🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Jun18.181420.19669@scuzzy.in-berlin.de> src@scuzzy.in-berlin.de (Heiko Blume) writes:
:in fact a local company who is in the cd-rom business just asked
:me whether they could put sources on cd-rom for me instead of
:paying for the tapes (i distribute gnu etc on tape in europe).
:since that wouldn't be a commercial service for me it looks like
:i could avoid the initial mastering costs. however, nothing is
:official yet.

This will almost certainly be using a writable CD, as a one-off. These
are what people use for low volume or prototyping.

:which brings a question to my mind: what the hell should one charge
:for a cd-rom with 300MB+ of compressed sources on it when you charge
:$210 for a 60MB tape?? also, what format should be used? system V
You charge just enough so that you can afford to carry on providing
the service; not too little as you have to cover advertising and other
less obvious costs; not too much that you find yourself doing it for
the money.  For Gnu software distribution, your pricing should reflect
your costs, not what the market is willing to pay.

:1K filesystem? UFS? DOS (ugh)? something totally different? i don't
:know enough about cd-roms it seems...
There's no option - there is an ISO format which *all* CD Roms use.
This is then mapped to the host filesystem by the device drivers.

:another question is if new version will be charged for as initial
:mastering (i think so). that would make a monthly or even quarterly
:update to expensive, i guess.
Yes, every version is a new master.  But a once-off comp.sources.*
plus latest stable GNU on CD would be very attractive to *many*
people.  This 'updates' stuff is getting sidetracked a little.

Anyway, that's what diff is for :-)

Graham