Richard wrote:
On Wednesday 29 December 2004 01:13 pm, Joaquin Menchaca wrote:
All I can say is that with so many bad experiences, I am very hesitant to purchase software without knowing that it is going to work. Unfortunately for SuSE, they don't seem to have a public evaluation system, nor are there distros for NON-COMMERCIAL usages.
Joaquin, I dont know where you get your info, but there is no, and havent been any, prohibition from SuSe about non-commercial usage. Someone is flim-flaming you! Use it anywhere you want! Call it comercial or non-commercial if you want, No one cares.
My comment was about accessibility. Corporations have a back-door way of getting copies to users under the title of "non-commercial" usage. For legality purposes, the corporations are satisfied as users couldn't use the products legally, and for users standpoint, they get a copy without paying anything. Many times this helps with testing products, evals, student usage, training, etc., but assures companies pay realy money for products they use commercially.
SuSE Pro simply has more development stuff included on the cd/dvd's. Even that is available for FREE, if you want to download it. Personally, I buy the pro version cause I dont want to screw with more downloads. If you use apt, you can get it all from a command line, again for FREE.
Like others have been tryijng to tell you, YOU have a choice, pay for the pro version or wait and download it for free or have someone else prepare the cds for you for about 5 bucks. It;s all about choice. Choices you dont get with other OS's.
I liked it when one could download SuSE for free before, and I like it when companies like Oracle and Sun, and even Microsoft, have evaluation/non-commercial options to get at their software and try it. It many sales, especially enterprise, they have a POC phase, i.e. Proof-Of-Concept. I don't see why we can have some form of this, rather than just blindly pay, and find out later it doesn't work. :-(
No one is requiring you to pay before you try, you just have to exert a little effort to find the free version. Borrow it from a friend or download it when it becomes available.
Isn't borrowing it from a friend and installing it ILLEGAL? Maybe that's the thing in Europe, but I couldn't do this on a professional basis.
Anyhow, combine with that and and users reporting problems, SuSE doesn't seem like a viable platform at this stage, or at least one cannot find out... :-)
You cannot find out if you dont try. Have you ever found a new piece of software that was perfect? In my 40 + years in this business, I haven't and I surely dont expect to see it now. By mid Jan, when the freebie will be on the mirrors, most of the original problems will be long solved, just like the last update.
Hi, thanks for your advice. I have located the downloadable eval from others posting, and I will give it a try. As I am interested in this stuff, I am strongly thinking of buying it. I'm not exactly unemployed, and I can afford the hit if the product doesn't work out.