Mandrake and the commercial license

[Simo Sorce]

On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 20:00, Jan Wildeboer wrote:
> Simo Sorce wrote:
> 
> > You already have the freedom, you can always switch to the GPLed
> > license.
> > Only you do not get supplementary services that way.
> 
> Which would be interesting to know why. They could offer the same 
> services for the same price for the GPLed version. Their current method 
> says: Support only for the proprietary version. And exactly that is what 
> I do not like about this. Support and other supplementary services 
> should be independent of the license. IMHO though.

At a first impression I think they want to attract that lot of people
that are diffident toward free software, that's why I called it a
marketing move.
I may well be wrong, until they release the GPLed version I'm fine,
there's room for others to offer services that MandrakeSoft do not want
to offer.

> > In my opinion it is only a marketing move to sell services, nothing
> > freedom reducing.
> 
> In that case they would offer the same services for the GPLed version - 
> which they do not do. It is more than a marketimg move. It is saying 
> GPLed is without anything.

If you want my opinion, I do think like you, I would offer services on
the GPLed version through a separate contract.

Simo.

-- 
Simo Sorce - simo.sorce at xsec.it
Xsec s.r.l.
via Durando 10 Ed. G - 20158 - Milano
tel. +39 02 2399 7130 - fax: +39 02 700 442 399
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