From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Apr 14 07:31:10 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id HAA17433 for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 14 Apr 1997 07:31:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from etinc.com (et-gw-fr1.etinc.com [204.141.244.98]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA17428 for ; Mon, 14 Apr 1997 07:30:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ntws (ntws.etinc.com [204.141.95.142]) by etinc.com (8.8.3/8.6.9) with SMTP id KAA00216; Mon, 14 Apr 1997 10:37:41 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <3.0.32.19970414102948.00b3a410@etinc.com> X-Sender: dennis@etinc.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 10:29:50 -0400 To: Christoph Haas From: dennis Subject: Re: Commercial vendors registry Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 10:35 AM 4/14/97 +0200, Christoph Haas wrote: >On Sun, 13 Apr 1997, dennis wrote: > >> YOU dont understand marketing. You make something *expensive* by >> adding value. Companies that have cheap products (ie some of my >> competitors) do so because they can't or dont know how to add >> value. "dumping" products into the free market is a last resort, when >> you fail to compete in the value-added market. > >SCO's Free OpenServer comes to midn ;-) > >> If this is what you are >> hoping for then you are resigned to mediocrity. The purpose of >> attracting commercial vendor SHOULD be to get quality products... >> not junk. FreeBSD is loaded with junk already. You should want >> supported products...not basic drivers supported by some guy in >> the urals who has a 50 hr a week commitment elsewhere and fixes >> stuff only when his wife and kids are at grandmas. > >To come back to my original question: How do you want to attract vendors >and convince them that FreeBSD is a high quality product ? My idea, >starting with some kind of support for vendors, doesn't semm to make it >here, so where are those great ideas ?? You attract them by creating a market for them. Commercial vendors are driven by profit, and if the market is small it is difficult to recover your investment. Providing vendors with support for a product that has limited market will not do much....and as I said before if it is profitable to support freebsd then vendors will use whats already available (ie, the hackers list) to support it. db