Re: [tlug] And they said it was Free?

["Scott McLennan" <scottmclennan@example.com>]

> Scott McLennan wrote:
> > I wonder why everyone is always focussing on Mandrake
> > and not Redhat or Debian...
> Where did you get this from ?

It seemed to me that the "Heavy Duty Teckies" in the group seemed to be
focussing most of their cryptic discussions on Mandrake 8.1
(fonts/Star Office/OfficeSuite)...
I thought maybe Mandrake is the most trendiest now. I
dont know as I havent followed it so much. I used only
vine, potatos and redhat to date. Not really a connoiseur
but am studying hard...

> You might think what they do is sell free software (and memberships) for
doing
> nothing. That's not the case, they are actually doing some serious
development
> too that requires *money*.

Yep. My point is imagine 'everyday at 9am they give away free doughnuts at
the
corner of  Shinjuku Park'. They do it non-stop for 5 years. Then one day you
go down there and they bumped the price up to $5 a bag. Boy. You wouldnt
be so happy would you.. Im a creature of habit. I like to keep my life
simple.
If something called Linux is free then its like gimme gimmee.. So when it
starts
costing $'s and Yen's boy that's awful. I would rather have paid for it at
the
start then to have sufferered the final dissapointment of forking out big
bucks
at the end. If they are going to have this nobel, pure philosophy for doing
business then it cant be that pure if they change their whole way of doing
things in flight. Its like. "Come on. Get on the plane. We are all going to
Bahamas. Dont worry. You are my guest.." Then somewhere over the
yellow triangle/ sorry the bermuda triangle, the seats start rocking and
the life jackets fall out and the oxygen masks fall down and we are all
sitting there saying 'What the hell is going on?!'. Then the Captain
suddenly
opens the cabin door and appears before us... "Ladies and Gentlemen,
We did plan on today's flight being for free but we've run into turbulence
and well ugh.. you wont believe this but we have run out of money. But the
good news if you drop us a bit more cash then we can definitely make it and
get yer out of the poo that we got us into...  "...
There is a long silence. "Ah-Ha."... Hmm... as smiles turn to frowns...
All the customers heads drop as the cocktails that they sipping suddenly
get lowered to the arm rests. Party's Over!

Someone crys out from the background. "Hey! That aint fair! Yer told
us it was for free!"....

Thats my feeling in a nutshell. "Im sorry folks but no free nuts on the
Mandrake Flight tonight". Kind of makes ya go a bit nutty doesn't it?!
If the nuts are gonna be free then they shouldnt bump up the price half
way through the party...
>
> But you have the choice. Use debian or some other distro for free and
package
> OpenOffice for yourself (and for the community).

Maybe one day. Im trying all the time. Between my IT and Chinese
study i have very little free free time... I do help out with Charity in
other
areas but...

Scott

> B0Ti.
>