On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 06:25:53PM +0200, MJ wrote: > > On 15 Jan 2014, at 16.35, Gilles LAMIRAL <gilles.lami...@laposte.net> wrote: > > > Dear Theo, > > > >> Don't we do enough? > > > > You already do too much. > > I have long held the opinion that Theo is probably the best coder on this > planet. That’s not any sort of ass-kissing, either, it’s my objective, > unbiased opinion. And I know Henning personally, as in “live and worked > together with him" - one hell of an expert. > > However, the dilemma that the project has found itself in now very clearly > demonstrates that Theo is not a businessman and that there isn’t any other > businessman at the helm, either. Imagining that people will suddenly start to > pay for something that they have constantly been getting for free is absurd - > their belief is that somebody else will surely step up first or somebody will > fork in the name of fame. No business on this planet is going to allocate > budget to paying OpenBSD’s electricity bills, let alone anything else, > without 1) a detailed itemisation of the electrical bills, 2) a detailed > justification of said line items, and 3) a satisfaction of their own business > interest. It’s just not sexy for a philanthropist to support a relatively > unheard of operating system when cancer is still left uncured. > > It’s not good to be removing coders from their tasks; the project needs a > businessman or two. One who will handle the corporate feature requests and > charge dearly for them. Things like routing technology and high-speed packet > forwarding - things that can replace the exorbitant costs of maintaining > cisco routers. This is the key. With the FBSD 10GB wire speed packet > forwarding incorporated, OpenBSD would be ready to challenge Cisco in a very > serious way. Completely free as always, but with paid support for this edge > cases that make life what it is. >
I have my own business, that has had recent problems due to my recent health. This point is 100% correct. OpenBSD needs a method of acquiring funds beyond selling CD's, T-shirts, donations, etc. Let's face it, donations are exactly the same thing as a tip in a restaurant. Some tip, others don't. The CD's are too expensive for Joe/Jane Idiot who can barely run their current horrible operating system. (CD prices are fine for us, just not for them) The main problem I run into is that they are TERRIFIED of changing to something else! Installing an operating system by themselves? Never going to happen. The FAQ, while helpful, is the same thing as a windows pop-up that says "you are having a problem with the wifi system. Would you like to run troubleshooting?" which does nothing, of course. I could sell desktops and laptops here in Texas. Must be all in Spanish and ready to go without any serious teaching. Video calls to Mexico and further South are the main use here. Just need to work with existing computers running windows over there. Perhaps OpenBSD could sell a virus/malware/high security certification for the base operating system of computers running it? I think that would easily sell and sooth people fearful of viruses. The software is free, but people are only too happy to buy silly bullshit like that. There are many such things that can be sold without making any changes to the software licenses. After all, the certification guarantees that any security problems will absolutely be fixed within 6 months! Any price suggestions? Standard or Pro certifications? Chris Bennett
