Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 14:28:18 -0700 From: Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org> To: Jordan Hubbard <jkh@osd.bsdi.com> Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, wes@softweyr.com, tedm@toybox.placo.com, ewayte@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD Mall now BSDCentral Message-ID: <20010706142817.A61100@xor.obsecurity.org> In-Reply-To: <20010706020341B.jkh@osd.bsdi.com>; from jkh@osd.bsdi.com on Fri, Jul 06, 2001 at 02:03:41AM -0700 References: <000701c10452$ca818600$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> <3B4560DD.428634F8@softweyr.com> <20010706020341B.jkh@osd.bsdi.com>
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--0F1p//8PRICkK4MW Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline On Fri, Jul 06, 2001 at 02:03:41AM -0700, Jordan Hubbard wrote: > We, for example, need to ask ourselves if there even should be an > "official" CD distribution of FreeBSD and, if so, what the selection > criteria for such officiality should be. I was thinking about this the other day. I don't think there's very much money likely to be made in "value-add" CD distributions in the near future -- that requires hard work to add value, and that requires someone being paid to do it. What's likely to happen if we let it is that a number of entities will publish verbatim copies of the "officially produced" ISO images, and do so at production cost + some profit margin which only feeds back into their own pockets. This means that if the larger CD distribution facilities like, say, CheapBytes could do this more cheaply than someone like, say, DaemonNews, the latter will find it very hard to compete without losing money unless they can feed off of some kind of "preferred vendor" status. Entities which are more friendly to the FreeBSD project (like DaemonNews) and who may want to donate a portion of the proceeds to the Foundation will have to take it out of their profit margins and will lose money relative to those that don't. In the past, the officially blessed CD distributor was kicking back money directly to FreeBSD; whatever happens in the future with respect to CD distribution, I think we should make sure this continues to happen in an economically sustainable way. I also don't think people should be thinking about terminating (or even greatly weakening) the CD distribution relationship with WRS; they're still a big potential funding resource, even if their current FreeBSD sales channel sucks. As I've said in other messages, they're probably still in the stage where they're trying to integrate FreeBSD into their product line, and need customer feedback about how to improve their performance. Kris --0F1p//8PRICkK4MW Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (FreeBSD) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE7Ri1xWry0BWjoQKURAtx8AJ99s4bTeSAFudpbCaFZwHjpBoOgDwCgrlXa 5ePycTorrKRasYklGPpqbak= =nC0O -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --0F1p//8PRICkK4MW-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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