Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 11:42:02 -0700 (PDT) From: patl@phoenix.volant.org To: ac199@hwcn.org Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: My verdict on 2.2.7... Message-ID: <ML-3.3.901305722.9874.patl@asimov> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980724141002.13066A-100000@localhost>
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> > So you just threw the former download away? Unless the call was free, > > downloading probably cost more than the CD would have. And there are > > Uh, I don't know where you live, but around here, there wouldn't > be any comparison at all. I could probably make the call > long-distance and it would still be cheaper to download it. And > that's not even taking the exchange rate into account, which is > absolutely murder now-a-days. Ok, let's take long distance. Long distance carriers are currently touting their 'ten cents a minute' plans. So a 20 hour download would cost $120. Local rates for a business line run around five cents a minute, which would cut it to $60. Local residential rates are a bit more complex; but could drop it under the CD price. (Going to a 4 CD set kicked the price up enough to make the equation more reasonable.) If you are doing an FTP install, there is also the risk that there will be some problem that will require starting over; which raises the time and total communications charges. > Not to discourage anyone from buying the CD (esp. when all > profits go to FreeBSD.ORG! :), but I personally hold no grudges > against someone who forgoes buying every new CD and downloads it > instead. Nor do I. In fact, I've downloaded a few releases myself. I was attempting to point out that with a slow line, it may actually be more economical to buy the CD. And you get the various other advantages of having a relatively fast, non- volatile, read-only distribution which includes distfiles for most of the ports, a live filesystem, etc. And if your time is valuable, you need to figure that into the equation. I.e., Exactly how much of your personal time would the CD need to save to pay for itself. (Or for the additional cost over a download.) One more factor on CD-vs-download. When a CD-release is being prepaired, it is fairly likely that the initial release made available for FTP will need to be re-rolled at least once before the final CD master is cut. What happens if the re-rolled version replaces the previous one while you are in the middle of a download install? (Usually, not much. But the potential is there...) > Heck, even MS provides some of its upgrades (aka. > bugfixes) for free download. Unless they've changed in the last year or so, that's only for patches. You can't download an entire upgrade release of the OS. To get the intermediate releases which correspond to FreeBSD's FTP-able releases, you must join the MSDN, which is a bit pricey for a personal budget... -Pat To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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