www/74407: Please add us to the list of FreeBSD vendors on freebsd.org

[Ceri Davies]

On Fri, Nov 26, 2004 at 01:06:35PM -0800, Murray Stokely wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 26, 2004 at 01:50:16PM +0000, Christian Brueffer wrote:
> >  > www.cheeplinux.com is a UK based website selling the latest stable & cutt=
> >  ing edge FreeBSD software. Orders are shipped same-day worldwide.
> >  > >How-To-Repeat:
> >  >      =20
> >  
> >  I assume you want to be listet in 'CD and DVD Sets' section of the
> >  'Obtaining FreeBSD' handbook appendix?
> >  (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors.html)
> >  
> >  If so, please submit an entry similar to the other ones listed.
> 
> Should we at least be asking these companies what they are doing for
> the FreeBSD Community?  Do we really want to support a company called
> cheaplinux.com and dilute the mindshare of supporting FreeBSD vendors?
> We never used to list companies like cheapbytes.com in the past, but
> that seems to have changed in the past 2 years.  We no longer have a
> single official vendor, but cheaplinux.com is no daemonnews or
> freebsdmall.

I think the question comes down to whether we want to list vendors or
not.  If it's a requirement that you contribute Fixnum % of your takings
to the FF (or whatever), then we should say so and everyone will know
where they stand.  Or we should get an official vendor.  There is no
way to make the call otherwise.

Cheap CD availability is not necessarily a bad thing for the project if
market share is important.  Take Ubuntu Linux for example - if you want
1000 CDs then they'll send them to you at no charge, no questions asked.
The result?  Everybody in my office has a copy and have tried it out,
and most of them like it.  Now, we are not in a position to be able to
do this obviously, but do we want users (which will, theoretically,
bring good things like cash with it) or x% of not very much because
everyone using FreeBSD is either tracking -STABLE, cutting their own
release or downloading it, rather than buying a CD set in the first
place?  (I'll admit here that I have no idea how many cd sets are
shifted by any of the suppliers, so take this with some salt).

Ceri
-- 
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm
not sure about the former.			  -- Einstein (attrib.)
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