Linux no longer free?

I went to http://linux-mandrake.com to download my favorite version of Linux today and now they want money! Oh well, the end of en era. Makes me sad.

Its maybe cause Mandrake is in financial dodo - possibly the reason - you should still be able to download free Linux from other places - did you checked others ? Or only Mandrake for you ? No Linux expert here though.

Klaus

I'm not sure what you saw which implies that you need to pay for it.

If you go to the download page, there are 2 options - one to pay to register with their Users Club, the other is if you are already a member or plan on doing it 'later'.

The second option takes you directly to the download page where you can get it from any number of ftp sites and mirrors.

Its been like this for some time, as far as I know. Although I guess the options could lead you to believe that you need to register to download it..

Graham

Mandrake doesn't own Linux. They only own their distribution of it. They can charge whatever they want. Redhat, for example, has a paid registration system with additional features, and a free, unregistered version.

JeeeeeeZ! Free beer guys! No wonder Mandrake and others have financial difficulties.

I buy the Mandrake Powerpack and only he Powerpack. Mandrake has been my choice since 7.2. I started a powerpack Subscription with 8.2 and that was the first rock solid stable version of Mandrake I've seen. particularly, since they finally fixed automount in that version.

Currently, I am waiting for 9.1 Powerpack Subscription CD set to be shipped to me, thus finishing my subscription.

Comme on ... you can download mandrake (and many other *uxes) from

www.linuxiso.org

Of course, if Mandrake _really_ decides to make you pay for iso's (they can do that) you can grab redhat. Or slackware. Or debian. Or suse. Or gentoo. Or..., ok, you get the picture. And there is another problem : bandwith is expensive. It's not very easy to find reliable mirrors, even for something as popular as Mandrake. But there is a nice solution to this problem: peer to peer networks.

[ QUOTE ]
darkgear.com said:
I went to http://linux-mandrake.com to download my favorite version of Linux today and now they want money! Oh well, the end of en era. Makes me sad.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, but, I prefer to support my distro of choice. Besides, with the powerpack, I get all the extra goodies. We'll see with 9.1 powerpack. If I like it, I may start another subscription with 9.2, or get 9.2 powerpack boxed and wait for 10.0 powerpack to restart the subscription.

Don't get me wrong; I see p2p good for not making mandrake (/redhat/whatever) pick up the bill for bandwith. Of course, subscription is even better (you get nice software for low price and they get some money to cover some expenses).
By the way - I had to work recently with many Word and Powerpoint documents. But I had only oppenoffice (free). It worked surprisingly well.

The first place I heard of Linux, was the Software Boutique (I think that's the name of the place) in City Center Mall, downtown Columbus, Ohio. I lived in Columbus at the time. All they had was Redhat Linux, which was the first commercial distro in the USA, if not elsewhere.

That was when I got interested. All I had for a computer, was a CTX EZBook 700E (notebook), with a dinky 3.5 gig hdd and win98 (not SE). After I got a used midtower computer (AT style), I did some research at www.linux.org to see which might be the distro for me, as I learned that not all are equal in hardware support. That's how I came across Mandrake.

I had attempted to download Winlinux2000 via dialup: 24 hours for 1 ISO, anyone?? I got cut off at 4 hours by my ISP, as they don't consider downloading to be activity (grrr)!!! So, I did some searching around my hometown, and found Mandrake Powerpack in the box: perfect solution to dialup download woes. Sure, 7.2 had its share of problems, but, Mandrake kept getting better with each release.

One thing I found with Mandrake, is that part of the money for boxed packs, goes to the developers. My thinking is Great! It is certainly cheaper than MS Windows retail version.

I knew I was in for a couple of potential hardware problems, but solved them with 7.2. Every install has been smooth sailing since, with the exception of my current mobo (KT266 chipset not recognized by 8.2 and 9.0).

I have gotten to the point, that I couldn't care less, if I am regarded as a Traitor, by Homeland Security, since this IS a made in France product and likely used by 1 or more Al Queda members).

So, I will spend my OS money on a French Product.

Just an aside on the cost of an OS.

The only Linux I've used is via my shell account at a local ISP - I've been a genuine UNIX user since my first "home computer" in 1982 (I initially used "Xenix," which was a licensed version of Bell Labs UNIX III, then moved onto SCO UNIX versions. Currently I'm using BSD UNIX).

Anyway, the first UNIX OS license I bought was an even $1500 for "non-commercial" use on my 16 user home machine.

Linux is much cheaper no matter WHAT distro one uses, and by offering up at least SOME money for it you are helping to support continued development and quality boxed sets.

(The BSD UNIX with an Apple Mac GUI frontend I'm currently using was a steal at $129.)



-= MICROSOFT FREE ZONE =-

EDIT: GASP! I had to fix a typo up above in the body of my post. I originally put "1992" as the year of my first UNIX home machine and it should have been "1982" (03JUN'82 was my first USENET post from Boris, my home machine). "1992" makes me sound like some sort of newbie! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Xenix? I thought that was specific to the Tandy 2000. I never really go into multiuser OSes, until Linux, let alone networking. Heck, I don't even consider being on the Internet, to be networked. I consider even Roadrunner to be merely an Online Service, like the old days.

The really nice thing about Linux, is all the choice you have, in order to fit your needs. Need to build a cheap supercomputer? Try Beowulf Linux, as it is designed for that purpose. Heck I have a hard enough time figuring out what to do with a single cpu system. LOL!

Thanks for concurring with me on supporting the distro and the developers.

Microsoft is probably counting on the linux cheapskates to bury Linux (plus DRM of course). /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Hi, Charles.

Nope, Xenix wasn't exclusive to the Tandy 2000 machines, but was actually made under license from AT&T by SCO (Santa Cruz Operation).

SCO was chosen by Microsoft, IIRC, to do the ports to some microprocessors, including the MC68000 series, and to handle the distribution of those ports under the Xenix name using Microsoft's license of the UNIX source from AT&T ...

Yes, I said Microsoft, they actually were one of the early licencees of UNIX (System III from AT&T/Bell Labs) for use on smaller systems, and until SCO went their own way a few years later with SCO UNIX, even if you were running UNIX (Xenix) instead of Microsoft DOS there was a good chance you were paying Microsoft for the priviledge of using your computer ... Like I said, I paid them $1500 to get a copy of Xenix for my machine on 8 inch floppies. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif