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To: Mark Diekhans <markd@Grizzly.COM>
cc: mrcpu@cdsnet.net, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Possible Commercial app for FreeBSD. 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 22 Oct 1996 20:21:56 PDT."
             <199610230321.UAA00727@osprey.grizzly.com> 
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 20:43:00 -0700
Message-ID: <7105.846042180@time.cdrom.com>
From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
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> Get one of the industrial-strength databases (sybase or oracle) and it will
> open whole new worlds to using FreeBSD.

I've tried - they always tell me "Sorry, it sounds interesting, but
you have no proven market demographics."

Then I get all depressed about the fact that we've totally blown it on
collecting user statistics for the last 3 years (several people have
volunteered to handle registation, all disappearing again before
producing any actual results) and I crawl back in my hole.

I guess Jaye just touched a nerve.  We get one DB company on board and
then they tell me that nobody buys the FreeBSD version of the product,
so it wasn't much of a return on investment.  Couple the knowledge of
this fact with the fact that I've got no user stats to speak of and
you begin to see why I'm reluctant to approach new companies - I'm not
sure I'm even doing them any favors, nor us if I approach them before
any kind of FreeBSD market is ready to receive them and hence blow our
shot at it entirely by tarnishing their overall opinion of FreeBSD's
market potential.  At this point in time, the FreeBSD camp seems to be
widely populated by do-it-yourselfers who tend to craft their own
database solutions, I guess, and it's just not worth trying to sign up
the big boys in such an environment.  Maybe later, when we're bigger,
but selling 10 copies a year is not what Oracle is all about.

						Jordan