> I've purchased hardware from Wim multiple times over the last two or > three years and found him to be fast, reliable and helpful in every > order. In each, he's provided far superior service than any other > vendors I've dealt with in the last decade, though some of those have > been good, too.
It is a real pity the project did not find him nearly as reliable when it came time to pay the money rightfully owed to the project from CD sales. As to your comments about CDs becoming obsolete, well perhaps they slowly are becoming so, but all other physical mediums share these problems of obscelence and delivery. I think (hope?) that people buy our releases for the art, and as an opportunity to give back to sustain the project (or in Europe, at least the failed hope for that). As for USB sticks, sorry, but there isn't much room on a USB stick for a 8-cartoon plot with fish as characters. The oft-mentioned model of "download it from the FTP sites, and there are enough honourable people in the world who will make a donation" has been an steller failure. The spirit of enlightened giving is dead. The only way to activate it is by begging. So, from time to time, we beg. ... and how well does that work. A request for money to buy 3 new infrastructure machines gathered more donation money in 1 week ... than all the other donations for the previous 6 months. I often wonder how many of those were "FTP install donations". Very few, I think. Either there aren't a lot of people, or they are poor, or they lack the spirit. Shrug.
