i see that red hat 8 has been released and is available at http://www.linuxiso.org.
i can download this software and install it on my computer for free. the only cost is the cd-rom,s , 3 for a cost of $.50.


my question is , how does red hat make money on someone like me. they invest the money into making the new software, pay their employees, and then let someone like me download it , burn to disk, and install it for free?

they don't they make money from the server distributions they sell for a couple of grand a piece. among other things.

then why would one spend $39 for the red hat personal edition, when they can download it for free?

also, i have been at mandrake home page, and all you read about there is how many money troulbes they are having.also, they want you to join their club, ,make a donation, and almost begging one to buy their retail version of mandrake?

besides their distributions they also make money on support contracts, linux in business consultancy and some other things.

Cause some like the support they get with it. Some have 56k dialup and don't want to wait 2 weeks for a download. Some don't have a burner to download a iso file to burn. Some I am sure like the box with manuals for the small help it gives. And some I'm sure like the cool stickers they give in their retail boxes..

But yes, they make money in other ways, contracts, businesses that invest in them.. etc. They still have a large sum of cash from when they went public that I am sure is helping them as well. And plus being the number one distro that helps cause people/businesses are buying their products, support..etc.

Mandrake just hasn't hit it off. Sure its probably the most newbie friendly but most don't see it as a main server type or business like distro most likely. You have to think, more businesses are prone to be buying and investing in Linux, so they go with a leader which causes Redhat to be very financially stable than most of the others at this point.

Personally I just download the distributions and burn them for 50 cents. I guess the way that I contribute is from purchasing books. I have been buying a lot of Linux books lately (and no Microsoft books).

I bought this release for the neat cds and the stickers no really i bought this edition becuz I have used the last two versions without buying thought i would support a lil aint like its really expensive twenty bucks cheaper than last version was

That's a good point, Linuxidiot. I too, have downloaded for free for the last 3 releases and I am starting to feel that guilt of not contributing. I know this is going to sound really dumb, but what do the stickers look like?

there is one big one with the emblem they use for redhat and then three smaller ones which i guess could be used as case badges that are the same as the big one except they say Powered by Red Hat Linux http://www.redhat.com/img/homepg_rh_logo.gif like this except no Red Hat written off to the side