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From: phr@soda.berkeley.edu (Paul Rubin)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: selling 386BSD (was Re: 386BSD on CD-ROM?)
Date: 15 Aug 92 10:42:45
Organization: CSUA/UCB
Lines: 20
Message-ID: <PHR.92Aug15104245@soda.berkeley.edu>
References: <1992Aug11.190949.1496@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE>
<1992Aug12.100430.3467@Urmel.Informatik.RWTH-Aachen.DE>
<1557@hcshh.hcs.de> <1848@adagio.UUCP>
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: grog@adagio.UUCP's message of 15 Aug 92 07:20:44 GMT
Don't misunderstand me. If you want 386bsd from me, you can call us up
and get it via uucp for nothing. But it costs more money than you
think to maintain archives and supply ``free'' software (yes, we
really do put that in parentheses in our literature). The FSF charges
$200 for their tapes, by the way.
The $200 goes the FSF charges for a tape mostly goes to pay the FSF's
programmers, documentation writers, and administrative staff; it
covers much more than the costs of making and sending out the tape.
Buying tapes is one way companies, etc. are able to help out the GNU
project. Making and shipping a tape is not much more expensive than
making and shipping an Emacs manual (well, maybe two manuals) and the
FSF charges around $20 for those. Manuals too do much more than cover
the manufacturing and shipping costs---the FSF's distribution arm
exists solely to generate funds for further GNU development and
maintenance.
Paul Rubin
former FSF staff programmer
and still sometime GNU hacker