Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 20:11:59 -0700 From: "Jack Velte" <jackv@earthling.net> To: <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: "David Greenman" <davidg@root.com>, "Justin T. Gibbs" <gibbs@plutotech.com>, "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>, <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: notFreeBSD plan, v 4 Message-ID: <01bd8c41$e0262100$4a1daace@eliot.pacbell.net>
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the attachment is a probably better formatted version of this.
removal of this copyright notice is prohibited. if you find this of
use, $200 cash or $500 zero coupon bond (post dated check) is
requested. authorized firms $10k. professional entities required.
trademarks implied. redistribution encouraged.* resistance is
futile. (c) sandy king 1998
notFreeBSD, Inc BUSINESS PLAN
May 29, 1998, V4
"To produce the best possible software at the lowest possible price
while making stakeholders rich."
PRICING
- free on the net
$39.95 - limited support
139.95 - some support and free stuff - boxed product.
789.95 - 24 hr, international support that's very good. /year. on site
with negotiated expenses paid.
10k - commercial server
Two revenue streams -- revisions/customizations and service. for the
revision part of the stream, MS can't have a monopoly on Personal
Computer OS's.
ALLIANCES
1) COREL: Michael Cowpland, Canada.
0% market share that once owned Unix.
this is the only ms office competitor i can think of.
their market cap went from nothing to by some values (other companies
write offs, Unix(r) and WordPerfect) huge (1.5B and back almost to
nothing. (144M)
2) APPLE: Steve Jobs, is struggling for 3% market share also. the
legal tactic would benefit them more. Steve Jobs used to run a Unix
company worth $400M. (3.7B)
3) GATEWAY: Director, Amiga operating system. (7.1B)
4) IBM: President, OS/2 operating system. (115B)
5) Netscape. stage 3 merger candidate.
6) Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly & Associates, Freeware advocate.
7) John Ousterhout, Scriptics Corp, Freeware advocate.
GNU?
x?
COMPENSATION STRUCTURE:
contribution metrics:
* # emails on list, exponentially decreasing average.
* # & length (outside of comments) emails on list,
exponentially decreasing average.
* lines of source code, minus symbol only lines.
* core team members.
* popular vote, clicking on the web.
* others yet devised.
the metrics are fractal averaged and applied to shareholders equal to
their contribution.
money is split in two, 1/2 to staff and 1/2 to monetary shareholders,
after expenses of running the operation. there needs to be a board
of directors that watches this. [this section needs work, exactly
how the money is going to be split between monetary contributors and
labor contributors.]
MARKETING
* volunteers rack-job copies of Greg Lehey's book to bookstores.
* cheapest click ads (illegal to advertise DPO).
* sandy king wants to be multimedia spokesmodel. "FreeBSD should
have a good looking woman as their spokesmodel."
FISCAL
Projected Revenue:
3% market share
100M users (100M is low -- MS is in Chinese offices too.)
=
3M users.
3% buy the expensive package.
= 90k x $700 / year = $72M.
xx% buy the cheap package.
= 3M x $30 = $90M
------------------------------------------
~= 50 M for each release and 50 M per year.
future: there are about 5B people on the world, and probably half of
them will want a computer.
*everything* else is free. except tshirts and books.
ORGANIZATION:
CEO reports to CTO.
FINANCING:
stage 0
cash float float float float float
flow released for sale total public reserve
($5k) 0% 0 (50M) (20M) 50M
* Articles of Incorporation.
* Board of Directors, 5 to 7.
* legal corporation with 50M shares.
---
DPO
"We need your money for: service organization and internal product
marketing & sales. Click here."
stage 1 - DPO - Direct Public Offering
cash float float float float float
flow released for sale total public reserve
$1 x 5M 20% 5M 10M 5M 40M
"10M shares released for money and Past contribution."
$ accountant
$ secretaries
$ IP lawyer - joe siino
$ sales manager - chris bura
- payment for services from Public float fund.
stage 2 - organization building
cash float float float float float
flow released for sale total public reserve
$2 x 5M 20% 5M 20M 10M 30M
"10M shares released for Current contributions."
this needs a defining limit:
income: internal cash flow.
$ programmers
$ sales force
---
IPO
"We need the money for: global product launch."
stage 3 - IPO
cash float float float float float
flow released for sale total public reserve
$8 x 10M 40% 10M 40M 20M 10M
$ marketing
$ lawyers (it would be better if we didn't need them by this
time.
stage N - running corporation, 3% market share
cash float float float float float
flow released for sale total public reserve
50M + 50M/
0 0 50M 20M ?
"product development and service."
100M yearly revenue.
40M shares @ $8 share = 320M market cap. (somewhere else i
guessed the market value of the enterprise at 400M.)
with a fancy investment banking firm (D H Blair) you can
issue warrants instead of common stock to obscure the
dilution issues.
this is still a small cap company.
* the company should have no year-end profit, except what is needed
for business cycle downturns and projected investments.
save with financial instruments in other small hitech companies.
SALARIES
250 125 65 35
single parents jump up one level.
no-one should be at a level if the lower orbital isn't full.
outside staff has preference over inside staff.
everyone can buy shares.
salaries should jump between levels.
excess corporate income is distributed to labor stakeholders.
30 hour work week.
on-site day care.
free food and shelter and toys.
if i thought i could earn $250k/year as low pressure coder and
tech support helper in exotic locations, i'd share my source code.
PRESS
Releases (Business Wire - $50) accusing MS of damaging us. The MS
analysts will read them. carefully.
LEGAL
as long as one ap doesn't run on a system, you'll have about 0% of
the general office market. so either the shim into the OS has to be
PD or the whole OS.
free windows 98.
-FreeBSD.
the UI and OS can be separate. it is on FreeBSD. FreeBSD is a
vastly superior OS. the UI is ok, too, but the ap's don't run.
the windows 98 OS should be separated from the rest of ms, however
gates wants to cut it with approval from the people at ms that want
to work on that team. after cutting it, he should be free to compete
against win 98. force Bill Gates to restate earnings, almost no
matter which way.
From: Ben Cohen <bjc23@hermes.cam.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Why we should support Microsoft...
How about forcing MS to release their OS source code? Perhaps under
a license such as the Berkeley one or, I think more realistically,
something more like GPL. CVS tree.
---
[the entire MS strategy can be deleted from the first public version
of the business plan and the plan needs adjusting but it would still
be acceptable to the investment community.]
-------------------------------------------------------
misc notes
-------------------------------------------------------
Jordan:
>Technical Support Infrastructure:
24 hr triage center staffed by someone that can answer many
questions. this can be set up as a virtual network out of some small
central office. then flowchart to logged in volunteers -- they know
the pay scale ahead of time. we pay for phone service. ? in africa.
then more dispatch to on-call specialists. volunteer queue of people
in places willing to travel all expenses paid.
Jordan:
>how to even word the support contracts so that neither customer nor
>company is left unduly exposed:
"we take no responsibility for your system. we will do our dangest
to rectify your issue, but our development team takes no orders. we
will stand behind our money-back guarantee as last resort." [instead
of `dangest', a word like `best' is fodder for lawsuits.] maybe
modeled on something IBM would have written, but with 97% edited out.
there should be a section about alliances with Dell or Gateway
supplying preconfigured FreeBSD boxes. i'd love to see a Gateway ad
on TV saying, "This is what Yahoo runs: FreeBSD. order your own for
$2295."
--------------------
NEEDED:
email addresses of:
steve jobs, apple
os/2 president
amiga director
Cowpland, Corel
states attorney generals
general counsel, MS
federal prosecution
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