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Date: Tue, 30 Dec 1997 22:01:15 -0700
From: Mike Allison <mallison@konnections.com>
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To: "Lee Crites (AEI)" <leec@adam.adonai.net>
CC: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG,
        chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: fbsd & commerce (Re: Informix on FreeBSD (maybe))
References: <Pine.BSF.3.95.971230104201.6999C-100000@adam.adonai.net>
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What does RedHat do?  I know they front ApplixWare as well, but they
have a fairly interesting support system in place and retail presence.
I see a lot of their products in bookstores.  They go for strong
commercial packaging unlike Walnut Creek.  I know where to find Walnut
Creek discs, but their usually placed with the shareware and other 
"non commercial", "non serious" products.

-Mike


Lee Crites (AEI) wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 29 Dec 1997, Ruslan Shevchenko wrote:
> 
> =>  That's why Linux have better commerse success then FreeBSD.
> =>
> =>   I think, for supporting commmerce users  of FreeBSD,  must exists
> =>  firm, which sell commerce version of FreeBSD, which must be identical
> =>  to free version,  + some customization and preinstalled software
> =>  and provide aggressive marketing of FreeBSD.
> 
> This brings up a question which I have thought of a time or two.
> I had a fairly good level of success giving away some fbsd 2.2.1
> cd's (thanks, Jordan!) to companies around the Austin area.  The
> success was enough that I thought of retailing the os along with
> system support.  What would FreeBSD's "official" stand be if I
> started charging for the os?  Something like:
> 
>           The AEI FreeBSD Operating System:
>               $X,XXX loaded and installed
>               $X,XXX for 12 months of OS maintenance, including
>                      os upgrades
>               $X,XXX for System Administration training
> 
> I already did something like this with two clients in this area.
> I gave them a copy of the 2.2.1 cd and my consulting company
> billed them for setting it up.  So far, I only had two people I
> spoke with refuse to look into fbsd.  Some moved from sco and
> some from that "other" free un*x.  For the rest (I only gave 16
> total), they were either educational, had NO computer system, or
> moved from windoze (these are the ones I am happiest about).  The
> limiting factor was they had someone who knew something about
> un*x already.  I haven't really tried a brand new to un*x company
> yet.
> 
> But I digress...
> 
> How would the FreeBSD Project feel if they found some rogue
> company in Austin was charging for FreeBSD, installing, training,
> and support?
> 
> Lee Crites