From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Apr 18 20:47:40 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA23741 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 18 Apr 1997 20:47:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from zeus.xtalwind.net (slipper5a.xtalwind.net [205.160.242.59]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA23736 for ; Fri, 18 Apr 1997 20:47:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (zeus.xtalwind.net [127.0.0.1]) by zeus.xtalwind.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA09603 for ; Fri, 18 Apr 1997 23:47:28 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 23:47:28 -0400 (EDT) From: jack X-Sender: jack@zeus.xtalwind.net To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Price of FreeBSD (was On Holy Wars...) In-Reply-To: <3515.861395705@time.cdrom.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Let's take the subject literally and look at the Price ($$$) of FreeBSD from the POV of an industry that FreeBSD is well suited to, the small to medium ISP. We've reached the point that we need to start using addresses from our second class C. Adding an alias from the second class C to the NIC card in our BSDi 2.0.1 boxes caused them to loose the MAC address of the router. We man-ed, route-ed, and arp-ed 'till our fingers were numb, no success. Meanwhile my FreeBSD workstation was more than happy to sit on both Cs. Is that problem fixed in BSDi 3.0? ???? Assuming it is, what would it cost? 5 16 user licenses, 1 16 user with source $8448.20, tax included. For that price upgrades for 60 days, support for 60 days. What'd FreeBSD cost us? A bit of bandwidth for a little while. Upgrades? Same price, and unlimited. Support? Right here. We now have one BSDi box. Within the next few weeks I won't be able to say that. :) How could anyone with any exposure to the business world expect anything but a demand for secrecy during early negotiations. Whatever comes out of any discussions with commercial entities (and the green Martians) can only help the FreeBSD community. As long as the powers that be at FreeBSD.org keep producing one of the best operating systems available, at any price, why worry about a few closed discussions with the "private sector". Hell, if they want to get together at Stonehenge once a month and chant and howl at the full moon naked let 'em. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jack O'Neill Finger jacko@diamond.xtalwind.net or jack@xtalwind.net http://www.xtalwind.net/~jacko/pubpgp.html #include for my PGP key. PGP Key fingerprint = F6 C4 E6 D4 2F 15 A7 67 FD 09 E9 3C 5F CC EB CD --------------------------------------------------------------------------