the old Mandrake Cooker archives [mail-archive.com] (I'm a list member there). Time and time again, people wrote to say ``Hey, I really like your distro but downloaded it instead of buying a boxed set because the box was [too slow/unavailable in my area/Had extras I didn't want/etc]. Is there some way I can give you some money to offset the cost of providing that free download?'' Mandrake caved in after about a year of this and provided the donations link.
I am left with the impression that Mandrake management didn't quite believe it, until the money started flowing...
More on Buswell's article (Score:2)
Re:Donations are for non-profits (Score:1)
Totally off-topic but thank you for the proportional representation link. I absolutely agree with that campaign.
Cheers!
Re:Hats off to Taco (Score:2)
The museum example was entirely bogus because museums are paid for by our money in the first place, and secondly they're non-profit. If Mandrake get out of their financial slump then do you ever expect them to turn around and share their profits with their customers? It'd be cool, but I doubt it.
If the community gave them $10,000 and that paid for several programmers to actually be able to spend their days programming (rather than getting a "real" job), and then Mandrake releases that code under the GPL, then that is what they're giving back.
Another case of this that raises questions (Score:2)
Re:Hats off to Taco [Hooray!] (Score:1)
GPLed (Score:2)
The donations page was a user idea... (Score:1)
Tape (Score:3)
Re:What's new? (Score:1)
it looks like Linux distros are pioneering
the street performer protocol in a more or
less unadulterated form. Neat.
Re:Religion is the biggest scam of all! (Score:1)
( I have 10+ years experience in both communistic education and later another 10+ in religion).
Why would anyone ever bother about where do other poeple donate their own money? Is it simple and innocent envy or just unintentional disrespect and intolerance?
Coward NOT anonymous.
Greed, Envy, Jealousy. (GEJ) (Score:1)
Five years ago I would hardly see anybody suspiciously watching pocket of someone else. Donation was obvious, and the rule was donate time and/or code, if you have some or donate money - if you got some.
Where all these people came from now? Why don't they just hold on tight on their own penny and keep their mouth shut?
Do they appeal on morals?
Who ever said that it is moral not to pay the workers good money for good work?
Who ever said it is moral to contemplate, if someone else did, does, will or would get by accident too much money?
Did you ever hear of anyone to care equally well whether any of the workers in Linux companies make enough for themselfs and their families for decent living?
I have a vision of a GEJ (Greed, Envy, Jealousy) project. one more category would be added to posts clasification, that is GEJ. The GEJ posts would be copied to a separate space and ranked separatedly by independent votes. The ten most malicious GEJ posts would receive slashdot GEJ award and a brand new, shrink wrapped copy of Microsoft Windows XP.
Does anybody have server space available to start the project?
Petrus
Shares? (Score:2)
I donate to charities because it is a good thing to do - help other people / causes / etc.
I do not "donate" to companies that exist to make profit. The notion is so absurd that I will stop writing this post.
---
Computer Science: solving today's problems tomorrow.
Sales taxes. (Score:1)
Let's not forget that we are talking about FREE software. We are paying for the service of getting it assembled, not for the software itself. Even if you could find the parts to your car for free, most people would probably want to hire a mechanic to do the assembly.
Re:Fools game (Score:2)
2) You do get something from mandrake. They may be a for-profit company, but you can get all their work for free online, whenever you want.
Some people would buy mandrake if they could, to support the company, but it's not available in the stores where they live, so they download it for free. This gives them a way to donate back.
Kind of hard for us to talk about the new economy and then whine about companies doing something different.
Hats off to Taco (Score:2)
Re:Hats off to Taco [Hooray!] (Score:2)
Maybe not.
Oh, and about that last paragraph (Score:2)
Give it to 'em, they bitch. Charge 'em for it, they bitch.
Post it and don't comment, they laugh at your journalism. Post it and comment about it, they bitch at your site and opinions.
I'm glad I'm not in your shoes.
Re:Hats off to Taco (Score:2)
And if I speld like Taco, than Id be writing like this.
