Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 14:58:04 -0500 (EST) From: Jaime <jaime@snowmoon.com> To: Scott Spies <spiess@servcom.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: How free is free? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9812191448130.9895-100000@darwin.snowmoon.com> In-Reply-To: <000101be2b85$8d0ae9e0$963fcd98@cryo>
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On Sat, 19 Dec 1998, Scott Spies wrote: > If FreeBSD is so free, then why is Walnut Creek CD-ROM selling it for > $40? Because: 1) They're charging for the effort of burning the CDs, making labels, organizing the contents of the 4 disks, etc. 2) Do you want to download it every time you install it? They should get some kind of profit from going through the process of selling the CDs. 3) The cost of the CDs includes a donation to the FreeBSD project. This allows the development of FreeBSD to continue. (Buying new hardware in order to write drivers, etc.) This isn't odd. Most "free" projects of sufficient popularity and code-base size are being sold on CDs. Linux, shareware archive sites, the Gutenberg project, programmer's tools, etc. If you feel that $40 is unreasonable, go to www.cheapbytes.com and get a 1 CD package from them. Its a different set of software, but its all stuff from the FreeBSD archives. I believe its about $5. My impression was that it was a stripped down, binary-only version of what Walnut Creek is selling. Or, if you really want, go into business selling CD-ROMs yourself. Its entirely legal. That's how free FreeBSD is. (OK, I'm being facetious now. Sorry.) As Richard Stallman (?) said, think free speech, not free beer. Jaime To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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