[Mageia-dev] Art, Logo and Branding

Fri Sep 24 10:36:15 CEST 2010

Le vendredi 24 septembre 2010 à 03:07 +0200, J.A. Magallón a écrit :
+> On Thu, 23 Sep 2010 23:58:30 +0200, Michael Scherer <misc at zarb.org> wrote:
+> > 
+> > How would you ensure that the community version will not be seen as a
+> > cheap version of the commercial one ? How would you prevent this idea
+> > from destroying again the community like it did by the past ?
+> > 
+> ...
+> > All people who I asked the question said that the only solution is to
+> > have 2 different names and brandings.
+> > Redhat do it, and it work fine from them.
+> > Novell do it, and it work fine.
+> > Canonical do it ( to a lesser extend , since there was
+> > https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntuone-servers/+bug/375345 ), and it work
+> > fine.
+> > 
+> > Even debian based distro used a different name ( progeny, etc ).
+> > 
+> > We didn't for Mandriva, and so started the confusion between the
+> > company, the distribution and the community. And so people didn't
+> > contribute because it was a business, and the idea that "updates were
+> > not free" stick around for a long time because it was hard to explain to
+> > people the different concept
+> > 
+> > So if there is a business or commercial version, I think this would
+> > requires a different name and branding. Using the association name for
+> > that would not be right, in my opinion. 
+> > 
+> 
+> I (and this is a totally personal opinion, of course, even if I sound harsh)
+> really hate all this mess of editions/versions/variants of the same distro.
+> I have always installed both servers and desktops with the same Mandriva
+> edition. In fact (perhaps I'm ignorant on this point), what's the difference
+> between lets say a 'server' edition and a 'desktop' edition ? The default
+> set of installed packages ?
+
+Yes. From a purely technical point of view, that's the only change. In a
+closed source world, you could add artificial restrictions ( as
+Microsoft did for Windows or for old Windows NT server edition, who
+cannot handle much memory, or not too much processor, etc ). 
+
+> And what is the difference between the Commercial and the Free edition ?
+> The support from the company ?
+
+Yes again.
+Even if the Free edition could be supported as well by contract if
+needed. But for cost reason, someone who offer support will prefer to do
+it on a small subset of know packages in order to avoid surprise. But
+there is company that offer support on almost all kind of system.
+
+Usually, it is just a matter of paying enough. I used to have a job of
+supporting debian as sysadmin, on any type of packages, for a client, so
+that's not uncommon.
+-- 
+Michael Scherer
+
+