Re: distro or add-on?

[Jean Francois Martinez <jfm2@club-internet.fr>]

Roger Dingledine a écrit :

> On Thu, Apr 19, 2001 at 07:21:55PM +0200, Jean Francois Martinez wrote:
> > > If you only distribute it via FTP and CVS repositories, the "end
> > > users" will not have the ease-of-use you speak of intrinsic to Indy.
> >
> > CD is not a problem: it is not that difficult to be published by the
> > analogs of CheapBytes the problem is that Indy target needs paper doc
> > and buys software who comes in nice boxes sold it at mainstream
> > retail stores.  For this I still don't have a  clear solution exceptr that this
> > trying to improve Indy and get users hoping iyt reaches critical mass:
> > this kind of problems tend to be far easier to solve when you reach it.
>
> I agree. An ftp site is not good enough. Even getting CheapBytes to sell
> it is not good enough.
>
> I don't think you can out-market a large company like Red Hat or Mandrake.
> But beyond that, I don't think you should *try* to out-market them. Leave
> it entirely to them to actually deliver Linux to the masses.
>
> Leveraging somebody else's distribution channel is one of the few feasible
> approaches to getting packages to end-users that I can imagine.
>
> I think it's a hard enough problem without worrying about the marketing
> side of things. Why not focus on improving Red Hat, and then try to get
> Red Hat to distribute your enhanced packages? Why are you planning to
> fight Red Hat when you could have them on your side?
>

Did you know I met Gael Duval and Jacques Le Marois in 1998? At that time Gael
was distributing a RedHat+KDE on CDs he burnt himself.  That distro was called
Mandrake


And who told you I plan to fight anyone? Reread the "resurrection" text: the problem

is simply to fill a gap.  Selling boxes loses money so commercial distribs  focus on

the server because here is where the money is coming from.  Present free
distribs are aristocratic ones and don't  care about the problems from the unwashed
people coming from Windows.   Well I care
 And while we are at it I would like to have Windows transfuges (specially if they
learned
unassisted) in the team because they know about the problems people face when they
shift
to Linux.


                                                    JFM