Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 04:41:47 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Jordan Hubbard" <jkh@osd.bsdi.com>, <freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>, <wes@softweyr.com> Cc: <ewayte@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu>, <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: FreeBSD Mall now BSDCentral Message-ID: <004901c10610$a37ff540$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <20010706020341B.jkh@osd.bsdi.com>
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>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
>[mailto:owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Jordan Hubbard
>
>Times have clearly changed, however, and Walnut Creek CDROM is long
>and sadly gone.
Jordan, I agree with most of what you say except for this. Fortunately
as I don't work for WC, BSDi, Apple, Microsoft or any of the BSD crew
I can throw some needed stones here. Since the core team seems to not
know what to do with me, throwing the stones at them isn't going to make much
difference now, and I'm used to getting in trouble anyway. I can't sit back
anymore and stand to see this gobbledygook thrown around and see the FreeBSD
movement harmed by it. Understand I appreciate everything you guys do
(and the book plug at USENIX didn't go unnoticed either) but this is
very, very, very wrong.
I have always disliked senseless destruction - and now in hindsight it
appears that the destruction of WC due to this BSD merger mania is
both senseles and inadvertant. No matter how much you sugarcoat it -
BSDi screwed over FreeBSD by acquiring Walnut Creek. You all have to face
that even though you may have all worked for them and been the ones to
make the mistake.
Everyone makes mistakes and we can all forgive for them - but it's
unforgivable
to have the culprits continue to pretend that no mistakes were made. I've
yet to read of a single apology from the folks that started all this - all
I've seen are apologies from WindRiver who had nothing to do with it.
I SEE NOTHING to prove that the conditions that created WC's involvement
don't exist for another CDROM vendor to take it's place. Are you saying that
in hindsight the symbiosis beween WC and The FreeBSD Project was bad? And
that we are better off now? With what?!?! So far all I hear is a bunch of
unsatisfied CDROM customers justly complaining, a financial pipeline to
the Project collapsing, in short a mismanagement of the entire FreeBSD
CD distribution that is unreal.
Nobody from BSDi has EVER given any business justification for the BSDi
acquisition of Walnut Creek. If you look past all the "we are going out
to do great things in the future" press release crap - there's nothing.
Nothing financially justifying that is.
Was WC financially failing? If so why would BSDi take on more debt, that is
completely stupid. Plenty of other CD distributors WERN'T failing and the
CD distribution model is going great guns today. If WC started failing due
to mismanagement - then let them die. Another vendor would take over quick
enough.
It seems to me that far from failing, WC was the one making the money and for
some hidden political machinations that nobody in the know has revealed that
WC agreed to allow itself to be raped in order to prop up BSDi. Either that
or it was the old
bugaboo of BSDi seeing it's market being eroded by FreeBSD and so tried
playing the old "Buy the competitor then kill their product distribution
channel" game. Then, the combined company fell on it's face and WindRiver
came in and picked up the pieces at a firesale and is dumping the bits they
don't want - and what's left over of WC and it's ordering process is a bit
that they don't want.
Same old story of software acquisitions I've seen it plenty of times before
in commercial software and now it's happening to us - or rather our CD
distributor that was paying our way and the way of our servers. I read
once that the main FreeBSD distribution server was on 3 DS3's - well that
kind of bandwidth requires about $20,000 a month in my world - and is
WindRiver going to support that expense when the CD distribution business has
been ruined? Yeah right - tell me another story.
Are you going to say that you would really think it better if the main
FreeBSD server was throttled down to a T1 access and to get the ISO image
that all users are going to have to screw with all of the different mirrors -
and this at the same time that the CDROM business is in the toilet so that
the only way to GET the new release in a timely manner is by FTP? Sounds
great in the ivory tower - but explain this again to the admin that's
frantically trying to get access to a mirror server at 10:00pm at night
to get a file so he can bring back up his FreeBSD server that must be
back in production tomorrow.
Do you really think that people would prefer to FTP the distribution when
they can pick up the phone, make an 800 call and have it next-day shipped
to them? And 3/4 of the time they just expense it to their company so
they pay nothing anyway? Now your talking about FIVE ISO's, think of all the
users that have problems getting even ONE down. Not everyone out here has
fast DSL and
Cable - in fact the majority don't.
I find it asinine that WindRiver is condemming the so-called messed up
WC ordering mechanism - this is a mechanism that shipped a lot more product
than
they are doing now, in it's heyday. If that business was as screwed up as
WindRiver is making it out to be then BSDi was run by morons when they bought
WC and we know that's not true. Somebody is lying here and it seems obvious
that
the current owners who have seemed to make it clear they don't want the CD
pressing business are more likely to be the liars than the BSDI people that
said WC was such a good acquisition last year.
>
>FreeBSD has always been a meritocracy and I see no reason why CDROM
>vendors should not be selected the same way - put the bits up for
>grabs and may the vendor with the best customer service and charming
>bedside manner win.
