Hi Karol,

IMO, it's a great idea. I don't see many distros doing this, however. Any generic reasons why?

Probably the biggest reason would be most people don't have broadband... but I can't see any harm in offering it. It would be interesting to see if someone knows any other reason(s).

...

Other points: To encourage buying the boxed set, customers who bought the boxed set via SuSE's site would be granted free access to the priority FTP server. Thus allowing customers to buy the box, without waiting for the box.

This would be really nice, especially because I have a boxed set. :) ftp.suse.com is slow most of the time, even with my 56K modem. I believe RedHat does this...

Yeah, that would be great for updates... What I mainly meant is putting ISO's on it, so that I could install 7.3 immediately after purchasing it, rather than waiting for my boxed set to arrive. However, SuSE would make a great value-add if they offered a "SuSE Network" service. Say, a good idea might be to offer such a service for something like $10-$12 a month (two or three months free with Boxed set purchase), and for that cost you could download the ISO's for the current release for as long as you subscribed (no support though). It wouldn't earn SuSE as much as a boxed set at every release, but it would probably come close to the same, would allow you to get it faster, and would guarantee SuSE monthly revenue from subscribers. -Tim -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy R. Butler Universal Networks tbutler@uninetsolutions.com ICQ #12495932 AIM: Uninettm Free/Open Source Web Tools: http://www.uninetsolutions.com Christian Portal and Search Tool: http://www.faithtree.com ============== "Christian Web Services Since 1996" ==============

On 15 Oct 2001, Timothy R.Butler wrote:

Yeah, that would be great for updates... What I mainly meant is putting ISO's on it, so that I could install 7.3 immediately after purchasing it, rather than waiting for my boxed set to arrive. However, SuSE would make a great value-add if they offered a "SuSE Network" service.

I think you've really got something Timothy. "Free Upgrade To Next Version" looks nice on a box (Debian boxed sets have "Free Updates For Life" in big letters). Offering something like this would not cost SuSE much money, and it would increase their profile. As we all know, most money in the open source world (notice... no capitals) is in services, and this would be a first step.

Say, a good idea might be to offer such a service for something like $10-$12 a month (two or three months free with Boxed set purchase), and for that cost you could download the ISO's for the current release for as long as you subscribed (no support though). It wouldn't earn SuSE as much as a boxed set at every release, but it would probably come close to the same, would allow you to get it faster, and would guarantee SuSE monthly revenue from subscribers.

As many of you probably have heard, Mandrake users asked for Mandrake Corp. to set up a PayPal account for donations specifically because many users felt they were ripping off the company because they simply downloaded the ISO's. IMO, a private / public company's reputation drops when they allow donations, so offering semi-cheap priority FTP access would draw many customers with fast Internet access and, as you said, would guarantee SuSE some revenue. -- noodlez: Karol Pietrzak PGP KeyID: 0x3A1446A0

hi all, Am Montag, 15. Oktober 2001 22:45 schrieb Timothy R.Butler:

Hi Karol,

...

IMO, it's a great idea. I don't see many distros doing this, however. Any generic reasons why?

Probably the biggest reason would be most people don't have broadband... but I can't see any harm in offering it. It would be interesting to see if someone knows any other reason(s).

yes, i know another reason : the bandwidth on suse's side of the thing. just an example : lets say, 10 people are d/l'ing with an adsl connection, which has approx. 768 kbit in the direction to the user. thus, suse needs at least an 8 mbit dedicated line to only serve this ten users. and what if you have 100 people ?? with the 8mbit line, everyone would be degraded almost to normal isdn speed .... and, as you all should know, high-speed leased lines to the inet cost alot of money. and i guess that there wouldnt be enough money flowing in to offer that service. another thing is the d/l time....... if there are many people d/l'ing the stuff, you better install from floppys than via ftp, as it would become way toooo slow .... and, if someone d/l's the stuff more than once, the calculation gets even worse. what is someone gets the stuff, lets say, 5 times ??? it potentially will block 4 other d/l's then ...... greets, chris -- visit me at http://mamalala.de

It's a little overly-complicated, but it's something *I* would invest in. If SuSE had any priority FTP at all, regardless of how "advanced" the file availabiltiy was, I'd pay for that, too. Then there's the matter of authentication...how do you know that one inscrupulous person wouldn't start handing out uid/passwds for said site in the spirit of "freedom"? I have ADSL, but also a dynamic IP address...

