*BSD News Article 39448


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From: vjs@calcite.rhyolite.com (Vernon Schryver)
Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD free?
Message-ID: <D0nMF7.6Ez@calcite.rhyolite.com>
Organization: Rhyolite Software
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 1994 16:13:55 GMT
References: <D0HBxK.6FM@kithrup.com> <D0IKBv.BuK@calcite.rhyolite.com> <3cdmo9$q89@news.cs.tu-berlin.de>
Lines: 30

In article <3cdmo9$q89@news.cs.tu-berlin.de> nickel@cs.tu-berlin.de writes:
>In article <D0IKBv.BuK@calcite.rhyolite.com> vjs@calcite.rhyolite.com
>(Vernon Schryver) writes:
>
>> I think BSDI's new pricing policy is incredibly stupid and
>> shortsighted, [...]
>
>Can you add some details here?  The last information that I got
>sounded ok but is somewhat outdated.  (That was US$ 999 for source and
>US$ 200 - 300 for a binary license.)  What has changed?

As of 10/3/94, new licenses vary in price depending on the size of the
customer's organization.  Organizations larger than 10 people pay by
the "maximum number of users per machine," with a single machine's binary
license costing from $545 to $7995.  Source costs commercial customers
larger than 10 people $20,000.  They've grandfathered existing customers
with the old price list.  I've only seen the new price list in the
mailing list and not on paper despite being a paying customer, so perhaps
they've wised-up and fired their newly hired marketing disaster, but I
doubt it.  They have an exceptionally lame story that big customers will
not buy their product unless it costs a lot of money and that since
they've raised the price big companies have been falling over themselves
to buy.

It's a crying shame they do not understand how Intuit and Sun Microsystems
became $B companies, but they have a right to blow their own chance in
any stupid way they choose.


Vernon Schryver    vjs@rhyolite.com