"Hylton Conacher (ZR1HPC)" <hylton@conacher.co.za> writes:
Kevin Dupuy wrote:
On Tue, 2008-06-24 at 21:04 +0200, Hylton Conacher (ZR1HPC) wrote:
When are the boxed sets going to be available, not on pre-order, but as a live order as I have seen nothing on the announcements list ?
According to an email I got from Novell, they ship this Thursday, June 26th. I agree with you that they should be available same day, but we've had several discussions on the main mailinglist about this, and from what I'm getting, it's because the release to the public is one week after the product goes gold, and that's not enough time to get boxed editions produced and shipped. One week after the release is the quickest I've seen a boxed edition become available, since the openSUSE project started anyway (I wasn't following boxed editions before then).
You lucky, you got mail from Novell. What are signed up to to receive it?
Despite them saying the boxes are being shipped on the 26th, on visiting the site of http://en.opensuse.org/Buy_openSUSE and selecting my region, I still only get the option to pre-order the box i.e. http://shop.novell.com/DRHM/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayProductDetailsPage&SiteID=novelleu&Locale=en_GB&Env=BASE&productID=105125500&&resid=L2h9NQoBAkcAAA@N0hwAAAAJ&rests=1214492352576 This is at 15h00 UTC. To me the day of the 26th started at 00h00 i.e. midnight on the 25th.
You mention a week being the fastest you have seen for boxed sets to be produced. Has Novell not heard of forward planning? When the product went into Beta or even RC status, someone at Novell should have ordered the boxes printed so that by the time GM time comes, the DVD's can be mass produced, put in a box ready for shipping and it can be announced that the version has been released. The download mirrors are opened to the new software and people not downloading but visiting the on-line store are able to order and know that the package is on its way when they have completed the transaction.
Hylton, we're doing this business since some time and do basically what you propose: * the DVDs are on the critical path * PDFs for printed manuals are delivered earlier so that they are printed at the same time the DVDs are pressed * The other material is also ordered for that day And yes, we have only one week between sending the DVD to production and delivering enough boxes out to suppliers. It just is not going faster. But should we delay the public release for that? In the past we delayed it for a couple of months to earn our money with the box - today we offer a choice.
The openSuSE and SuSE distribution is a slick piece of software that needs to have slick distribution otherwise its name is dirtied by poor sales and distribution. If Susians knew that if a box set was ordered, they would receive it as soon as the postal system could deliver it, I am sure Novell would make far more money from the openSuSE boxed sets.
Its all in the planning.
I hope the necessary websites will enable me to order tomorrow and choose my shipment method.
shop.novell.com is unfortunately another story, Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger, Director Platform / openSUSE, aj@suse.de SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126