Philipp Thomas wrote:
Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> [14 Apr 2004 09:35:38 -0700]:
If all-volunteer OSS projects can do it (and they do!) then certainly a capitalized company like SuSE can do it.
That comparison is invalid. Volunteers do it for free, employees get paid for their work and the salary has to be accounted for, i.e. the margin of the normal distribution has to pay for any work put into it.
Not entirely invalid. In the longer term a company may also have to account for the loss of revenue from those who bought another distribution instead because the competitor's support seemed more attractive, for whatever reason. That loss could end up severe even if it can never be fully quantified. Just my 2 cents but I wish SuSE had a web bbs forum instead of or in addition to a mailing list. Maybe it's been considered and discarded for good reasons, but a web forum seems friendlier and gives the impression of "the joint is jumping" to visitors and potential purchasers. It may also be what more folks expect these days and they may think it strange when there isn't one. A pretty darn large amount of information is readily available on web forums run by other distros ... :) Fish