Why Mandrakesoft has got it (Score:4)
Now the great thing about Mandrakesoft is that they hire lots of developers from many free software projects, like KDE [kde.org], GNOME [gnome.org], PHP-Nuke [phpnuke.org], Plex86 [plex86.org], Apache [apache.org] and many others. When you make a donation, you can mark those money for, say, KDE development. This way KDE will get better, KDE developers will eat, Mandrakesoft will save some dough and I can sleep at night.
In my opinion Mandrakesoft is heading in the right direction -- their way of income is a lot better than that of SuSE, which seeks to sell more boxes by making it extremely difficult to download their distro. And it's better than that of Red Hat, which charges for services such as automated software updates (which is included free with Mandrake).
Indeed, I think Mandrakesoft is discovering the future ideal way of making free software and still eat three meals a day. Their method is in many ways compliant with The Street Performer Protocol [firstmonday.dk], in that users will pay up if and only if they actually like what they get.
--
no way, waste of money (Score:2)
If I look at Mandrake, I see a company with a nice product (i.e. they should be capable of selling it too customers). However they are competing with free products. In fact the only value Mandrake adds to their products is support, integration, testing (could be better though) and ease of use. Keeping the distance with their numerous competitors is a lost battle since it requires constant investments in research and development (growing cost and they are also helping their competitors).
The linux market is growing rapidly, there's plenty of new customers. Not being able to make a profit is a symptom of a bad business model (i.e. there's a structural problem with the revenue vs. the cost).
Perhaps a good business model for an open source company would be to separate the source of cost from the source of revenue. Mandrake could for instance host their development team in a non-profit organization like debian (thus stimulating external developers to partipate) and create a consulting/support company to support the products the non profit organization produces. Cost can then be regulated by limiting funding of the non profit organization. The for profit organization can then focus on the stuff that really matters (i.e. selling support & services and shipping cd's) while the non profit organization is no longer bothered with marketing departments and so on. There wouldn't be any problem with intellectual property since the company was already putting their stuff under GPL anyway. The only real value in an open source company is knowledge of the software, not the software itself.
The idea above is already being applied in Mozilla, open office, netbeans and other projects. In the case of netbeans you have netbeans.org working on the development and Sun shipping commercial products (forte) based on netbeans releases (check it out if you haven't already).
Give where it counts - the developers. (Score:2)
You'd be surprised (or maybe not) how easy it is to find out who the key developers are on any given software project. Rather than just mailing them a check, send them a gift certificate for something useful. It tells them that you are thankful for the great job they did, and it makes them more likely to improve the product and take your comments seriously.
Even better, if you're selective about where you buy the gift certificates, you can actually kill two birds with one stone. It goes without saying that you shouldn't be giving away Amazon gift certificates, but ThinkGeek might be a good candidate for you.
You can make a statement to the developer that they're doing a great job, and you can make a statement about the kind of company you'd like to support.
After saying all this, it should be pretty clear that I don't endorse sending money directly to the companies themselves. If they go down the tubes because they're not smart enough to price their products successfully and market them, that's their own dang problem.
Re:Hats off to Taco (Score:2)
Why is it sad that Mandrake GPLed these components? Mandrake is a healthy company. As others have pointed out already, the reports of Mandrakes imminent demise have been greatly excaggerated. So they fired their management-- that's a bad thing? I sure wish someone would fire the management of MY company, I might not be looking for a new job.
Mandrake is offering a way for those of us who download the distribution an opportunity to give back-- if we want. I downloaded 8.0 & I gave $10. Do I feel had? Absolutely not. I'm glad that my small offering could somehow support the future of Linux.
Re:Hats off to Taco (Score:2)
Mandrake chose one of two possible avenues. Both have their advantages & disadvantages. GPLing everything means slightly lower chance for forcing your customers into paying you for the right to use your software, but it leads to more secure, more advanced, & more popular software. Again, it comes down to choice vs. force.
Regarding market sharew, according to this interview [theregister.co.uk] with the new (old) CEO of MandrakeSoft, Mandrake currently holds about 33.8% of the US retail market.
Finally, be sad about this decision if Mandrake goes out of business. Since there is no apparent danger of this happening in the near future, you should be happy about this since it improves your user experience no matter what distribution you might choose to use.
