From: mike@batpad.lgb.ca.us (mike batchelor) Subject: Re: *** A MISUNDERSTANDING *** Date: 11 Mar 1993 05:10:27 GMT
mafm@cs.uwa.oz.au (Matthew McDonald) writes:
>
> Wayne Schlitt writes:
>
> >FSF makes money off of their distribution of GNU software on tape.
> >Why do you think this is any different?
>
> Geee - I dunno, maybe because the FSF actually put a lot of
> work into most of the code they distribute?
>
> *They* contribute instead of leeching off other people's
> effort.
Leeching? Making Linux more easily obtainable by a wider user base is
leeching? If I hired you to install Linux for me, would you be
leeching off the efforts of others, too? Or would you do it for free
out of respect for the developers' work?
> People selling SLS disks don't seem to be contributing much of
> anything to anyone.
It took me about 20 hours of work to download a, b, c, d, s, and x and
get the diskettes prepared for installation. At $70 for the lot, that
works out to about $3.50/hr. I don't know about you, but my time is
worth a bit more than that. Were I to do it again, I'd opt for the
$70 and go to the beach for 20 hours. Never mind how much money it
cost to download a & b at 9600 bps, nor how much it cost my employer
for me to download the rest using her 56k link. $70 is a bargain.
After having done one set of diskettes myself, I'd be inclined to
charge twice that to do it again and again. It's a pain in the neck.
> Obviously, duplicating disks isn't completely effortless, but
> equally obviously, it's trivial in comparison to the amount of work
> that goes into putting together a major, coherent, package.
Duplicating disks is a boring, time-consuming job unless you have a
duplicating machine. If you have a duplicating machine, then you have
capital expenditures, in addition to labor. However it's done, $70 is
still a bargain for the work it saves ME from doing. How do you make
the connection between the work the devlopers put in, and the work the
copying service does? Must end-users sweat as much as the authors
did? Why? Initiation rites?
> PS: I missed the beginning of this thread. What did the subject line
> use to say?
It used to say "Jump right in, the Water's fine." :)
[] ---
[] Mike Batchelor <> Long Beach, California
[] mike@batpad.lgb.ca.us <or> mikebat@qdeck.com