From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Oct 22 19:38:13 1995 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.6.12/8.6.6) id TAA17381 for hackers-outgoing; Sun, 22 Oct 1995 19:38:13 -0700 Received: from etinc.com (etinc-gw.new-york.net [165.254.13.209]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.6.12/8.6.6) with ESMTP id TAA17375 for ; Sun, 22 Oct 1995 19:38:09 -0700 Received: from trumpet.etnet.com (trumpet.etnet.com [129.45.17.35]) by etinc.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) with SMTP id WAA08501; Sun, 22 Oct 1995 22:55:12 -0400 Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 22:55:12 -0400 Message-Id: <199510230255.WAA08501@etinc.com> X-Sender: dennis@etinc.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 2.0.3 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: Heikki Suonsivu From: dennis@etinc.com (dennis) Subject: RE: Freeware reward????? Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk > >dennis writes: > > Given that most > > commercial companies have trouble doing commercially acceptable products in > > this area > > , whats the chance that some guy with way too much free time can do better? > >They can't do it better, usually, unless some kind of system can be built >to make free software a profitable business. Cygnus is an example of this; >I think there other alternatives like funds into which people can donate >money for a specific piece of free software to be built, like this specific >case, although in lack of suitable fund we need just to make promises. > >If the drivers are completed, within a year we will see which method turns >out to be the best. If cards supported by freely available drivers sell >more then than those with no freely available drivers, in FreeBSD >environment, we can make conclusions. Until that, we can only speculate. >Maybe we should drop -hackers off the receivers? Its not how much you sell, its how much you make on what you sell. Selling more is easy....just drop your prices. Economics 101. Overseas, freely-available has more value because there's a support problem for US-made products. I understand that. We usually give better deals to overseas dealers because of it. db ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Emerging Technologies, Inc. http://www.etinc.com Synchronous Communications Cards and Routers For Discriminating Tastes. 56k to T1 and beyond. Frame Relay, PPP, HDLC, and X.25