Re:Should be phrased better (Score:4)
The fact is that Mandrake ALLOWS you to pay for the software. Microsoft (et al) REQUIRES you to pay. I've read most of the posts here so far & I've yet to find an argument that even makes me begin to see a bad side to this. If Mandrake were a highly profitable company, I could maybe understand the whining. As it is, I see the arguments against as rather absurd.
Re:There must be something I'm missing... (Score:1)
You're paying $70 for something, and the parts of it you apparantly value, you could get for free. You're giving them $70 you don't have to give them, because you want to see them succeed.
That is a donation.
Sure, you get a physical CD, and a manual, and a nice box, but if you value those things at less than $70, you're donating the difference. When you donate to PBS during a pledge drive, they give you some toys or posters or shirts or things, but it's still a donation, because they tend to give you those things at a donation level far higher than those things might otherwise be worth. People pay the extra, because they want to donate, just as you are donating.
It would be far more efficient if you just gave them the $70 via the donation system, because then they wouldn't incur the costs of the physical artifacts you don't really want.
Re:Hats off to Taco (Score:1)
I know Mandrake have a large market share, but I'd be curious how many of those are paying customers, and how many are downloaders or cheapbytes customers.
Re:Hats off to Taco (Score:1)
More to the point, the whole of GNU and Linux, and the wealth of GPL'd applicatipons, existed nefore companies like RedHat and Mandrake came into being to try to make money off it. If anything, they're the ones that owe the free software developers - not vice versa.
If these companies do feed back GPL'd software into the community that that's cool that they honoring the spirit of things and giving something back for what they have got from it (who's richer, Bob Young, Richard Stallman or Linus?), but I certainly don't feel that they're net givers! Perhaps the coolest move was RedHat giving stock options to developers - that was a real give back.
Re:Simple (Score:1)
Re:Hats off to Taco (Score:1)
Re:Hats off to Taco (Score:2)
The museum example was entirely bogus because museums are paid for by our money in the first place, and secondly they're non-profit. If Mandrake get out of their financial slump then do you ever expect them to turn around and share their profits with their customers? It'd be cool, but I doubt it.
Probably the biggest value Mandrake add to their distribution is their excellent installer and harddrake partition utility. I think what we're seeing here is a darwinian evolution of the Linux distribution business model. SuSE chose to make their value added components non-GPL so that they could control distribution and actually get paid for their work, which obviously makes sense (well, duh!), and their customers obviously agree. It's sad that Mandrake chose to GPL their most valuable value-added parts, but that's a decision they're going to have to live with and learn from.
At the end of the day ANY maturing market, whether it's automobile mafufacturers or Linux distributors is going to consolidate to a very few survivors after the original land grab rush, and maybe Madndrake will not survive due to the choices they have made. It's like that despair poster: "Maybe the only purpose of your life is to be a warning to others"!.
Re:My opinion is with the author (Score:2)
Whether Debian and Slackware can both continue, I'm not sure. Maybe they'll survive (or at least one of them) as more niche orientated for server use, since for desktop use they're IMO going to have a hard time competeing with the wealth of packages available in the RPM format (unless of course they switch).
As a former RedHat and current but dissatisfied Mandrake user, I'm looking at the next release of Libranet (debian based) or Slackware as my next upgrade. It seems Slackware current is about to go Beta, and is surprisingly up-to-date in terms of having all the latest X, KDE, GNOME etc releases, along with a nice solid 2.95.3 gcc.
Simple (Score:4)
The botom line though is that's the business model Mandrake have chosen, and if it doesn't work then it's up to them to change it.
I agree with you! ;) (Score:1)
The Mandrake donations thing I consider genuine and positive -- they actually *are* providing a good means to simultaneously gather / understand what people want and actually help effect it. It makes good sense to me, and I've been seeing it for a little while mentioned on mandrakeforum as well.
timothy
Donations and "consumer demand" (Mandrake: good.) (Score:4)
In 5 words, "bullshit."
Mandrake though *is* actually opening themselves up to customer demand by saying "Hey, what features or projects are you so interested in that you would not only *pledge* to give money, but *actually* give money for?"
