Re: BDI install disk for EMC

>From: Brian Bartholomew <bb@...>
>
>So far I count 15 people who have expressed interest in purchasing a
>"Brain-Dead Install" EMC cd based upon some version of Red Hat, were
>it offered. I agree that a version for Red Hat 6.1 would be a lot
>more interesting than for 5.2, if the kernel work were feasible.
>
>The BDI would integrate EMC and the real-time kernel into an otherwise
>unmodified version of Red Hat. The existing Red Hat install procedure
>would be kept to adapt the installation to hardware, especially video.
>A BDI that required no installation choices would have to be run on a
>PC assembled from a short and specific list of hardware. That would
>make it incompatible with your existing PC. Correct me if I'm wrong,
>but I don't think that's the tradeoff people want.
>
>I proposed 100 buyers paying $20 for software that was in the public
>domain. Here are some thoughts about terms that I hope will spark a
>discussion:
>
> However you slice it, I'm looking to make as a minimum my
> usual software consulting/development billable rate of
> $125/hour. This will go up proportionally to the risk I
> accept. If there's only a 1 in 5 chance I can sell enough
> product to cover my time, the rate I try to achieve must be
> multiplied by 5 just to keep parity.
>
> Are the 15 people willing to pay $134 instead of $20?
>
> If the likely number of purchasers can be grown from 15 to
> 1,500, the selling price can drop, although less than you
> might think because processing 1,500 orders isn't cheap.
>
> I suggested the product be licensed public domain (PD),
> because that would be most useful for purchasers. If I get
> all the money up front, that's fine. If I'm expected to sell
> 85 more copies over time, then shipping software PD won't
> allow me to do that.
>
> If the software isn't PD, then NIST probably can't reintegrate
> the improvements into their version. This fork would be bad
> for everyone. If they could, then we're back to the "I can't
> sell PD" problem.
>
> PD causes an economic "free rider" problem, too. Do you want
> others to get software for free that you just paid $134 to
> fund the development of? What if there's six months of
> development into a version and the price is a lot higher?
>
> Maybe you want other people to get the software eventually, to
> expand the EMC market, but not immediately. A temporary fork
> from NIST and PD allowing one generation of redistribution can
> be arranged, but we would need to work these terms out.
>
> I particularly like the idea of offering BDI at $134 to 15
> people now, and if more buyers show up their purchase price
> will be refunded to the earlier buyers. This can be
> implemented at reasonable transaction costs on e-gold.com.
>
> It may be that nobody is interested in paying commercial rates
> for EMC work, or at least not when the market is so small. If
> so, that's fine, just let me know.
>
>
>A member of the League for Programming Freedom (LPF) http://lpf.ai.mit.edu
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Brian Bartholomew - bb@... - www.wv.com - Working Version, Cambridge, MA
>
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