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Date:      Mon, 17 Mar 1997 20:58:33 -0600
From:      "Jeffrey J. Mountin" <sysop@mixcom.com>
To:        The Hermit Hacker <scrappy@hub.org>
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Bumper Stickers
Message-ID:  <3.0.32.19970317205833.010a332c@mixcom.com>

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At 08:50 PM 3/17/97 -0400, The Hermit Hacker wrote:
>	Spirit of what things?  Personally, following the PR and advertising
>discussions, I'd be willing to pay extra for something if part of the 
>proceeds went back into 'the Project'.  
>
>	Let's see...the OS is free...but then there is Jordan's salary,
>and there are hardware requirements (ie. spatter), and, hell, having a PR
>fund available would be *really* cool to help most things forward...

But does Jordan (feel free to jump in) work on FreeBSD on company hours?
WCCDROM does make money off selling the CDROMs and yes I know what it costs
to press them, of course the equipment isn't cheap.  Yet it is a part of
what they do and no I don't propose to *know* all that they do.

PR?  Those in the industry better know what is out there.  Some things
advertise by word of mouth.  Budgeting in advertising would mean that it
would have to be sold for a price, IMHO.

Now should it have a price tag, the source would then be available to
customers (gosh now we need billing and tracking, as well as access control
on the server) and customers have demands.  This means that those that
contribute to the project would be under deadlines and should (not
necessarily "would") demand some recompense.  Also contributers to the code
may no longer wish to contribute in such an environment.

I'm sure that a lot of them do so becuase they ENJOY doing so.  Hence I say
the "spirit of things."

>	And, why not a fund to cover the expenses of smoozing commercial
>developers into developing reasonably priced software that is native to
>FreeBSD...?

This reeks of politics.  Demand should dictate, but then there are those
that scoff at the "Free" part and opt for Solaris or SCO or something else
that costs an arm and a leg.  I'll run NetBSD on a Sparc, Solaris can...

>	It all costs money...

Yes it does, but the cost of the CDROM updates is supposed to cover the
*material* costs.  Yes WC does host the site, but then they sell the CDROMs
and there are other sites that have the source as well.

Look at how many programs, some very excellent, are out there that are
commonly used, but don't cost a dime *and* you have the source.

But then who knows....

Maybe a few of them aspire to be like Bill...

Of course I would have to then choose another OS.  8-)


>	Ah, CVSup gets me up to the minute source, the CD doesn't :)

Living on the edge.  ;-)

Can't do it, not advisable to do on a production server(s).


-------------------------------------------
Jeff Mountin - System/Network Administrator
jeff@mixcom.net

MIX Communications
Serving the Internet since 1990



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