Don't want to give money? Don't. (To Mandrake, the local public TV station, bum down the street -- heck, there are thousands of organizations and individuals you can choose to not give money to!")
I for one am happy to see something close to micropayments for free software projects, organized by a company that sponsors and releases many kilolines of free software, as well as makes a very nice distro to wrap it in.
I'd like to see an option to send money to specific developers, too (the Linus Torvalds 10th Anniv. of Linux Fun Fund?), or to support specific sub-projects. (I'd pay $10 toward a Merlin modem for a developer who'd make them work more nicely with Linux -- anyone else?)
That it happens to be a private, distro-making company organizing this seems to tweak people a lot, but to me it's a perfect demonstration of what makes Free software work -- voluntary interactions that make people happy.
And as someone else has already pointed out, Ford doesn't have a mechanism to let you choose what aspects of their cars your purchase price of a new car goes to improve -- with software, the idea that the future will be what you want it to me makes a lot more sense than it does with nearly any other type of product.
timothy
Think of it as dynamic pricing! (Score:2)
Finally, dynamic pricing that works!
Re:In general, no. (Score:4)
Actually, Red Hat already did ask for donations two years ago, on August 11th 1999. Many people gave them $800, and people were so enthusiastic that Red Hat had to turn away donations... Some of the refused donators got really upset about this.
Re:Guilty Conscience? (Score:2)
No, because everyone is not as morally perfect as you imagine yourself to be. For example, I know that I will work harder to benefit myself than I will to benefit anonymous strangers. If that makes me greedy and selfish, so be it.
Either your desire is to make the world a better place or it is not.
Capitalism and profit are not inconsistent with your goals. Advances in technology and medicine have made the world a better place, and they are largely done by entities motivated by self-interest. Socialism denies human nature; capitalism accepts it and channels it toward the public good.
Re:Someone pays for it... (Score:2)
Or use Debian. Debian is not a company. Aside from incongruencies in your comparison between software and public transport. But please let's not start a flamewar on THAT again...
//rdj
Another analogy (Score:2)
When I was commuting, I used to get my petrol from one particular vendor. They consistently kept their prices low after the other stations put up their prices weekly and brought them down again as soon as they could.
I appreciated that. So I took to regularly buying some of their overpriced oil and overpriced drinks my small way of thanking them.
I don't think it's too much of a stretch to realise that if I got something from Mandrake for free (which I haven't; I don't use their distro), I'd be more likely to give them something back, whether it's money, bug reports, documentation or code.
If you don't want to give Mandrake money, don't. You also don't have to tip the waiter. They get paid, after all. You don't have to tip the busker who's entertaining you as you walk by. The only difference between this and Mandrake is that with the waiter or the busker, there isn't the person standing in front you with the proverbial cap in hand and thus the social pressure to tip.
Part of the free software economy is to share and share alike. It can be summed up best using the words of a wise man: "You received without payment; give without payment". If you can't give code, bug fixes, documentation or other things, consider giving money instead. All up to you.
Actually, Mandrake is doing better than ever... (Score:3)
Pardon the cliche (Score:4)
Mandrakesoft is in business to make money. I know, it is a tired old phrase. I think that they can be successful by doing a few things differently.
The should be making most of their money through media purchases and support contracts. I doubt if they are profiting from free downloads. People want free downloads, because people are stingy. Give them free downloads, but don't put them in packaged format. Compile binaries and dump them in an ftp directory. How many people would want to piece an OS application by application?
Donations for QA testing? That is a little absurd. Although, I was directly approached by a Mandrakesoft senior executive once, who asked if I could help in QA testing a piece of their software. I think it is time for a revamp of the business model. Perhaps Linux companies should start selling hardware in addition to their OS distribution. Sun, IBM, and Hewlett Packard make a little money selling hardware.
For less than the price of a cup of coffee (Score:2)
Re:Should be phrased better (Score:2)
Just like the thousands of people who wrote the software in mdk didn't 'force' mdk to pay for it. They cannot force me to do anything. I can (and am), using Mandrake without compensating them in any way, and they can't do anything about that. Perhaps you should rephrase your statement to "They can't force you to pay $129 for the OS". Maybe if they could, they would, and maybe they wouldn't. That's not the point. It's impossible for them to force anyone to pay for it.
