From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 29 11:03:31 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 85279106566C for ; Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:03:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ml@my.gd) Received: from mail-bk0-f54.google.com (mail-bk0-f54.google.com [209.85.214.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0A3B78FC14 for ; Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:03:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: by bkcjc3 with SMTP id jc3so3910605bkc.13 for ; Wed, 29 Feb 2012 03:03:29 -0800 (PST) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of ml@my.gd designates 10.204.174.13 as permitted sender) client-ip=10.204.174.13; Authentication-Results: mr.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of ml@my.gd designates 10.204.174.13 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=ml@my.gd Received: from mr.google.com ([10.204.174.13]) by 10.204.174.13 with SMTP id r13mr11386179bkz.122.1330513409888 (num_hops = 1); Wed, 29 Feb 2012 03:03:29 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.204.174.13 with SMTP id r13mr9246440bkz.122.1330513409714; Wed, 29 Feb 2012 03:03:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from dfleuriot-at-hi-media.com ([83.167.62.196]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id y9sm36667441bkw.5.2012.02.29.03.03.28 (version=SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Wed, 29 Feb 2012 03:03:28 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <4F4E05FF.5030409@my.gd> Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 12:03:27 +0100 From: Damien Fleuriot User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:10.0.2) Gecko/20120216 Thunderbird/10.0.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <2A6E4B6A-8FE7-4AAC-93C6-B5FDD02ADB18@my.gd> <4F4DF6AE.3010903@infracaninophile.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <4F4DF6AE.3010903@infracaninophile.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Gm-Message-State: ALoCoQm2OUC6EcwLxNxkkOUhoEjcNiUguN/tDawFMpE/yFNgluarAhYLQZhZk3jjuPZjOGBdC0VT Subject: Re: request a quote X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:03:31 -0000 On 2/29/12 10:58 AM, Matthew Seaman wrote: > On 29/02/2012 09:23, Damien Fleuriot wrote: >> This does, however, raise an interesting question. >> >> Do you guys know of any company whose business model is freebsd support and engineering ? >> Like, a la RHEL or SLES. > > None that I know of. People have tried to set up such things in the > past, and unfortunately have failed miserably. > > The closest thing is iXSystems -- but their primary business is > supplying hardware, and while they do provide FreeBSD support, their > offering is US centric -- maybe even US-West Coast focussed. > > Personally I think that having a commercial entity behind FreeBSD in > this way would be a good thing. As a central provider that will help > promote FreeBSD commercial usage and fund a deal of development that > nowadays either doesn't happen, or that takes far too long, and provide > employment for FreeBSD developers and admins, it certainly has some > obvious benefits. > That was the point of my question exactly. Having worked in a banking environment in the past, I can tell that high profile companies shun open source software UNLESS they can get a support contract. That's the reason Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Suse Linux Enterprise Server are successful, not only do they provide the software, but they also sell the support contract and guarantees that go with it. Such a business model would imo do wonders to promote FreeBSD as a professional OS. > Setting up such an entity and making it work as a profitable concern is > an entirely different matter. It's a competitive market out there, an a > new company would be going up against the likes of RedHat, Microsoft, > Oracle and other well established behemoths. While I think that FreeBSD > and FreeBSD people have the technical quality to succeed, what is > missing is the business capability -- people who can go out and sell > FreeBSD and that can attract investors and make them feel confident that > they can invest. That's pretty rare to find in combination with the > sort of technical expertise the FreeBSD project (unconciously) selects for. > > Cheers, > > Matthew >