“Rumors of MandrakeSoft ‘stepping back’ from Free Software are
not true, says Gael Duval, v.p. of the Paris, France Linux
distribution company.“Yes, they have released their latest product, the Mandrake
Multiple Network Firewall, with a dual licensing scheme that would
have commercial users signing up under a more restrictive license.
But, says Duval, ‘It’s just about providing an additional choice
for a given product–we aren’t moving at all toward a proprietary
model.’“‘After all, people who want GPL can use the GPL, and others can
use the Commercial License,’ says Duval. ‘It’s really close to what
TrollTech does with Qt–which is supported by RMS himself as far as
I know–or MySQL AB with MySQL…'”
Related Story:
CNET News: Mandrake Flirts with Non-Open Source(Dec 17,
2002)