I'm not saying this is a bad idea, I'm using Mandrake on some of my machines and it's pretty good, etc, etc, and I'm OK with supporting good products, whether that's paying for it, or donating money or time or effort or whatever works. But I don't think your argument is particularly persuavsive, either.
I agree with taco. (Score:3)
I think all distros should put up a online payment page, with no specific price. Let me throw what I think is the right amount at Red Hat and not some arbitrary figure (I'd say 10 bucks when I first download it and maybe more later if I like it). Also, make it optional.
Yes... it is only right! (Score:5)
Until Mandrakesoft put up their 'Donations' page; I had not paid Mandrakesoft a single penny for their services - unfortunately there is no incentive to buy a boxed distro when you already have the software on freshly-burnt CD-R's.
(I know about Mandrake Powerpack - but it offers nothing that I cannot get elsewhere)
When I consider that I could potentially spend the equivalent of seven day's wages on a license to run Windows 2000 Advanced Server; it makes me feel guilty that I can download a significantly superior operating system from the Internet for next to nothing.
I have no objection to paying Mandrakesoft the same amount of money I would be paying to Microsoft in order to keep up to date with their 'latest and greatest' piece of crap. Here is how my donations are distributed:
30% - Kernel
30% - Advanced Extranet Server
30% - Security/Crypto
10% - No preference
I am only contributing to the development of the software I use; so in the end, I will benefit from the my donation and the donations of others... personally I don't see what the problem is ?
I am tired of reading that people should 'expect' Linux distributions to be free - excepting Debian (which is produced for the community by the community); most other distributions are produced by large corporates like Red Hat and Mandrake. I don't think many people understand the work that goes into producing a mix of kernel/userspace programs/GUI apps that just *works* straight out of the box. I don't mind supporting a company that provides exactly what I want and means I have to do less work at the end of the day in order to get it running... my time is money... and if their distro saves me even two hours a day by easing configuration and installation, it deserves some financial recompense.
Before all the GPL stalwarts start getting their flamethrowers out and attempt to give me a good roasting - the GPL prohibits charging for software under its license (except for duplication costs).
But, what if I *want* to pay for GPL software ?
Does the GPL take away my freedom to pay for software that I think is of commercial quality; so I can give the authors something to show my appreciation for their efforts ?
It also helps Mandrakesoft determine what people use their product for and helps them concentrate development on those parts that people appreciate the most.
As Mandrakesoft have already said, donations are entirely voluntary. So why the hell did this make the Slashdot front page ?.
Re:Mandrake Donations Program was *user requested* (Score:2)
This isn't a question of 'inform and discuss.'
It's more like 'misinform, inflame, and ignore' on the part of the
This is a crappy way of "informing" people, but an excellent way to generate traffic. Come to think of it, it sounds a lot like
Most people nab the free iso's... (Score:2)
Check their store... (Score:2)
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
There already is a way to donate to companies... (Score:2)
It's called buying stock in them. That's how companies get funding. Sure, many people bought stock purely because they believed it would return money for them, but you could also buy stock because you believe in what the company was doing and want to see the work continue.
Unfortunately, that's the way it used to work. That's been ruined by the new 'day-trading' mentality, where so-called "investors" buy stocks not because they have any interest in, faith in, or even comprehension of, the long-term plans of the company, but simply as playing cards that they can hope to rack up points for dumping into another player's hand at the right time.
I find it hard to feel sorry for these day-traders, but what I really feel sorry for is the good companies they've managed to raise up and send hurtling down to destruction.
Mandrake Donations Program was *user requested* (Score:5)
This, AGAIN?
People! Mandrake's donation program was user requested. It is *well documented* in the forums on the Mandrake site, and goes back many, many months. The whole point of the program was to give users who download the ISO and don't want to spend $$$ on a full distribution a way to say "thanks" to the company who created it, without paying $80.
