Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 12:03:27 +0100 From: Damien Fleuriot <ml@my.gd> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: request a quote Message-ID: <4F4E05FF.5030409@my.gd> In-Reply-To: <4F4DF6AE.3010903@infracaninophile.co.uk> References: <OFF8637974.9D5017CD-ONC12579B3.003124F6-C12579B3.00315A79@advatech.pl> <2A6E4B6A-8FE7-4AAC-93C6-B5FDD02ADB18@my.gd> <4F4DF6AE.3010903@infracaninophile.co.uk>
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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 >
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