On Apr 3, 2006, at 5:36 AM, Olin Lathrop wrote:

> I wish there were a good answer to this.  I'd be willing to
> provide a free ProProg or whatever in return for Linux support,
> but only if I knew absolutely that I was getting the Linux
> support in return.
>
That would hardly be fair.  Getting ANY piece of software
developed for YOUR COST on a $300 MSRP item would be quite a bargin,
after all.  When you trade free hardware for "services", you're
balancing the reduced cost to you (compared to hiring a "software
consultant" to do the same thing) with the possibility that you
won't get anything at all (or something unsuitable.)

(of course, this is in turn balanced by the "undefined" value
of having the extra SW in the first place.  If you don't have an
idea of how much linux support might be worth to you, it's hard
to tell whether you're spending too much trying to get it.)

[It's like beta testing.  When cisco has a new platform and we're
ready for beta-testing, we have to decide whether we're going to
"give" hardware to the beta test sites.  Now, a *good* beta test
site is worth many times the cost of the HW.  Unfortunately, most
beta sites suck, even if they're otherwise good customers; you
put HW there and you get back "oh, yeah, it's working fine", or
"we haven't gotten around to trying it yet", or "we spent some
time and had some problems and we gave up."  Sigh.  It's not an
easy problem; I believe we've gone back and forth on policy several
times over our history, and I think what actually happens may still
be rather ad hoc...]

BillW
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