While selling installers is quickly becoming abandoned by other operating systems it could still benefit Haiku. Many people live in remote areas or don’t have very good internet service, especially in developing countries where Haiku’s 32 bit support and lightweight nature would be great for those living there, as pointed out by @asifnaz here. Other people may wish to support the project while still receiving something in return. A cheap, affordable Haiku USB or DVD with a printed instruction manual would be useful, both for those receiving it and for Haiku; the additional funds would support the project. In the case of developing countries these could be distributed for free. If Haiku grows large enough installers could be sold in physical stores and perhaps Haiku could do something like AOL did and partner with companies to distribute Haiku installers with their products.
I second this . Distribution media should be sold on minimum price or free if possible . Revenue could be generated by selling souvenirs like printed shirts and mugs etc .
If Haiku finds a way to advertise itself to developing countries, it has a great potential here .
Government institutions and universities can be the initial target market
It’s been talked about if there was a dev that wanted to step up they’d be doing it already most likely but nobody has.
You can get a 32GB USB drive for under about $8 if I remember right… and say charge $25 for the drive. Merch like that could in theory support a dev or two for Haiku at or close to full time I imagine. It would have to be stuff like USB drives, coffee mugs, t-shirts, mousepads etc… the USB drives are probably the hardest ones as a dev would have to flash them as most USB manufacturers don’t really flash the drives only copy some small amount of files on to the drives for you.
Imho primary purpose of the distribution of installation media should be to give people access to Haiku rather than generate revenue .
Once Haiku is well known ,it will be easier to generate revenue for development .
Haiku installation DVD is better choice as it costs less to manufacture and distribute
On this subject, I could really do with a Haiku sticker for my new laptop!
You’re in luck then:
https://www.cafepress.com/mf/29651464/haiku-rectangle_sticker?shop=haiku_os&productId=295451383
The link is hidden in the Haiku, Inc. FAQ.
Distributing both would be the best option. Although DVDs would be cheaper some modern computers don’t have DVD drives, and some older computers can’t boot from USB.
If you can get a drive for $8 is would be best to sell it for about $10 or $11. The idea is to distribute Haiku via USB/DVD drives while supporting the project, not make as much money as possible. Besides, downloading Haiku is free… no one will buy the USB installer if the price is that inflated.
Selling drives effectively at a loss does not support the project monetarily… if you want Haiku on a USB drive as cheap as possible download Etcher and put it on a $5 USB drive from Walmart… this isn’t rocket science anymore.
If you aren’t going to make any money doing it… it is completely pointless. Haiku is already available as a free download plenty of people would spend $25 for the convenience though. Money is the only thing that is going to increase the rate of development in any significant way at this point.
How is selling an $8 drive for $10 a loss?
Shipping and the time spent programming the drive… time is money. I can make more money selling lemonade on a busy corner.
I forgot to take shipping into account. Still, I doubt it would add up to $25. Something like $15 would be more reasonable. Q4OS, for example, sells usb installers for $12.99.
Well then go ahead and do it and send the proceeds to Haiku.
There is of course some optimal point of how much money you can bring in given the number of USB drives you can sell for a certain amount… which is why in my earlier break down of this issue, I suggested buying 32GB drives as they only cost a $1-2 more and people would likely spend a little more to buy them.
If the point is to get Haiku in as many hands as possible… selling the cheapest is ideal, however also not very rewarding. If the point is to raise money to get accelerate Haiku development then a higher price is warranted as the cost of the USB drive itself is overhead you have to at least double the price if to make any significant returns.
Selling 100 drives at $12 gets you maybe $300-400 half a week of development at $20/hr
Selling 100 drives at $25 gets you $1500+ about 2 weeks of development at $20/hr
What the developer is willing or able to work for varies of course, maybe a little more for a developer with specific knowledge that can get work on a contract done faster, or maybe a little less if the developer is feeling generous and just wants enough to pay bills between other jobs while having fun working on Haiku.
The problem by selling haiku as CD, DVD, USB that you need to support it. If one buy the stick and it does not run on the Hardware, they send them back and you get bad publicity. You need people to manage that.
I will order DVDs and have them delivered in time to distribute at Capitole du Libre and FOSDEM. The manufacturing price is about €0.60 per DVD (including printed cardboard sleeve).
There were delays because:
- The release was published just as I was flying to the USA for a 3 week vacation including GSoC mentor summit
- When I got back, I noticed that we had not archived the CD and box artwork from alpha4 in any of our git repos (but I got a copy from people who still had it)
I will take care of this during the week and order the DVDs. I guess I’ll also handle the shipping if some of you want to order online, we’ll see how to set this up. Probably you donate to haiku inc and they refund me for shipping and manufacturing expenses.
At conferences we’ll probably go with “name your price” for the DVDs. Don’t get them for free, give us what you think they’re worth. DVDs are cheap enough to do that, USB sticks are not.
Is it possible to burn DVDs that include both 32 and 64 bit versions in the same disk?
Use a cue file on Windows, old beos burning App support this too. But i does not know if one of the current apps do this too?
Best way could be using cdrecord from shell
No, only one part of the DVD (at best) would be bootable then.
Isn’t it possible to burn a dvd that allows the user to choose which version to install?
Not with the current disk images, no. Maybe something to add to the TODO list for R1?