On Thursday 27 October 2005 20:17, Fred A. Miller wrote:

Paid purchaser of ALL SuSE Linux releases since 6.x

Paid purchaser of ALL SuSE Linux releases since 5.1

On Friday 28 October 2005 06:39, Kevanf1 wrote:

On 28/10/05, Steven T. Hatton wrote:

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Paid purchaser of ALL SuSE Linux releases since 5.1

--

Even better, twice :-)

I've done that too; one for the office, and one for home. I really don't mind paying people to do good work. Free software is about _freedom_, not free of cost. In the off chance you were referring to the double post, that was a result of my rebuilding my home directory, and getting a nasty message from kmail saying it refused to post the message without a default email address. I fixed the problem and posted again. IOW, it's not my fault. ;-)

On Friday 28 October 2005 10:28, Steven T. Hatton wrote:

On Thursday 27 October 2005 20:17, Fred A. Miller wrote:

...

Paid purchaser of ALL SuSE Linux releases since 6.x

Paid purchaser of ALL SuSE Linux releases since 5.1

Well, that's beat's me.. ;-) I only have the book and disks left from 5.3.. Mike -- Powered by SuSE 9.3 Kernel 2.6.11 KDE 3.4.0 Kmail 1.8 For Mondo/Mindi backup support go to http://www.mikenjane.net/~mike 3:52pm up 2 days 20:18, 5 users, load average: 2.06, 2.18, 2.27

On Friday 28 October 2005 4:25 am, Steven T. Hatton wrote:

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Paid purchaser of ALL SuSE Linux releases since 6.x

Paid purchaser of ALL SuSE Linux releases since 5.1

I forgot......you're older. ;) Fred -- Paid purchaser of ALL SuSE Linux releases since 6.x

On Saturday 29 October 2005 12:56 am, Ian Marlier wrote:

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From: "Fred A. Miller" Reply-To: Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 18:50:23 -0400 To: Subject: [SLE] NOVELL MISSTEPS NOT AFFECTING SUSE

NOVELL MISSTEPS NOT AFFECTING SUSE

As rumors fly that Novell may be tightening its budgetary belt, analysts and users seek to diagnose what a weakened SuSE could mean to the Linux community.

http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci 11378 71,00.html?track=NL-301&ad=531892USCA

I agree with the general theory -- that a problem within Novell isn't going to sink SuSE.

But on the other hand: where does the revenue come from?

Let me give you a quick corporate profile: 80 people, at a profitable web-based business. For the most part, servers (50+ of them) are SuSE Pro (not enterprise) 9.3, with a couple of Windows servers scattered. File sharing, etc, is done via Samba. DNS is done by Bind. Most desktop clients, though, run Windows XP.

Even if we move everything, but everything, to SuSE, total revenue for Novell/SuSE is about $59.

Profit is about $8 or something -- same as they make selling a SuSE boxed set to any desktop user in the world.

If SuSE/Novell were compensated in proportion to the number of installations on a scale remotely resembling what another company (sometimes accused of anti-competitive business practices) is for their OS product, the income would be quite impressive. Novell have made great contributions to open source, and have earned a legitimate place in the community. Open source software continues to improve in both program quality (as measured by number of bugs, stability, security, etc.) as well as usability for the non-expert. But for this to continue, its contributors much be able to afford to contribute. People who work full time on open source projects should be compensated at a reasonable rate. Sometimes that happens because the institution they work for has an interest in promoting open source although it is not the primary focus, e.g., NIH. There are a few companies such as SuSE/Novell whose primary focus /is/ software development. I believe these providers typically produce benefits to society far in excess of their income. What little the rest of us can do to reward their efforts is should be forthcoming.

On Sunday 30 October 2005 1:20 am, C.Richard Matson wrote:

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I believe these providers typically produce benefits to society far in excess of their income.  What little the rest of us can do to reward their efforts is should be forthcoming.

 

I agree, that is why I pay for every release. I'm not a tech type person, so it is the only way I cn help. Besides I have no objection to other people eating:-) Rich

'Same here......buy EVERY release. Fred -- Paid purchaser of ALL SuSE Linux releases since 6.x