Mandrake Policy Change Angers Users

phalse phace writes "Yahoo! News is carrying a ZDNet News article which reveals that Mandrake has decided to change its policy regarding its Mandrake Club. Previously, Mandrake stated that all membership levels would enjoy the same benefits. But since Mandrake Linux 8.2 will include StarOffice 6.0 and Sun is charging for it, they decided to only allow the download of SO 6.0 to Silver members and higher."

Perhaps its because

[HanzoSan]

Mandrake read slashdot and saw posts about how they had no business plan, and how they were begging and blah blah blah, perhaps they are actually making Mandrake club a legit Redhat style service now.

Why include open office? Business users dont want Open Office they want STAR OFFICE.

People complain when Mandrakesoft is too fair, then they complain when Mandrakesoft does the same thing Redhat and everyone else is doing.

People, subscribe, or shut up.

Dont understand the outrage..

[Lumpy]

Open office is better than StarOffice. I have both and I use Open Office alot more. StarOffice unless it was HUGELY further advanced doesn't even peak my interest in any way other than "Why is Sun still trying to sell that?" They cant import Office files any better, not that it matters to me anymore, I've pretty much convinced everyone at the office that Microsoft File formats are Evil and reduce our communication abilities and profitability.. (That was an awesome speech at that meeting, dont know where those words came from but talking to sales people use Money as your motivation... it sucks them in every-time) PLus the fact that I have 1/2 the sales force using Open Office at home with the, "You just got a computer and you want to borrow the Office2000 cd set? No that's illegal, but here, Here is a free Office Suite that is just as good, and you can legally give it to everyone you want."

So, we now have over 1/2 the office workers and sales staff using Open Office at home AND now wanting me to install it on their computers at work to replace that Microsoft version.

Star Office, i wish them luck, but noone outside of a corperate purchaser is interested in it.

This is not so bad

[johnlenin1]

That Mandrake is going to pass along the cost of Sun's charging for StarOffice 6 only makes sense from a financial point of view, especially given Mandrake's recent money troubles [slashdot.org].

It doesn't bother me a bit though, and I am a club member, though not at a level high enough to download StarOffice for free. I gave my $60 to Mandrake, not expecting anything in return, even though benefits are offered to club members. I gave my money because I think Mandrake is the best distro around, and one that has a real chance of making a headway against the MS dominance on the desktop.

So don't be upset that Mandrake is charging its customers to cover the cost of that which they are being charged for themselves. That's how a business is run. And unless Mandrake stays profitable as a business, this great distrobution might not be around in a couple of years.

If you enjoy or appreciate Mandrake's work, why not join the club [mandrakeclub.com] yourself today?

Re:Perhaps its because

[Pave Low]

you seem to have a psychic's ability to read into what mandrake and business users want.

well, you are just speculating and talking straight out of your ass. how many business users want something outside of MS Office? In my actually experience (which you seem to have none) it's almost nobody.

telling people to shut up or subscribe is plain idiotic. how about those subscribed thinking they were getting one thing than it gets changed later?

Re:Why are they pissed

[SuperDuperMan]

It's not $5 it's 12 months at $5 each so $60.

I think people do mind paying $400 for Office.

Supporting Mandrake is great but in exchange for your money you expect to get something.

I don't send Microsoft money in support of Windows. If I buy Windows that is all the support Microsoft is going to get from me.

Microsoft would love it if people would pay them $60/year for Windows. Heck there are people who have used the same version of Windows for 4 years so that's a good $240 Microsoft could have collected already.

Just charge for the download to cover bandwidth?

[Mustang Matt]

Charge like $3 or something to download the ISOs.
It's no big deal if people mirror them or copy them to friends, you just have to try and prevent multiple people from grabbing it. So only allow one login per username and expire the code after 15 days of the first login.

If they don't have everything they need in 15 days or if they didn't make a backup on CD they can pay another $3 and try again.

Wouldn't $3/download cover bandwidth costs?

Did it occur to you

[littleRedFriend]

that this has probably nothing to do with SUN SO being not free anymore? I think the people at Mandrake, saw that after their announce of money shortage, a lot of people suddenly subscribed to their club (like I did). Most of the people think $5 a month is enough, but hesitate about the $10 a month subscription.

Probably, a guy at Mandrake thought: "why not make it a little bit more attractive to go for the $10 option by introducing a difference (though with open office around, really only psychologically)". Maybe people will think: " uhmm... star office, what's next. You know what, I'll tick the $10 option."

Would have worked for me. Too late for them now.