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Hi Karol,
I think you've really got something Timothy.
Thank-you. :-)
"Free Upgrade To Next Version" looks nice on a box (Debian boxed sets have "Free
Exactly. This could actually increase profits, IMO. The thing with a Linux distro is, since they come out every few months, you that if you buy a several month old version it is (1) outdated, and (2) will soon be replaced. If a free upgrade (via Priority FTP service(TM)) was offered, people wouldn't mind buying older boxes... thus inventory would be reduce.
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.
Yes, exactly. I think services are no small part in the reason that RedHat is the only somewhat profitable distro company.
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.
Yes. And really $10-$13 a month wouldn't be unreasonable for the user, nor for SuSE. Better yet SuSE could offer it for $10 or $11 a month if you prepaid for the whole year (giving SuSE $120 or $132 a year from each user that subscribed). Pay-by-month users could pay a still reasonable $13 or $14 a month. Seems like a win/win idea to me. ;-) -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" ==============