Its called giving back to the community. How do they stay alive without your support?
What is Linux to you? Something to leech off from? To me its about giving back . or passing it on. For sure Ive downloaded many Distros that are free. That being said I stuck with MDK so I bought 9.0. When Mandy 10.0 comes out Ill buy that too.
One perk:
Club members got to download 9.2 before everyone else.
Now Mandrake has a reputation of terrible customer support (rightfully so). But they do put out a kick A$$ Distro. I know of people that are members that can't even use their membership perks. Thats OK to them cause they wanted to support the Distro.
Cant say I blame SuSE for their approach. I installed via the ftp install. Great Distro, thats on my list to buy also.
So the question is do you leech forever or join in and support the Linux Community