Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 08:37:38 -0700 From: mike allison <mallison@konnections.com> To: The Hermit Hacker <scrappy@hub.org> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Commercial, Non-Hacker CD Distribution - A thought Message-ID: <3358E6C2.5C763CA1@konnections.com> References: <Pine.NEB.3.96.970417174010.4592e-100000@thelab.hub.org>
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Marc:
This is VERY similar to the RedHat?ApplixWare bundle. They send out the
suite bundled with the optimum RH Linux version to run it. I think RH
has a division that maintains the ApplixWare port. This sounds like a
GOOD commercial project for someone willing and able to put it together
and SUPPORT it.
*BSD is a far better platform than Linux (For this) because the Linux
world cannot always insure that any particular distro was
compiled/configured the same as any other. RH ApplixWare may not run
under Slackware.
*BSD doesn't have this problem since the releases are centralised for
the platform.
Wish we had the resources to do this.... The office suite IS the killer
app which allows one to move away from MS....
-Mike
The Hermit Hacker wrote:
>
> Hi...
>
> With all the talk about large corporations and whatnot that has
> been going on, why not build a "Commercial FreeBSD" CD-rom?
>
> Mainly, something that results in as brain dead of a Unix OS as
> possible for end-users, something that I could give to my mother and tell
> her to insert this into drive A and boot your computer...it will ask you
> a few questions and then do the rest on its own.
>
> Think of it this way...how much does MicroSloth charge for Windows95
> nowadays? NT? What do you get with it? An OS, that's it, right? (I actually
> don't know, haven't installed a MicroSloth system in several years)
>
> What I'm thinking is that, for starters, we have a Unix based
> Office product (StarOffice) that kinda works under our Linux Emulation. Why
> not make a deal with them to come up with a FreeBSD port and offer to resell
> it as part of a commercial FreeBSD CD. I don't know how much they charge
> for their Commercial version, but considering they are just giving it away
> for non-commercial use, you could probably work out a deal...hell, I'd even
> buy a copy of StarOffice if they had a FreeBSD port...
>
> So, wrap FreeBSD/StarOffice for FreeBSD into a CD as a start.
>
> What else would be required? Wrap Netscape in with that, again, so
> that its *already* intalled without having to go to the ports section and
> dealing with that (we're talking *end-users* here!)
>
> Isn't there a realaudio port for FreeBSD? what other commercial
> quality products are out there that we could effectively make a *end-user*
> CD distribution that is as plug-n-play as possible?
>
> Hell, even kernel optimizations from GENERIC could be done in such
> a way that its just a system tuning chore that happens in the background
> and when complete, informs the user that a reboot is required to make the
> new kernel active.
>
> then we'd have the FreeBSD that we all know and love (source code)
> and a FreeBSD that I could give to my mother and be relatively confident she'd
> be able to actually make use of it. (ie. she doesn't need source or a ports
> section)
>
> *shrug* Just a thought...there is enough talent around here that
> building up a User-Friendly GUI interface wouldn't/shouldn't be that
> difficult...no?
>
> Marc G. Fournier
> Systems Administrator @ hub.org
> primary: scrappy@hub.org secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org
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