Kaffe on SCO

[Per Bothner]

> Unfortunately, very few developers have the option of being a Cygnus
> customer.  I was recently shocked to learn that the minimum package is
> for 5 developers - $7500.  For small shops like mine that's totally
> absurd (I'm the only fulltime developer).  Maybe you could suggest to
> management that singles for 1500-2000 would broaden the market
> considerably?

We used to have singles for 1500-2000, but that changed.
The reason was that singles were not profitable.  Unfortunately,
there is no money in "broadening the market", unless you are Microsoft.
It is almost impossible to make money in the low end of the software
tools business.  Is there *any* profitable mass-market compiler
company except Microsoft?  We certainly have no interest in
being another Borland :-(.  Getting more customers is not a
great idea if you lose money on most of them.

Perhaps the market is ready for a low-end GNU-support and
-packaging company, with lower overhead than Cygnus.
The problem is that there is no way to compete on price, since
GNU is freely available on the Net.  You have to compete
on quality, support, and experience - and those are expensive.
(Good people are expensive, and hard to find.)  Finding a
good middle ground is the challange, but I think it is possible.

	--Per Bothner
Cygnus Solutions     bothner at cygnus.com     http://www.cygnus.com/~bothner