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From: Paul Newhouse <pimin@diac.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: FreeBSD VS BSDI, INC.
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 14:15:19 -0700
Organization: NAS
Lines: 77
Message-ID: <32406666.102F11D5@diac.com>
References: <51963f$2dr4@news-s01.ny.us.ibm.net>
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drhumph@ibm.net wrote:
> Is the cost of the BSD product, approximately $995 for 16 user license
> worth it? A recent article in Boardwatch that covered BSDI and apache
> n combination, spoke highly of the BSDI product; in particular the built
> in scripts, etc.
How much of your time equals $995? Do you want to be totally dependent
upon some help line or do yu want a opportunity to fix it yourself?
Either way you are going to have numerous unexpected problems with this.
Cobbling together some pieces of software and hardware isn't going to
make you a succesfull ISP.
> Please note that the system administrator of the selected system has a
> mainframe/cobol/basic programming/analyst background, but is very rusty,
> new to UNIX, runs another business as primary source of income and needs
> to make surefooted steps in view of his time constraints.
Pick one, are they "rusty" or "new"? Are you talking about an employee
of
your new ISP venture? or a partner in it? Getting this thing "up and
flying"
is going to tax your time tremendously.
> The anticipated use of the software will be a startup ISP.
I wish you the very best of luck. You'll need it. Picking a unix
variation
is only one of many problems you are facing. Have you picked a router?
Have
you ever configured a router before? How are you going to connect your
modem
pool? Do you keep current with news groups like "comp.dcom.modems"? How
experienced are you with various modems? What modems are you selecting
for
your modem pool? (I think you'll find modems a BIG BUGGER of a
headache,
especially at first.) A vast majority of your users are likely to be
Win95
users, are you sufficeintly versed in Win95 to walk them through the
problems
they (at least some of them) will have? (More modem crap than you can
ever
imagine, honest!). And the list goes on, and on, and on, .....
How many partners are involved in this? You will find it demands an
incredible
amount of your time (no matter what level of Unix or network expertise
you
have).
If you are setting up in a net sophistcated area (the SJ area for
instance) you
are up against some tough competition.
Well, having been pretty negative so far, I sincerely do wish you luck
in your
venture. My apologies if I have mis-"read between the lines" regarding
your level
of expertise regarding the ISP business and the related issues. The
questions you
ask and the (admittedly sketchy) details you provide suggest that you
are not fully
aware of what you are about to put your foot in. Again,
Good luck,
Paul
P.S. - I've been running this signature for a little while now. At the
time
I hadn't anticipated your post but, it seems surprisingly (to me) apropo
(?).
--
If you don't have source code, it's firmware.
Never trust software with a version number ending in ".0".
-Dave Tweeten