Hello, I applaud you for being frugal with your dollar. In this day and age things add up quickly and most people can't just sling money around. It's good to buy what you need instead of following hype. If you are angry that 7.0 doesn't have the 2.4 kernel..well, no one can due much about that because it was promised to be out and well..it's not. That would be a Linus thing and he is the only one to be angry at for this. SuSE started a development cycle with it in mind that it would be out. SuSE can not just halt production on a product because one of the piece they wished to include was not available. You will be able to use the 2.4 kernel in 7.0 because SuSE will give you the tools to do so. What sort of bad treatment are you talking about? SuSE has had the same method of release as long as I have been using the software (5.0) and that is just the way it is. SuSE schedule is very tight, but things such as U.S. customs being a pain in the arse is something that NO one can do anything about, they held up "release schedules ". You can not blame SuSE for these types of problems. When your product sits and sits because of Government redtape and other such crap..them is just the brakes. SuSE very carefully thinks out the release schedule and makes sure all the i's are dotted and all the T's are crossed, but sometimes "shit happens". The encryption laws have NOTHING to do with why it's released in Europe before it's released in the U.S. Do you think leaving one directory off the CD's could cause these delays? Come on I think you are smarter then that. Well, I would say that SuSE is a business. You claim to be a businessman and to be good with your money. Do you have any idea how much effort and money goes into putting together all of the software, scripts and various other things that go into a distribution...? Well, I didn't. Now I do. It's a lot of time, effort and energy that most people don't want to undertake. To put together 1900 package w/ all the strings that bind it together cost quite a bit, so you really can't blame SuSE for thinking of paying customers a little before hand. All the software that's there can be put together into a distribution and loaded onto a machine by anyone who chooses to do so. I just think that's why people buy a box w/ CD's..because it's too much trouble to put this stuff together themselves. So you saying people are being punished because they don't want to buy the software to pay the developers for their time and they didn't want the software anyways..but in case they change their minds and want to upgrade anyways they should be able to. You say "As long as you have a customer you want to keep him" well, a customer is someone who buys goods and services...not someone who gets freebee's. I don't mean to offend you, but your choice of words is just not correct. Just because I got a copy of Solaris X86 for free at Linuxworld does not make me a Sun customer. It makes me someone who got the software for free. Should I be pissed because I can't get so some patches for it because they are on a passworded pay only site at Sun...umm...no. I shouldn't be and I am not. Yeah, you are exactly right that most of SuSE's customers won't have a highspeed connection which is exactly why they have always given multiple CD's with everything and the kitchen sink on them, so that people didn't have to spend valuable download $$ in order to try a piece of software. Well, I don't think that your seeing the big picture as far as the pricing is concerned. SuSE has not raised their prices in several years but yet has continued to grow and the cost of living has continued to increase, so after 5 or so years of not raising prices they decide to do so..you CAN'T possibly fault them for that. If you look at the value you get for Redhat's professional version ($170.00 U.S) and what you get with SuSE 7.0-Pro. You wouldn't be making these statements. If you run Oracle you would be paying a huge amount for Redhat's Oracle ready version..while SuSE 7.0 Pro gives you all of this for your "$70.00". SuSE gives 1000% more then many other distributions out there for pennies on the dollar. SuSE can't really stop you from being pissed off. I just think you are getting way bent out of shape when you don't completely realize what people go through to get a product like this to market. You also have to remember that from the time it's released to the time that the outlets release it for sale can vary sometimes as well. It's one big network that sometimes doesn't work as well as we would all like it to but I think that a damn good job is being done under the constraints of what their is too work with. I just want it to be said that these are my personal views on the situation..from observations from the outside and from within. Which is why it comes from this account. -- Cheers, Ben Rosenberg mailto:ben@whack.org ------------------------- Warning to the Human Race: Objects in mirror are dumber than they appear. -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq