On Tue, 1 Feb 2000, Herb Peyerl wrote:

>  > how about souped-up install disk with x-windows and guis and stuff?
>  > something that could also run as a small standalone system.  :)
> 
> I think somewhere around here I have a 1.44MB floppy from QNX that 
> will boot, establish a PPP connection and bring up a web browser...

The nice thing is that CD's almost cost less than floppys anyway.  If you
count the cost of replacing bad floppys and bad drives, they definitely
cost less.

Unfortunately, that's a bit of a leap as far as the business cards go--I'm
seeing prices of $1.25 - $6.00, and to get the $1.25 price one has to do a
run large enough that you could probably get full-size commercially
mastered CD's for less than the business cards.

The nice thing about business cards in general is that they're so cheap
and handy that you can hand them out without discretion.  I wouldn't feel
that way about a $5.00 cardcd, which undermines the whole point of the
medium. But, when you think about it, why not keep five NetBSD CD's in
your bag or in your car, and hand them out to anyone who wants one?  Or
business cards--whatever you can afford/get someone else to fund for you. :)

I've been thinking about how we can get more CD's out--I know several
people are trying very hard to do this already, and someone mentioned a
bookstore was selling them.  This is a great, great time to be selling
CD's, because the people in charge of shelf space are excited and new to
this Open Source thing and are willing to consider anything properly
pitched--likewise, the customers.  Three years from now, they may catch on
and only want ``branded'' open source like Linux.  So we ought to make the
most of it ASAP, with the hope that it'll be a lasting phenomenon of
course.

What I think would be great, is an .iso image that's bootable for the
PeeCee and the Mac so that random folks like me can, with minimal effort
or exertion, start burning NetBSD CD's to hand out in meetings, classes,
and (for me) maybe talk the University bookstore and the Boulder bookstore
downtown and the B&N where my friend works and the small-business Mac
retail store where my other friend works into carrying them.
 
Large runs are a nice idea, but they are too much work and too likely to
lose large amounts of cash.  On the other hand, I'd be happy to give
CompUSA $20 and _give_ people every CD I burn, just to try out the idea.
I'm not trying to say that certain other individuals haven't ``given''
away mad, mad amounts of cash--just that there are probably quite a few
people like myself willing to give away relatively small and bounded
amounts of cash.

I know we don't have a formal macppc release--but anything would be
appreciated by the Mac-using public, believe me!  Especially those of you
who know how Linux runs, _on a PeeCee_, or have trierd to install Solaris
x86 on a box with even one ISA card, know what I'm talking about re. the
workingness of such technologies, _on a Mac._ 

I'd be 10x more likely to buy CD's and burn them if someone else had
already worked out all the brainwork for me.  I know people.  I can hand
out CD's to them.  But, frankly I'm too lazy and irritated by the whole
_idea_ of CD's to make a bunch of coasters trying to come up with a
correct ``distribution'' when my install method is to netboot the damn
thing from my Sparcbook and install with 'pax -p e -r -w'.

Along with the .iso image, perhaps we should provide lazy would-be
advocates like me with some cover art.  A color postscript file (and maybe
a large JPEG image of it for the Ghostscript-impaired Win.*-printer user)
for printing the little insert manual and the top of the CD.  I don't
think it needs to be a long insert, or necessarily include any original
documentation.

The main point of the insert is just omething that looks good on the
shelf. And, in my hand when I am talking to Bookstore X about carrying
them.  For the jewel case insert, maybe a color Daemon off the 'net with
``NetBSD'' printed in big letters, ``Open-source Unix-like operating
system / works with PeeCee's and many PCI-based Power Macintoshes'' in
smaller print underneath.  The key here is _color_ and _easy for us to
make_.

An optional printout for those with CD stompers maybe could put our
napkin-art daemons in black-and-white, a revision number/date/contact
info, and a few lines of text telling people how to cmd-opt-OF, 'boot
cdrom' on Mac's or where to find floppy images for El Torrito-less
PeeCee's.  If you don't have a stomper, I wouldn't be too upset to buy a
CD that said ``NetBSD'' written in felt tip pen, and had the preparer's
email address and a smiley face underneath.  These people have all seen a
hand-burned CD before--they won't be scared, and we're not going to
fool them anyway no matter how hard we try.

I don't think we necessarily need more than we have now to start handing
out a lot more CD's.  We don't have to pretend to be something we're not,
and in the short term I don't think we need to do much more work.  ex.,
the Improved Documentation Initiative, transcendence of troff, a _real_
unified doc system that isn't a Lie like Linux's, or a royal obnoxious
pain like VendorUnix ____, sounds like a _great_ idea, but I want to start
burning CD's _now_, before we have a jewel case installation manual
written in SGML.  The ``how to make NetBSD CD's'' kit can evolve to
include such things later, but as of now the CD-making kit infrastructure
doesn't exist.

Or, maybe it does.  I bet most of this work is already done, but I,
personally, as someone willing to buy/burn/distribute CD's, don't know
where to find it.  And _that_ is the problem.  I can make up for my lack
of technical motivation with sociability and connections in the
neighborhood, but as of now, the Project is failing to exploit toward its
diabolical ends what I expect are quite a few enthusiastic, cash-carrying,
vocal, lazy people like myself.

This is almost exactly the business card model people have been proposing,
but I think it's cheaper and more practical.  Does anyone have comments on
the so-called kit-Plan's usefulness, and if it's useful on what work has
been done already?


By the way (Andrew Brown), _X_ or _X Window System_, please.  It's an easy
mistake and I know I'm being obnoxious, but when people say X Windows I
feel like someone is running their fingernails down a chalkboard. The X
people were very explicit that they don't want their work called this (see
x(1)), and it's disrespectful in a way because it makes it sound like
inside your head X is just the Unix implementation of Microsoft
Windows--of course I know that it isn't and please don't take this as
off-putting.  Probably more people say X Windows than X, but it's still
not correct (and destructively misleading).

-- 
Miles Nordin / v:+1 720 841-8308 fax:+1 530 579-8680
555 Bryant Street PMB 182 / Palo Alto, CA 94301-1700 / US