It's completely voluntary, and was initiated at the request of a number of Mandrake users on the website. Every time it seems this issue is settled, someone who doesn't know the history brings it up again. Perhaps it's time Mandrake put a FAQ up about it, to prevent articles such as this from making it onto Slashdot.
Quality Assurance == Hardware? (Score:2)
Then the obvious next step is to buy hardware, which costs money. Luckily alot of hardware manufacturers are happy to donate hardware to the kernel/installer hackers or even submit patches themselves, but unfortunately there are some who don't (especially NVidea, who doesn't want to give any specs on their hardware).
There are other parts of cost for hosting a free distribution, eg. servers, webhosting, administration. It's questionable if all these costs can be paid by the income from consumers buying their products instead of downloading them.
As a last (important) point there is the availability of highspeed internet to many users. Many users who'd first buy a CD are now able to download them, taking away income from the
distribution providers.
This is like shareware (Score:3)
I completely agree with this argument, but look at it from the point of view of shareware, or donationware. It's pretty much the same thing, except it's a corporation (oo, bad bad) doing it, instead of an individual.
Personally, I don't believe in donations, either to a corporation, or to an individual, except to a non-profit corporation with a mission which I agree with. Which implies that the NPO itself does more than just donate the items off to individuals. Personally, I support Goodwill, which provides jobs and low cost goods, and generally improves society at both ends, not just handouts. Plus they're not Christian, and they don't try to force people to stop drinking alcohol, which is why I prefer them to something like Salvation Army.
Quite happy to pay (Score:3)
However, I am quite happy to pay a little for what I do get. The distributions are worth something to me.
The way I see it is that Mandrake is a commercial company who also provide a free service in addition to their commercial service. I am quite happy to donate to their free service. It will help other people who cannot afford to pay for the full distribution.
--
Tips (Score:2)
In general, no. (Score:4)
I do think it's OK for RedHat and the likes to as for donations though, since they are providing a salary to many of the hackers that have made Linux what it is today. It's more or less essential to the Linux community that RedHat and others stay afloat; if they need donations to do it, so be it.
I also like Mandrake's concept of specifying where you want your donation to go, but I don't think this is always a good thing. We'd all agree that support for obscenely powerful systems with 1.2 skjaterrabytes of memory is important to Linux on a grand scale, but how many people do you really think are going to check that box instead of '3d graphics acceleration' or 'GNOME'? Maybe I'm being unfair in saying that Linux should be a server OS first, then a desktop, but this is my post damnit!
In any case, I don't think there's any problem with donations and such they way they are now, and everyone just needs to STOP BITCHING!!!
White Hats, Black Hats, and Grey (red?) Hats (Score:3)
There seems to be a double standard that once a company dabbles in Linux or anything else good or righteous, it must suddenly be held to a different standard.
It does make the world a bit neater, dividing it only into white hats for good and black hats for evil, but is it helpful or mature?
It happens on Slashdot often enough to be disturbing. I remember *Michael* emailing me with a refusal to announce Safeweb's distributed anti-censorship redirector Triangle Boy, in large part because Safeweb isn't free (speech). Yet five minutes later he posted something earth-shattering about a Nintendo colour gameboy.
Two un-free (speech) companies, two product launches, one for a global anti-censorship initiative, one for a toy, and a whopping double-standard.
If you're going go near anything worthwhile, you better go all the way. Else, watch out!
He has posted a bit of an update (Score:5)
He says: my problem is with calling it a donation and trying to present it in a way that tries to blur the line between donating to Mandrake and donating to open source projects. Out of the entire Mandrake distribution, I'd guess that less than 30% of it is actually work done by MandrakeSoft themselves, while the remaining 70% is work done by other open source projects. Up until now, I've seen MandrakeSoft's willingness to put their distribution up for free for all (unlike other vendors) was their good faith and good will towards the open souce community, and their way to contribute back in a big way. I mean after all, think of all the money they've made from retail sales and deployment of corporate solutions over the years. You don't see them sharing the spoils with various open source projects that make their distribution, sure I realise that is unpractical, but if they want to put up some kind of contribution page, they should have it state clearly that it is for people who don't want to purchase the retail and want to give back. Also eliminating the automatic price of $19.99 that pops up would show that they are not trying to sell something...