Hmm... interesting point. Well, (1) since such a service would require a credit card, a hefty fine could be imposed on any account that showed many different people from different locations downloading off an account (giving the user a chance to prove their innocence first). (2) The password on every account could change every month just to make things harder. (3) Perhaps encrypting the ISO and making it only unencryptable with the private key of the subscriber might work too... I dunno, you could still have problems, but I think the first one would really discourage most people... -Tim -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy R. Butler Universal Networks tbutler@uninetsolutions.com ICQ #12495932 AIM: Uninettm Free/Open Source Web Tools: http://www.uninetsolutions.com Christian Portal and Search Tool: http://www.faithtree.com ============== "Christian Web Services Since 1996" ==============

At 02:57 PM 10/15/2001 -0700, you wrote:

--- "Timothy R. Butler" wrote:

...

(3) Perhaps encrypting the ISO and making it only unencryptable with the private key of the subscriber might work too...

I *really* like this idea. :)

Of course you do. I don't. Do you really think someone won't figure out a way to crack it? Yay - who wants to be the first to bring warez into the Free Software world? Bypassing the copy protection on Free software! I can see the headlines now: "Man Sentenced to ~10 years under the DMCA for by-passing and/or attempting to bypass Copy Protection Scheme on Open Source Software" Absolutely disgusting.... And don't say it won't happen cuz i7 w1ll... @11 70$3 31337 cr@ck3r$ @r3 w@171ng... ---------------------------------------------------- Jonathan Wilson System Administrator Cedar Creek Software http://www.cedarcreeksoftware.com Central Texas IT http://www.centraltexasit.com

Of course you do. I don't.

Do you really think someone won't figure out a way to crack it?

Yay - who wants to be the first to bring warez into the Free Software world?

Well, for one, if you use 128-bit PGP encryption it would be pretty strong, I would think. Also, and most importantly, this is still free software, so if someone cracks in, and 10 or even 100 people get the code, so what? It would simply be remedied as fast as possible. Also see the fine for people who purposely share their account information (that I recommended previously). The key here is think online service (i.e. AOL) not copy protection (i.e. Windows XP). The purpose isn't to stop sharing, but to keep non-subscribers out. After it's downloaded, everyone can share it, just like they can if they buy a boxed set.

Bypassing the copy protection on Free software! I can see the headlines now:

"Man Sentenced to ~10 years under the DMCA for by-passing and/or attempting to bypass Copy Protection Scheme on Open Source Software"

Hopefully open source companies wouldn't use the DMCA... but hey, you never know. -Tim -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy R. Butler Universal Networks tbutler@uninetsolutions.com ICQ #12495932 AIM: Uninettm Free/Open Source Web Tools: http://www.uninetsolutions.com Christian Portal and Search Tool: http://www.faithtree.com ============== "Christian Web Services Since 1996" ==============

At 10:38 PM 10/15/2001 -0200, you wrote:

I guess the only effective way to deal with handing out of uid/passwds is this "iso express" service selling uid/passwds as tickets, once you do a successful download, your uid/passwds expires. This way, things would be the same way when you buy a CD.

This way, when I'm on a modem or ISDN line (yes, there are people crazy enough to download for ~45 hours over 24.4 k modem - I've done it myself) - maybe even cable or DSL, I've never tried those -- and my connection gets dropped, on the second log in attempt, I get "Sorry, you've already downloaded this". ---------------------------------------------------- Jonathan Wilson System Administrator Cedar Creek Software http://www.cedarcreeksoftware.com Central Texas IT http://www.centraltexasit.com

On Mon, Oct 15, 2001 at 09:44:43PM -0500, Timothy R. Butler wrote:

Mmm. Is it not time this discussion came to a graceful end ? One of the posters yesterday quoted verbatim the README on this topic from the Suse FTP site. SuSE have a policy on this, and I personally have problems with it as well...however this discussion crops up every few months and changes nothing. Comparisons with Debian and Slackware are irrelevant. Do note the fact the they are ".org", not commercial organisations Suse is selling a packaged distribution , and one of far superior capabilities than it's main rival in this field (Redhat). I am sure they are aware that their style is not always very popular with their fans. My problems with Suse are that they clearly bring out too many releases a year amd inadequately test their upgrades. That is the main reason I would buy and install a distribution in full. I keep daily backups of all critical files, so I can usually reproduce the status-quo if (and in the case of 7.3 this is a very big if) I decide I need a newer version. Personally I am more interested in updated kernels, than in updated distributions. Linux still has a way to go...it is just as well the recent 2.4.11 fiasco was nipped in the bud as quickly as it was (now that is what you get with the Open Source world, a very quick reaction). -- Regards Cliff