[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >>I think those who have not purchased the CD yet are not with holding because >>of the cost its simply no bloody use to them - we have absolutly no need for >>a windows GUI and we have no need for a CD that has to be placed in a CD >>tray 3500 miles away and then installed by a technician who's never seen the >>damn thing before >> > > Some of the more important issues then: > > - will the download version be kept up to date?
This is a real issue. I think it has become clear that they're having second thoughts about the 'Free' in FreeVSD. If that's the case, folks who rely on it will have to maintain a free alternative, buy it, or give up using it. > - will an alternative (web based) GUI be made available? This is not an issue at all. Idaya have said several times, that GUI development time was primarily going into the Windows GUI. The web based tools, I think, have always been available for folks to grab and improve (which others have indicated would be required to make them really useful--I've never used it). Idaya are one small company, with a small group of developers. You cannot demand everything you want out of FreeVSD be done by them, for you, for free. If their time resources are limited (and everyone has limited resources of time--life is short after all), then they have to prioritize based on what helps them make a living. You can't blame them for this. > - will the Windows based GUI ba available as a seperate download? Why would this be an issue? As far as I know, Idaya have never released the Win GUI under any Open license, nor have they accepted patches willy-nilly from folks in the OSS community to the Win GUI project. And they are not obligated to do so. It isn't 'ours', so nobody here can tell Idaya what to do with it. Even if they decide to port this interface to Unix, and/or put a web front end on it, I don't see how they could possibly be obligated (morally, or legally) to give it to anyone for free if they don't want to. Sales of software is part of their business model--and it's a hard model a succeed with these days...especially in the slower economy. I don't think being a thorn in their side (regarding non-free side projects) is a productive use of anyone's time. Don't like the non-free nature of the Win GUI? Don't use it. You might as well be over on a Corel mailing list explaining why Corel Draw should be free and open source, even though it is a primary source of revenue and freeing it would make it almost impossible to sell for ~$500. Just because a company has done some things in a free and open environment does not mean they are obligated to give away everything they have ever done. Get over it. Let me be more blunt: The venture capital that led to the exciting environment of "give everything away, and the business model will follow" has dried up. No one is getting money for nothing anymore. If you want Idaya to be around in a year to continue working on FreeVSD, they're going to have to have a saleable product (and no, support probably isn't going to support several developers). I don't know if they have the right idea about what is a saleable product or what the product is really worth to the market, but you or I shouldn't begrudge them the right to try to sell it. I say this from the perspective of one who knows. I've made a business out of selling Open Source based hardware systems. It can be made to work, but nobody is getting fabulously wealthy at it, now that the venture pools have gone dry. > - will the source of the latest release be avaiable for download? A concern, sure. > Nobody is denying Idaya the right to recover some of their investment in > freeVSD, but they should realize that a large portion of their target market use > co-located or leased servers. True. I do think they have a misguided notion of their target market...But then again, maybe I'm the misguided one. > I for one don't plan to purchase the CD - it is all but useless. Our servers > are located in Texas, we are in South Africa. The servers are also pre-loaded > with Linux by the time we order them. Oh, and we use SuSE on our local servers > .. I agree. I just don't see where there is a market for a Win GUI client, though an easy to use CD install might be useful for some folks (a remote installation kit is probably even more useful). I don't consider a single platform GUI project to be useful these days. A high quality web-based platform is certainly more valuable. Even a nicely implemented multi-OS Java interface would be better. LimeWire doesn't seem to have any of the 'problems' that folks complain about Java in their Gnutella client. It's a very solid GUI that is quick and easy to use on every platform I've tried. That said, though, I prefer web-based GUIs for this sort of thing--it just makes sense. I can then manage my machine securely from anywhere in the world, including the local internet cafe, a web-enabled PDA, my laptop over a wireless link, etc. It just makes more sense to use a universally available platform for access to something on the worldwide web. -- Joe Cooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.swelltech.com Web Caching Appliances and Support ------------------------- The freeVSD Support List -------------------------- Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?body=subscribe%20freevsd-support Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?body=unsubscribe%20freevsd-support Archives: http://freevsd.org/support/mail-archives/freevsd-support -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
