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Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1998 21:08:41 +0200
From: Marc Baudoin <babafou@babafou.eu.org>
To: Markus Illenseer <markus@core.de>, dinsen@danbbs.dk
Cc: netbsd-advocacy@NetBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Export NetBSD CDs
Message-ID: <19981011210840.C286@skiff.babafou.eu.org>
References: <3624bc73.16544035@mail.danbbs.dk> <199810111640.SAA18045@beaver.core.de>
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In-Reply-To: <199810111640.SAA18045@beaver.core.de>; from Markus Illenseer on Sun, Oct 11, 1998 at 06:40:54PM +0200

Markus Illenseer <markus@core.de> écrit :
> 
> > I'd suggest making Markus' CD-ROMs official NetBSD cd-roms. Along with
> > some for the US market (with crypto-code).
> 
>  Thanks for the flowers. The major difference between my CD and the 
> "official" CD are indeed the missing secure-stuff

That's fine :-)

> a slight different idea about the installation process

What exactly?

>  It would be a great challenge beeing the official source of NetBSD
> CD-ROMs, and I would accept it, when asked.

Of course I can't ask you on behalf of the NetBSD Foundation.
What do the official NetBSD people think of this CD issue?

> > >I also insist on the necessity for the NetBSD Foundation to have
> > >CDs if we want more and more people to be able to install NetBSD.
> > >Sure we're not backed up by a big CD vendor as FreeBSD is by
> > >Walnut Creek, and that's a disadvantage for us, but we do need
> > >CDs.
> 
>  Schatztruhe GmbH in Germany is not a global player, but is able to 
> market any CD-ROM world wide, if necessary. Resellers are welcome.

That would solve one problem.

> > >I inquired about prices.  Making the master of the CD should cost
> > >a little less than $400, the master of the booklet around $120.
> > >Then each CD should cost $1 and $0.25 for each booklet.
> 
>  The process of creating the master CD is about 500DM in Germany,
> which is 320$US. Your price of $1 end users price for each CD is not 
> makeable, because you forgot the minimum issue of at least 500 CDs. 

Right.

> This makes your CD already 400$ + 125$ + 500 * 1$ + 500 * 0.25$ = 2.3$ 
> each CD.  The price for the master is a basic price, and does not include 
> the price for the CDs themself. The amount of the issue changes the price 
> for the actual CDs. The more you are going to press, the cheaper each CD. 
> Big presses do not start below issues of 1000 pcs, small presses do so, 
> but will not offer better prices. BTW, you forgot the jewel cases, which
> are about 0.5 to 1$ per pcs; some presses even want money for the
> shrink-wrap.

Anyway, that gives us some ideas about prices.

>  Non the less, are you willing to "risc" 1150$ just like this and
> do the shipping? I cant do that

I can't do that either.  That's why I asked for channels.

>  With the integration of the package system for NetBSD, I am running
> out of CD ROM space. A double header is not enough to carry the entire
> packages for all platforms. Even if I concentrate on the more frequent
> platforms, I would probably need 4 CD ROMs. A 4 CD set is too expensive,
> because only one third of it is required (or welcomed) by anybody using 
> only one platform. So the other CDs are wasted money and efforts.
> 
>  Making seperate CD double headers for each platform is too much a
> risc for the taker. 
> 
>  One general purpose CD for the installation process is not presentable,
> because at maximum 3 (maybe 4) platforms could be integrated on one single
> CD and be able to boot and install directly off CD.

One approach would be to have, say 2 CDs with basic install stuff
for all platforms (all tarballs, including X but no packages,
that's something like 54 Mb for i386), source code (43 Mb for the
tarballs) and maybe the ports thing (which shouldn't use much
space, as it's only patches).

Then maybe some other CD sets, one set for each of the most used
platforms' packages (or more than one platform on one CD, I've no
idea about the size of the package stuff as I still compile my
applications myself).

>  In my eyes, the advantage of NetBSD is being multi-platformed and the
> NetBSD distribution should never be splitted. This makes at least
> one CD which is always the base for every platform.

I agree.

>  Besides the "install" CD, the next CD would then be a "companion" for 
> i386, another CD for m68k, and yet another for - tell me, Sparc, 
> Alpha, SA?

I've no way to know.  Does somebody have figures about relative
importance of various NetBSD ports?  Maybe some statistics from
the FTP servers?

>  If you want to help me creating the next issue, ie. writing some tools
> for the installation process, or as Beta-Tester

What I don't understand is why you changed the install process.
It was useful for NetBSD <= 1.2 but it shouldn't be necessary for
1.3 and above.

-- 
Marc Baudoin   -=-   <babafou@babafou.eu.org>