My point was that most folks will pay for convenience. Most folks will pay
for a Linspire or Mandriva edition because it has all the conveniences built
in (i.e. an autoplay DVD player, etc.). As far as marketing crap I believe
you way oversimplified it. If people will pay for it you now have a business
model.
You nailed it with your statement about valuing freedion over market share.
The only folks in that boat are the folks with the technical know how, time
and drive to make a FOSS product work (highly intelligent guys like
yoursself). Can you put together a Debian or Ubuntu, et al system for free?
Yes. Will the majority of folks in the world take the time to do it and
troubleshoot it when it breaks? No. Not because their time is not free but
because they can pay Mandriva $129 and get a working system out of the box
and when it breaks they can contact somone to fix it. That is worth $129
and that is why Mandriva is succeeding.
As far as Wi-Fi being free. Who are you kidding? There is no such thing as a
free lunch. Here in Hawaii the old boys all want a cut. It will never be
free here. I ran into a guy the other day who is proposing totally free
Wi-Fi. Heh, it's supported by driving folks to his website to buy products
and services (and the hotels are resisting because if someone buys something
from the website while on hotel property, they want a cut) and if it doesn't
work (i.e. make his site more profitable)? It'll shut down. There is going
to have to be some kind of business model to support free hotspots.
Bandwidth and equipment cost money and I don't see any companies lining up
to donate either.
MD
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Thompson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "LUAU" <luau@lists.hosef.org>
Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 10:17 PM
Subject: Re: [LUAU] Ubuntu... Legalities
On Jun 5, 2006, at 8:12 PM, Maddog wrote:
Jim,
One point I think most of the FOSS community misses is that it's great
if you have the technical knowhow to find, install and troubleshoot
these free softwares. The majority of users in the world either don't
have the time, or don't have the expertise to do that or simply would
rather point and click. Probably why Linspire has half a chance to get a
foothold in replacing Windows XP
From what I can tell, (k)unbuntu is as easy to drive as linspire, and
costs less.
If you had a choice to buy gas for $3.35/gallon right down the street on
King Street or drive to Millilani (if you live in town) and pay
$3.09/gallon, where would you most like fuel up? A large majority would
go to the more expensive station out of convenience.
I think you'll find they're "better off" paying the $3.35/gallon at the
local station.
Lets say you've got a car with a big tank, perhaps 20 gallons, and you
manage to arrive in Millilani with 1/4 tank or less, so you can manage to
squeeze 16 gallons in on your fill-up. You've "saved" 16 x ($3.35 -
$3.09), or $4.16 on your fill-up, and you had to drive to Millilani and
back.
Google says its 17.9 miles from Lionel's 76 at 1505 S King St, Honolulu,
HI 96826
to the Chevron a t95-130 Kamehameha Hwy, Mililani Town, HI 96789
If you burn just 1 gallon of gas, (your car averages 36 mpg, which I
find unlikely) you've only saved $1.07, and you have yet to consider what
your time is worth. (Google says its 30 minutes each way.) I find it
more likely that your car gets around 22mpg, so it cost you $5.05 in gas
to drive to Millilani and back. Even if you manage to arrive running on
fumes (with an empty tank) you've spent $5.05 to "save" $5.20.
This doesn't even make sense if you're driving something that holds a lot
of gas, because most of these vehicles guzzle gas.
GM rates Hummer H2 at 10-13 mpg. The Ford Expedition gets 14-19 mpg, and
the three-quarter ton Chevy Suburban gets 13-17 mpg.
The standard H2 holds 32 gallons, the Expedition holds 28 gallons and the
3/4 Ton Suburban holds 26 gallons. We'll assume that you can manage to
arrive in Millilani running on fumes (impossible with these fuel injected
engines, and same will shorten the life of the fuel pump, but I digress,
and give you the benefit of doubt.)
Suburban: 26 * $0.26 = $6.76 fuel savings, cost to drive to/from
Mililani: $6.51
Expedition: 28 * $0.26 = $7.28 fuel savings, cost to drive to/from
Mililani: $5.82
H2 32 * $0.26 = $8.32 fuel savings, cost to drive to/from Mililani: $8.51
at the other end of the scale:
Prius 51mpg (highway) and holds 11.9 gallons. $3.09 fuel savings, cost
to drive to/from Mililani: $2.17
Keep running the numbers, it starts to make sense to drive to Millilani
if your car holds about 100 gallons of fuel.
There are societal issues that prevent FOSS from becoming dominant.
Maybe if Linux distributions concentrated on that they would be able to
infiltrate the market to a higher degree.
Conquering the market (especially while sweeping freedom under the rug)
is the stance taken by many "open source" advocates. Others (including
Free Software advocates) value freedom over 'market share'.
I think the new wireless models have taken notice, free with lots of ads
or pay a bit for no ads. We'll see if it works but as I recall an ISP
tried that without success.
unlicensed wireless will only succeed when its free ($0 cost). I say
this as the former CTO of Wayport (a for-pay "hotspot" ISP), with a lot
of wireless experience ever since. Point in fact, we sell gear to a lo
of folks who are trying to install for-pay wireless.
I think any forced ads will be quickly defeated.
Maybe a combo FOSS and for pay model works? Mandriva seems to live by it
and judging by the bottom line they have had some success.
There is value in support, and there is money in customization, because
nobody's time is "free" (at least, not all the time).
As for the "Windows vs. Linux: The Great Battle" stance, it is very much
a Marketing Myth. The only people who believe this myth are people who
are susceptible to believing marketing crap. I've found that companies
trust suppliers who respect their choices. That cuts both ways.
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