Respectfully - this is rubbish.
FreeBSD simply does not currently have the shipping volume for _many_
CD distributors to all come in and grab pieces of the pie and make any
money doing so. After the 4.3 cd distribution fiasco it will have even less.
WE ARE NOT LINUX!!!!
When WC was active there was the "snob" distribution - WC's - and
the "bottom feeders" distribution - CheapBytes. Both were symbiotic
and in my opinion completely filled the market. More importantly,
both obviously made money.
Now we have a setup where the snob distributor has been destroyed and
who knows what is happening over at CheapBytes - but I fervently hope that
they go full blast into production and suck up all the customers that
are now out there swinging in the wind. And if CheapBytes doesen't do it
then by God let Linux Central do it - I could care less if they answer the
phone "Linux Elvira Mistress Of The Night - May I Take Your Linux Order" as
long
as the FreeBSD distribution makes them money. Then maybe in a few years and
after a few more distributions we will get back to the format of a
"snob" distributor and a "bottom feeder" distributor - a model that
worked very well until BSDi came in and busted everything up.
>That's assuming, of course, that the changing
>internet economy and proliferation of high speed access leaves room
>for anyone to make a business out of selling "straight media" without
>any significant value-add.
The only change I've seen in the Internet economy is people quitting funding
speculative projects and concentrating on profit making - which is what they
should have been doing all along. Our previous distribution mechanism
of WC met the profit making criteria and it's rediculous to want to move
it now into the speculative projects model.
I do agree with you on one thing though - if we do end up with a model of:
"CDROM vendors should be selected the same way - put the bits up for
grabs and may the vendor with the best customer service and charming
bedside manner win."
and this creates a plethora of different CD vendors all hawking FreeBSD
distributions, that it will be very questionable that:
"anyone can make a business out of selling "straight media" without
any significant value-add."
So, are you ready for $100-per-box FreeBSD distros? Do you think the
FreeBSD userbase is? Boy, now THAT's sure an advance for the customer!
>All the more reason to take a wait-and-see
>attitude and simply not endorse any distribution until the sands stop
>shifting around and we see who's left standing and in what condition.
>
In which case I can tell you what is going to happen - a bunch of CD vendors
are going to climb in and start selling FreeBSD CD's, each hoping to
eventually be "blessed" by the core team - that won't happen because you
all will be taking a wait and see attitude - and then none of the
vendors are going to make any money and they are all going to go away
completely disgusted and then we won't have ANY FreeBSD cdrom vendors.
Don't you see that your about ready to pull the trigger on a shotgun
pointing at the goose laying the golden eggs?
>
>Anyway, the following is what we initially came up with at USENIX for
>FreeBSD 4.4-RELEASE. Nothing is frozen in stone here and it's all
>subject to user feedback, so let me know what you guys think of this:
>
>many of the very same FreeBSD volunteers to organize the bits, there
>just won't be any "official tie" to any one distributor. Given
BOOM - there went the shotgun - you just told all CD vendors to
Fuck Off and Die And Never Come Back. The goose is dead.
Quit farting around - why are you tiptoeing around WindRiver? They
are yelling from the mountaintops "WE DON'T WANT THE CD DISTRIBUTION
BUSINESS FOR FREEBSD TAKE IT AWAY PLEASE NOW!!!" They won't be insulted
if you tell them they aren't the Official CDROM Pressors For FreeBSD
anymore - they will jump for joy!
>WindRiver's recent redirection of orders to BSD Central which started
>all this fuss,
No - BSDi's acquisition of WC that started all this fuss. WindRiver's
doings is just the end of a game that was started by BSDi.
>it's not even clear to us that they want to stay in the
>CDROM business anyway,
Trust me THEY DON'T!!! If they did they would have moved heaven and
earth to service all their customers and fulfilled orders instead of this
schlocky excuse even if it took the President of WindRiver himself driving to
the
homes of the CD customers to hand-deliver the CD's. As it is the
WindRiver president didn't even _sign_ the apology for not shipping the CD's!
WindRiver wants to go out there and take the proprietary BSD code and
make a shitpile of money in the embedded systems market. Fine, Great,
More Power Too Them. I'm damn happy about it. I don't expect them to
keep the CD distribution business going if they don't want it. LET THEM
GO!
But The FreeBSD Project is sticking it's head where the sun don't shine to
even hint that WindRiver wants the distribution business. What's incumbent
on the Project now is to make some hard choices and select 2 or at most 3
CDROM vendors who clearly DON'T step on each other's markets, and who
clearly want to have the business, and designate them "Blessed" and let
the CD distributors alone to repair all the damage done by this last fiasco.
Then in a year or so when the users trust has been regained and the CD
and toys shipping volumes are back to normal, why then if other CD vendors
want in on the pie then the core can bless them too. If you try to do it
your way your going to end up pissing off ALL the CD vendors and then we are
going to be really, totally fucked.
Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com
Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide
Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com
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