Re: official CD business

[Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net>]

I'm sorry to have come to this discussion so late. I have been somewhat
busy with boot-floppies and such.
Since this was Bruce's idea, I have taken the liberty of collecting his
comments from several postings as the prompting for my replies. These
cover my concerns as well as anything that I could say unsupported.

On Sun, 19 Jan 1997, Bruce Perens wrote:

> Do I really have no support on this official CD proposal I made to
> debian-devel?
> 
> All I've seen so far are negative comments from Debian maintainers and
> positive comments from CD manufacturers. This is very unsettling. If we
> can't muster up the will to market our product better we are destined
> to fail.
>
I don't think that these negative comments were directed toward your
intent as much as the design spec. 

I'm one of those CD manufacturers and I have real mixed feelings about the
whole idea. I have grave concerns about an "official" image, mostly for
technical reasons. From the point of view of a Debian Maintainer, I am
concerned that this is a highly visible area for failure. We already have
bad press behind mistakes made with the "official" ftp distribution.
Casting those errors into an "official" image worries me. When I concider
that we already have an "official" ftp archive, I wonder at the
cost/benefit ratio.

>From bruce@pixar.com Sun Jan 19 19:29:54 1997
>
> It's fine to produce an official CD as long as we continue to give away
> all of the data. I assure you, as long as the only thing you need a
> contract for is to _call_ it the Official Debian CD and to use our cover
> art, the GPL and other licenses are not violated. Again, we would put up
> the ISO image for everyone to use.

I wonder just how much value will be gained by a 640 Megabyte object on an
ftp site. If it becomes popular and gets used, the result will be many,
long lasting, connections to the sites providing this image. If it's not
useful, why do it?

> I've only heard from two CD manufacturers so far. They were both very
> favorable. A third actually suggested the help desk, so I'm sure he'd
> be favorable. 

I'm highly in favor of a paid help desk as another fund raiser for both
the project and the providers of the help. I'm not clear on how this
connects with the image issue.

>
> I think their motivation is that they would like to sell Debian against
> RH and Slackware, and it is difficult to do so when Debian doesn't offer
> the services that RH and Slackware do.

I hold the same motivation as a Gold CD seller. I'm just not certain that
the "official" image will provide the intended results. We are already
dragging our share of Slack and RH users into the Debian camp. We can
continue to do that if we continue to improve the product. I don't see how
an "official" image does that.


>From bruce@pixar.com Sun Jan 19 19:25:22 1997
>
> Guys, we are losing systems to SLACKWARE, for gosh sake, because they
> are marketed so much better than we are.
>
Being in the market place first with an "easily" installable product is
the only market strategy that Slackware used with any effect. That
historical precidence and early market share is what drives the
InfoMagic's of the world to offer multi-CD Slackware distributions. It is
remarkable that Debian has made the headway it has against those
advantages.

> We have to grow up. We are completely broke and I've been supporting
> the project out of my pocket. We can't afford the legal help to
> incorporate as a tax-exempt non-profit. We can't afford to pay for the
> master FTP server. We can't advertise or send out publicity. It happens
> that a good many people think we have a fine system, but we can't
> sustain it this way.

I agree that we need to finance the project, I'm just not convinced that 
my distributing an "official" Debian image is going to forward this
effort.

First, I thought that I already was distributing the "official" Debian
distribution. How is an official image going to improve things?

Second, I would rather be able to say: "I support the Debian distribution
with 10% of the sale of my CDs going to finance the project." than to need
to say "I distribute the "official" Debian image" and by the way, look at
the web site to see how this benefits the project. I am convinced that
being able to say "I donate to the project" would boost my sales and
therebye benefit the project as well as myself. Do we really need to have
anything more than a bank account in order for this to happen? I would
start my contribution with the next CD I sell, if I had an account to
write the check to.

> We have waited TWO YEARS for another organization to put up commercial
> support for Debian and a commercial product based on it. All we have
> so far are gold CDs, and one of the gold CD vendors has serious problems
> finding the staff to service it and the funds to continue production.
> Let's face it guys, nobody is going to bet their business on us. We have
> to do it ourselves.
>
Well, as I understand it, there are at least a couple of ISPs using Debian
and as a gold vendor I depend on it. There are several Universities using
Debian, one of which sees Debian as long term enough to order, via a
subscription price, the next 6 releases.

What would this group enter into as a business venture, and how would the
spoils be distributed? I could imagine spinning off a small group under a
business shelter, but dedicating the project to a business venture doesn't
look very healthy. We need to focus on making a superior product that is
marketable. The marketing of the product will follow.


> Guys, this is really our last chance to make something of the system.
> If we don't take steps now, the more professional Linux distributions
> are going to walk all over us.

I don't think so, but I'm only one guy...

Dwarf

------------                                          --------------

aka   Dale Scheetz                   Phone:   1 (904) 656-9769
      Flexible Software              11000 McCrackin Road
      e-mail:  dwarf@polaris.net     Tallahassee, FL  32308

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