Re: looking at the survey (pricing)

["Pete St. Onge" <pstong1@po-box.mcgill.ca>]

Still more comments. :)

>   - Cost of becoming proficient with new application software
> 
> woah. does this apply to me? This seems like a different use of the
> word 'cost' than the ones I just answered. I don't pay anything to
> learn new application software. Except time. In which case it is
> 'important' because I don't want to spend forever becoming
> proficient with something, but if it's worthwhile then I'll make it
> happen. Note that for the most part, I don't need to be 'proficient'
> with something to use it usefully. Perhaps we could clarify, and add
> "(time or money)" in there.

     I think in either case, time or money spent in the course of
gaining proficiency with software, it doesn't matter - time *is* money,
especially if you are using the app as part of your work. If you're a
home user (I guess I can add academic user here too), it's more time
costs. So a system or app which is time-consuming to learn before being
able to gain some measure of productivity will likely be passed over by
the 'mainstream' user. Many 'mainstream' users (or at least those I
would qualify as such) aren't those I would characterize as being too
curious or driven to learn about the apps or os they use. I tend to
qualify those that do take the time to learn and investigate the app as
being advanced, or self-supporting, users.
     As such, any really obtuse program probably wouldn't find a lot of
use by 'mainstream' users, unless they really have to.


>   - Being able to buy and / or use no-name brand hardware obtained from a reputable retailer
> 
> I'm assuming this should be interpreted as "no name brand", rather
> than "no-name" "brand", which doesn't make sense to me. If the
> former, then 'relevant' (see below).
> 
>   - Being able to buy and / or use brand name hardware
> 
> crucial. With what I use my computers for, I need top-quality
> high-warrantee parts. Perhaps put the 'brand' question first..
    Okay.

>   - Being able to buy and / or use no-name brand software obtained
> from a reputable retailer
> 
> I don't buy software. So the term 'retailer' seems weird to me in this
> question. But I guess I will interpret this as "how important is it
> for redhat to have a contrib/ directory that it makes available?"
> In which case I'd say 'relevant', because I don't mind if my
> off-brand software comes from the actual site in .se or from a more
> 'reputable' site.
     Fair enough.

>   - Being able to buy and / or use brand name software
> 
> crucial. Some software, like sendmail or apache, needs to be
> well-known and well-tested. Am I using the same definition of
> 'brand name' as you guys are?
     We can see 'brand' in two ways here, either the reputation of the
company producing the software (whether open source or otherwise) and
the reputation of the program itself ('Apache,' frinstance). I think we
can use either definition here.


-- 
Pete St. Onge - McGill U.  Limnology - Fun with Ropes & Buckets
pete@seul.org                  http://wwp.mirabilis.com/4322052