Re:In general, no. (Score:2)
Not comparable, unless in your example Shell is allowing people to take gas for free and is simply recommending a donation.
I do think it's OK for RedHat and the likes to as for donations though, since they are providing a salary to many of the hackers that have made Linux what it is today.
Shell is providing the salaries of the engineers who develop better and more efficient oil drilling and refining processes that result in better fuel quality with less environmental impact from drilling. What's your point?
And don't think for a minute that Red Hat is the only distro paying the salaries of Free Software programmers. David Faure is paid by MandrakeSoft to work full-time on KDE. KDE founder Matthias Ettrich and khtml maintainer Lars Knoll both work for TrollTech. SuSe also pays the salaries of some developers.
SuSe binaries... (Score:2)
SuSe doesn't. The only SuSe 7 ISO is the evaluation version that runs straight off the CD. The only way to get the full distro is to buy the boxed version.
Hackers /= Corporations (Score:2)
How to donate to hackers? (Score:5)
While one persons' donation like this wouldn't be of consequence, many people's may. Is there an organisation set up to distribute donations to developers equitably? Is it possible? Sensible?
rr
Re:How to donate to hackers? (Score:4)
Feel free to add [fairtunes.com] your favorite kernel hacker and we'll be sure to get the money to them.
Matt.
Re:Move the editorial to a comment (Score:2)
Re:He has posted a bit of an update (Score:2)
I seriously think that giving full time paid developers is give back in a big way even without the free downloads.
Re:Hats off to Taco (Score:2)
In furtherance, It had a great beat and I could really dance to it. I give his response a +1 Groovy.
...anyone remember american bandstand? that response had perfect AB canter...
Guilty Conscience? (Score:5)
I believe allot of the people who write GPL code purposefully intend for people to use it *FOR FREE*. If you are a company - which is trying to make money for YOURSELF - then i say "good luck" to *you*! You can then try and sell someone else's gratis (libre) work. Dont try and shift focus onto users to make them feel obligated to support for-profit ventures.
NOT EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS FOR PROFIT. Some people (myself) are actually interested in community. Some of us are interested in seeing an end to war, exploitation, poverty, despair, crime, ill-health and everything else that makes people unhappy. I have little interest in hording money and trinkets for myself. Your attitudes betray your priorities and your point-of-view. Is my Point-View 'realistic'? Yes. Either your desire is to make the world a better place or it is not. Making excuses about how difficult it is to eliminate the afore mentioned 'problems' because it is 'impossible' only serves to rest your own conscience... are you really fooling yourself - your not fooling me.
Greed, selfishness, hubris and myopia are never excused as far as Im concerned.
Someone pays for it... (Score:2)
Or, if you prefer, go build your own kernel, your own version of the Gnu tools, your own version of your favourite window manager, and so on... Good luck...
Re:Even Simpler (Score:2)
Since you downloaded the ISO and you don't need a hard copy, you would "register" and send Mandrake a "registration fee" which, for all effects, would make you a retail customer.
No donations, they get money, and you get the services that they are actually selling: support and other nifties.
When they meet investors who want to know how rentable is the company, they'll show them lots of customers making up their revenue instead of lots of donations keeping them afloat because they have no customers.
It strikes me as odd that they didn't think of this system since it has been out there (and I think profitably) for decades, rather than make up a donation system which is hard to justify as part of a for-profit business model.
Boxed Version? (Score:2)
There are plenty of ways for free software companies to provide a mechanism for you to give them money, and to my mind simply asking for donations is not only crass, but it undermines the concept that they are a viable company.
If I want to give money to a free software company I will do so by buying a boxed version of their product, a support contract or something similar, and I expect any reputable company to suggest this as the best way to give them money. Even the free software foundation who are charity recommend that the easiest way to make a financial donation is to buy books, clothing and CDROMs from them.
A major Linux company asking for donations damages their image, damages the image of the Free Software movement, and should not be encouraged. If you like Mandrake and want to support future development, buy a copy, even if you already have one you downloaded.
Car analogy is just plain wrong... (Score:2)
Honestly, I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with a company like this doing this sort of thing - I think I may go donate a few bucks. I like mandrake, but don't want to spend the $30 or so the stores are asking.
