It appears that Linux-Mandrake believes it has not angered customers as reported on many IT related web sites. According to this page, the folks at Mandrake explain how the OEM agreement they signed with Sun forced their decision (to make SO6 available only to Club members), justify the change in their membership benefits, and thank the community for their continued support of open-source R&D.
Not a Problem About Star Office 6, Mandrake Says
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Adam Scheinberg
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Star Office is absolute garbage. I don’t think that the 4 Mandrake customers who use it will make a difference.
You also have a Gnome office suite and a KDE office suite, which are much cleaner and I’m sure the funcionality will catch up (if it even needs to?).
And of course whenever Gobe Productive 3.0 for Linux is released (shortly), Linux users can experience a good office suite. That is, Linux users that don’t mind paying for something.
Any informed person wouldn’t make a fuss about this, it is after all just Openoffice with a few extra filters and a DB-program. And openoffice is still free.
This is not exactly an evil policy……Mandrake is being rather up front about the whole thing.
Too bad linux users are so attached to the idea of free that they won’t support Star Office, Mandrake, or anything good that happens to the OS but requires parting with a bit o’ cash.
So we can add both of them to the list of Linux road kill, along with LOKI (love the Quake III port, Soldier of Fortune, etc…), and Corel’s Wordperfect for Linux.
RIP
Most people have got an old Micro$oft Office Disk lying around somewhere.. Codeweavers now have a product enabling one to install it direct into Linux, point and click, with full functionality, unlike the usual WINE install reults… this is going to hurt Sun far more than KOffice and OpenOffice.org will..
<prepares for flames from anti-MS *nix bigots>
>>That is, Linux users that don’t mind paying for something.<<
ROTFLMAO
I am hoping the price for SO6 will not be overcharged as M$O. If it is overcharged, I will no more be the supporter of the step taken by Sun.
For me I support GPL but it doesn’t mean that we cannot make money from it, but of course not excessively. Those who don’y like Sun’s step, I would suggest to stay with OO and not making much noise especially if you are just the users, not the code contributor.
I guess my case must be rare. I paid because I read the DB package had support for my old scripts. Paying for a distribution I plan to use felt good. From what I’ve read, Mandrake had two weeks before I paid to make the correction, so I’m not angry, I’m dissapointed that Mandrake were so slack. If I’m wrong on this please correct me but it seems that Mandrake were negligent.
First of all, concerning Codeweavers: the product is called Crossover Office and it only works (or only ‘officlally’ supports) Word and Powerpoint. Of course, that’s probably enough for average folk anyway.
Second, it’s obviously that Linux is becomming more and more commercial as time goes on. People bash MS for the whole passport thing and having to give them personal info before using certain features in XP .. I installed RedHat 7.2 yesterday and before I could use the upgrade agent thing, I had to give them my life history, hand over my first born, and submit to a rectal exam
You have a few choices here:
First: Use Ximian Gnome, which has a RH 7.2 update channel and doesn’t require any personal info
Second: Update manually, or use Apt-rpm and point your sources file at a machine with updated RH packages
Third: Lie, put in dummy info.
Fourth: Use a different distro from a different vendor. I recommend Debian, or Libranet (which is Debian-based but not free.)
If you buy Libranet you get support, an easier install than pure Debian, and someone else has gone to the trouble of making sure you get all of the programs you’re likely to want.
Oh, and Debian’s update service is far more comprehensive than RH’s anyway. Of course, being GNU/Linux its Free, and being Debian it’s not commercial.
You have lots of options, only one of which is handing over your info to Red Hat. At least you’re not locked into one vendor.
There’s also KRUD – Kevin’s Red Hat Uber Distribution (http://www.tummy.com/krud/) if you want to stay with Red Hat. I doubt it has the grilling for info.