Into.the.Void.

Just go to Magenta‘s DesktopOS e-shop and take a look at the price. 99€ for a greek linux distro ?

I know that there is proprietary software included in that distro, but I still find the price outrageous for what’s included. Here’s the pricelist of what’s not open source/free and is included on the distro according to Magenta’s Pricelist:

a) GOLDEN VERSION 2006 English-Greek & Greek-English electronic TRANSLATION dictionary for computers running Linux OS.
Price: 35€

b) Unicode Fonts No 1,2,3,4,5.
Price: 5x 34.63€ = 173.15€

c) Font Pack of “Greek Font Society“.
All fonts come with an openfont license. Price: 0€

d) Font pack of “Cannibal Fonts”
Unspecified number/names of fonts…Unspecified Price. There are fontpacks on that site costing more than 1000€.

I can’t find any word on the website about “support”, helpdesk, etc. If I buy it…who provides support ? Magenta or the Ubuntu Community ? This is something crucial for potential buyers and it should have been clearly noted on the site. If there’s no official support by Magenta, included in the pricetag of 99€, then all the money a buyer pays goes for Magenta’s proprietary software and fonts included in the distro. If someone excludes the 35€ that the dictionary costs, then there’s another 64€ for fonts only!

I have never ever used Magenta’s or Cannibal’s fonts on any of the distros I use. I find that the free fonts that exist are already more than enough for me. So, if I ever bought Magenta’s DesktopOS, it would only be for the dictionary included, and that just costs 35€. For someone who does not need Magenta’s or Cannibal’s fonts, the extra 64€ these seem to cost is outrageous (at least to me).

If you are like me and have never used Magenta’s fonts nor do you need them, I wouldn’t recommend buying that distro. Maybe a version without those fonts and with better(?) support for a price of 20-40€ would be more appealing.

P.S. Not even a single screenshot ? why ?

P.S.2. I really hope that the 99€ pricetag is an “error” of some kind. Even RHEL Desktop is cheaper, and I am sure that Redhat’s support is far more valuable than any dictionary or font included in Magenta’s DestktopOS.

P.S.3 I loved the greek spelling of “e-shop” on their site -> “η-Κατάστημα”…hillarious

Filed by kargig at 17:43 under Linux
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