On Monday 16 July 2007 18:08, Alan Brown wrote: > On Mon, 16 Jul 2007, Kern Sibbald wrote: > > >> I hate to say this, but history shows that it usually leads to a great > >> deal of shouting and hatemail from the peanut gallery.
Well, I am not too worried about the shouting from the peanut gallery. I don't read it any more because I realized that the criticism that is fair gets through to the bacula-devel list, and the unfair (IMO) criticism is written by people who don't take the time to understand the problem or the "proposed" solutions. > >> > >> Kern, how many hours/how much cost is involved in validating the Win* > >> binaries? > > This was actually a genuine question. We don't even use Win* binaries, > however knowing what kind of funding is needed to keep the project going > makes it somewhat easier to obtain it.... It hard to estimate the cost with validating the Win* binaries. Probably it is a few thousand dollars per year of out of pocket expenses. If you include the time an effort put into it, it is probably $10,000 - 20,000 per year. The donations to the Bacula project were not even covering my out of pocket expenses, which have amounted to about $8,000 per year since January 2000. > > > My take on this is that the Bacula project has been supplying a lot of > > binaries (i.e. a lot of work and a service), corporations, Universities, and > > governments are saving 10s and even 100s of thousands of dollars in license > > fees in using Bacula, and certain of those establishments are becoming rather > > vocal about wanting high end features, but they are not willing to spend even > > 1 cent of the money they save on license fees to support the project. > > I think that this will be a good thing and will enable you to obtain > funding - quite frankly, if there had been an entity available to provide > invoices for support and licensing 5 years ago we would have gladly paid > up. > > Coporates and Universities will not be the ones doing a lot of shouting > and screaming. For the most part they will _gladly_ pay for support. The > stumbling block up until now has been one of invoicing. Yes, I understood that some years ago, but I don't think the Bacula project had matured enough to provide professional services until recently, what really woke me up was when I learned that Bank Austria-Creditanstalt uses Bacula :-) > > As you know MSSL been offering to provide some (limited) funding for > features, however the lack of a support structure as you appear to be > unveiling has been a major sticking point in getting funding released > towards the project - what we've put forward is literally all that's been > able to be made available locally without having to get approval from > higher powers. Yes, I do know, and it should be possible within the next 6 months. > > Many university and corporate IT departments will easily find themselves > in similar situations. Without a legal entity to deal with it is nearly > impossible to get approval to spend money (This is why so many companies > can make good money selling opensource products...) Yes. > > > As I said, what worries me is a large amount of negative publicity from > the "peanut gallery". > > In opensource terms, the "Peanut Gallery" are the _very_ vocal groups of > people who scream from the hilltops that all software should be free of > charge, etc etc etc. > > What worries me is extremely strong press and hatemail coming from the > likes of SlashDot and similar arenas as a direct reaction to an > announcement that Bacula is no longer available in binary form and is > moving to commercial support. Having lived through the Howdy Doody (sp?) Peanut Gallery days in my youth, I am quite familar with it. If they want to scream and holler, they are probably going to do nothing but increase the popularity of the project. I don't plan to read any of their comments. What I am planning is what most successful project have done or are doing, but I am doing it will what I consider a much more fair twist, and it the critics don't realize that, then so be it. My more fair twist involve several elements: 1. Individual users, charities, and contributoring companies will be able to obtain the binaries for free. Only "enterprises" will have to pay. 2. The people providing the binaries will receive some renumeration (currently they receive none). 3. There will likely be more binaries for more distros than previously, and they will be tested. 4. There is no conflict with distros or other users who wish to create their own binaries or even release them. I'm not trying to restrict anything. 5. Unlike other projects the copyright for the code is held by FSFE. 6. Corporations which have support contracts will automatically have access to the binaries without extra charge. 7. Since there is quite a lot of work involved in preparing and testing binaries, it is only fair that enterprises pay for them. The licensing will be a flat fee for each platform binary (no fees for the number of copies used or servers/clients, ...). 8. No one is obligated to use our binaries. 9. Any profits from this will go back into code development (frankly I doubt there will be any profits). So that no one is confused, the profits, if any, of the service company will be shared with the founders and employees, but rather than pricipally flowing to the shareholders, it will principally flow to the workers (providing we can make it self funding rather than having Venture capital). > > (For origin, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_gallery ) > > > Any money obtained will be put back into developing Bacula features and paying > > a small renumeration to the people who create the binaries. > > This is A VERY GOOD THING! Yes, it is overdue, but not currently possible. > > > PS: Kern - My director asks "Please mail us asap for details of what kinds > of fee structures are envisaged and how we can be invoiced." OK -- to follow in a few hours off-list. > > PPS: Please review that decision about the binaries. It will generate a > lot of unnecessary adverse publicity. Those who want to pay for support > are quite likely to be already forming a line. (See the history of Pegasus > Mail. Free cost software+Paid support is definitely ecoonomically viable) My view is that if you can afford to pay and you are saving gobs of money by using the product, you should pay. Clearly individuals and charities either cannot afford to pay or are not saving any money so they benefit from what we are setting up as they have previously. Regards, Kern ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ _______________________________________________ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