More companies should look at doing this on a larger scale - open source projects anyway. I offered to send a few bucks to the PHP APC project, and one of the developers politely declined, but I bet if a few hundred people donated a few bucks, they might think twice.
So YOU want to control MY money? (Score:5)
Well, I want them to survive, so I'll buy their product. I'd even consider sending them a donation or two. Maybe some other people want Mandrake to survive, so they send Mandrake money. What's wrong with that?
Yes, I know: "But they're a commercial organization... marketplace... should have a viable product... etc..." Bullshit. If (for example) Loki goes out of business, I won't be able to buy their games anymore. I don't care if their games are a viable "product" in any given "marketplace" -- I just want to be able to keep playing them. In order for this to happen, Loki must keep making them. In order for Loki to keep making them, they've got to have some cash. So, I'm going to help out with as much cash as I can so that [hopefully] I can continue to play new Linux games. I suspect that other people may feel very much the same way about Mandrake. There's nothing wrong with being willing to pay extra for a specific product in order to allow it to survive. If you can't deal with it any other way, just look it as a personal extension of the essential selfishness of capital-based economies.
If you don't want to send money, don't. But I certainly don't see how this should turn into some kind of argument because you explicitly don't want other people to send their money wherever they want to send it.
Again, for those who didn't get it the first time, if you don't like Mandrake, don't donate. If you like Mandrake but don't want to donate, don't donate. If you like Mandrake and you feel like you want to donate just because you like Mandrake so damn much, send them as much cash as you want. If somebody gives you a hard time about you sending your own money wherever you damn well want to send it, accidentally spill your drink in their lap and get back to what you were doing.
Enough said.
What's all the fuss? (Score:2)
You can't (legally) download M$ products for free, but you can download Mandrake Linux for free. If you do grab the ISO and like the distro, donating is good choice for those of us who really feel like Mandrake's worth supporting.
As for those who get upset because Mandrake, RedHat, etc... sell distros and didn't write all the code themselves - wake up!! The companies selling the distros spent a lot of payroll cash to put it all together for you. Take Mandrake 8.0 for example. The install auto-detected all my hardware, non-destructively re-sized my Windblows partition and set up a dual-boot for me. Mandrake had to go through a lot of work to get that install working so beautifully. They deserve every penny they can get.
--
Re:In general, no. (Score:2)
Others have raised interesting points about users demanding to make donations, and this speaks very highly of Mandrake. If this is their motivation, then more power to them. But I hope that donation revinue is entirely unplanned. There is nothing worse than a busienss model based upon the idea that people will voluntarily give you money-- rather they give you money in exchange for services you deliver. Yes, in my book, all sales come down to services even if that service is making a product that would otherwise be unavailable.
Again, if people are requesting a place to give donations to Mandrake, then they should accomodate the wishes of their customer base. I just hope they are not counting on that money.
iso's are free (Score:2)
If you get something (a download) for free, the giving entity should be able to ask for a donation.
When I was poor, I did not make donations for the free software that I used. I make money now, and so I can afford to pay for the things that I use. So I purchased a copy a linux. That was my way of donating. But I do not think that it is immoral to ask for a donation. To demand it would be.
Just because a musician gets some paying gigs does not mean that (s)he should not ask for donations at a gig where there is no cover.
-CrackElf
Re:Guilty Conscience? (Score:2)
Well, if that's what they really intended, they should have written their own license. The GPL explicitly allows others to sell the code (or beg for donations), as long as the source remains freely available.
If they read the GPL and released the code under it anyway, we'll assume that they are OK with it.
Mandrake pay tax ...duh. (Score:3)
Having installed it from ftp and downloaded ISOs, I felt like giving something back to Mandrake's hackers (the ones working on desktop stuff like kde and hardware drivers) so I sought out their donations page. But seeing all their fancy web design, retail ads and suchlike made me realize that even if the donation I made would go straight to, say, the kernel hackers,
So I'm following Mandrake's advice and giving $50 to the Free Software Foundation, who I expect to spend my money efficiently and wisely.