Support your Favorite Distro, Support Linux.
 

I was thinking, I see so many people talking about "just downloading" red hat, mandrake, etc. etc. and it got be a tad scared. Scared about these distributors not getting the proper amount of funding. THough this is all freedom of choice, we should make it our best effort to purchase the OS package by who ever you like using the most. if not more. I just bought Mandrake 8.2 and Red Hat 7.3. Hopefully we can get a few others to do the same right here on this forum. Cuase you have to admit, without Redhat, Mandrake, etc... Linux wouldn't be nearly as fast paced as it is currently.

If you plan on purchasing a distro or already have, please make a post. I'm currious as to how many people are paying for it. Please state company if you can.

I'd buy more distros/apps if i had the money :( Is their a _central_ person/orginization that runs GIMP? would really like to give them some funding, also KDE. I really want to invest all that I can afford. I love these apps and so many more.

Support the OS we trust! (no i am not a distro salesmen). :)

Ben.

I have bought Suse 7.2 pro and now 8.0 pro and i think its a good investment in future development off Suse linux.

Its a fact that these companies cant survive if they dont get money like any other company so do yourself and everybody else a favor and buy your next linux dist.

I'm tight :)

How about helping support this great site too ? Sites like LinuxQuestions.org need fundings to stay alive as well. Become a Contributing Member and get that great feeling inside that your helping a site that is here for you 24/7 with all the help you can get related to Linux.

And to add, I have bought distro's before, mainly Redhat though. I liked the stickers they come with ok. :)

I will probably be buying the next version of Mandy (hope they can hold on that long). I am currently a hard-up student having to sell body parts to pay the rent. Next year, I shall (hopefully) be doing my PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate in Education, for those in non-UK countries), and then going on to teach. Now, teachers don't get fabulouse salaries in this country, but it'll be a hell of a lot more than I currently get, so I will probably splash out and buy a distro, maybe two: (Mandy+Slack).

personally Redhat don't deserve a penny of my money. readhat have VAST amounts of money from their server side business. i think i read they have an annnual turnover of £4million or something... they also don't deserve it cos i don't use redhat really... :D

People seem to forget what distributions actually are... a huge collection of OTHER people's programs with only say 5% added code from the distributors in the shape of an installer and maybe a nice shiny config GUI.

I have to agree with acid, and to add more, major linux distribution's companies are getting funds from providing techsupport for their products, so say you downloaded a distro (let's say RH) you installed it and boom - you realized that is what you need for your company, so you go ahead talk over CEO to get into linux arena, the company gets your copy of distro, and puts it in every workstation and server there, now what - right, configuration, this is where RH folks are needy, if you can't setup something pertaining to your environment there's no better place then getting support directly from vendor, of course you can come here and ask I want to setup SNMP, VPN, etc plus I have a hardware modem and it's not recognized, plus I want to setup hell knows what, so do you expect to get answers to all your questions in one shot? I don't think so, that's why enterprises who opted to linux are bounded with RH support team by a tight rope - fiber+optic wire + #include phone.line. And support ain't cheap.

Linux is supposed to be free. Software should be free like it used to be... Aside from games that is.

Having said that, I did buy SuSE 7.2 pro, and I will probably buy 8.x(5 maybe?) or 9 unless I can get a copy from someone else.

But I dont expect SuSE to stay alive because of folks like me buying the odd distro. If I take SuSE to a corporate client then I will try to get the client to buy some kind of support package from them. That is what SuSE will be looking for; to keep them running in the long term.

ANd to prove my statement here is an example where you better off with distro's support team http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=21304 if you are an enterprise and the service is critical for you company.

Well, being a lazy individual. I just buy Red Hat unless..I know someone, who know someone, who knows someone, I can borrow it from and burn it.

I have to disagree with you guys to a large extent. While I do think that support is the best place for Linux companies to make a profit I do think they add quite a bit to Linux. A LOT of innovation comes from the distro manufacturers. Many of the kernel programmers are on the payroll of a linux company. Without the support of some of these companies Linux would not be where it is today IMHO.

--jeremy

yes but Linus being on the payroll of Transmeta means he can buy a car and eat food. the company itself is not actually affecting linux in any official capacity AFAIK, simply letting the people that do it in their own time exist... There may be a greater overlap for working for Redhat or something but not an overwhelming one i'd think. hehe, some people writing Linux stuff probably work for Microsoft, but that doesn't mean M$ are paying for Linux developement! certainly tho money does need to get into the Linux system somehow...

I think Linus is one of the only main kernel programmers who is not on a Linux payroll to be honest. Rik, Andrea, Marcelo, Ingo, and Alan to name a few are all supported by linux companies. ReiserFS is partially funded by SuSE. I know Red Hat pays some of the GNOME developers and both SuSE and Mandrake have KDE guys. The list goes on and on. Projects as big as these simply would not be around without some commecial funding.

--jeremy

I bought suse 7.3 mainly for the included books. I did buy connectiva before that but there wasn't enough info included with it.
I don't think that any distro can survive on the money they make with boxed sets. They have to make their money from services they supply to paying customers - look at the mess mandrake is in - you don't see commercial services advertised on their website (at least not prominently). Suse and RH are geared more towards commercial customers.
Problem with that is that the development for desktopapps that are of no interest to companies will probably slow down somewhat.

I bought RH 6.0 about 2 years ago ( or whenever it came out ). I bought it for the extra documentation and the email support. Unfortunatley, neither one did me a damn bit of good and I was unable to get it on my machine. I'm sure I'll purchase a version in the future ( once I have figured out what the hell is going on :D ). I have no problem paying a reasonable price for software I use but I also don't have a problem using a free version to learn on.