[Mageia-dev] Art, Logo and Branding

[Michael Scherer]

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