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Date: Tue, 30 Dec 1997 10:55:40 -0600 (CST)
From: "Lee Crites (AEI)" <leec@adam.adonai.net>
To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: fbsd & commerce (Re: Informix on FreeBSD (maybe))
In-Reply-To: <34A7D892.771A100E@Shevchenko.kiev.ua>
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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