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Date:      Wed, 8 Sep 1999 11:47:44 -0700
From:      "David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com>
To:        "Phil Regnauld" <regnauld@ftf.net>, "Brett Glass" <brett@lariat.org>
Cc:        <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   RE: FreeBSD market share statistics
Message-ID:  <000e01befa2a$a2d34dc0$021d85d1@youwant.to>
In-Reply-To: <19990908114806.04124@ns.int.ftf.net>

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> > The manufacturers of all of the above
> > products say that, due to the gap, they have no plans to provide
> > native FreeBSD ports. And what about such mainstays as TurboTax?
> > For Linux, one day, maybe. For FreeBSD? Not unless it catches up.
>
> 	They DON'T say due to the "gap"!  They say, "when we have
> 	significant user base", that is "when we have x million".
>
> 	We're talking ABSOLUTE numbers, with a sizeable possible
> 	income, not relative market share!
>
> 	Please, find me ONE example of a vendor who's given "relative market
> 	share" as the excuse for not porting their product.

	I think that the number 'X' is a number that is increasing regularly. At
any one point, there is some absolute number, but over time that number
increases.

	It takes a certain amount of effort to make a native FreeBSD build. The
potential revenue from that effort is weighed against the potential revenue
of everything else that could be done with that same amount of effort.

	The software industry is a very strange one. In pretty much every other
industry, the question is "will I make more money on this thing than it
costs me to make it?" However, due to the shortage of talented programmers,
in this industry the question is more often, "is this the most effective
usage of my limited programming resources?".

	This is a question that relies completely on relative numbers. FreeBSD's
market is considered relative to every other market. Not in absolute
dollars.

	DS



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