Daniel Robbins wrote:

>Hi everyone,
>
>Pieter (pvdabeel) has contacted me and is interested in having the store
>sell Genesi PPC workstations with Gentoo pre-installed. The hardware
>manufacturer is apparently very interested in pursuing this, and allowing
>the store to make some profit on the sale of these workstations. My initial
>impression of this opportunity is positive, it would certainly be "neat" to
>sell these PPC workstations through the store, as they are quite interesting
>boxes with tons of geek appeal.
>
>I have yet to talk to the head of Genesi about this, because I want to get
>feedback from the trustees first. I see 2 things to consider here:
>
>1) Are there any legitimate reasons why the store should not sell PPC
>workstations, *not* as a matter of practicality (that's my domain) but as a
>matter of principle?
>  
>

The only hesitation I have is that people are going to go to the source 
with their problems.  I am guilty of this (I bought a computer desk with 
a big note in it "if there are missing parts, call us, do not take it 
back to the store"..  what did I do when the desk was messed up?  took 
it back to the store)

Sadly, this wouldn't be in my mind if we didn't already have a couple of 
issues with Gentoo developers taking battle with the Pegasos boxes that 
got donated to us.  Daniel, you've been out of the loop on this, but we 
were given boxes for FREE and have had developers bitching about them 
(it's inconsiderate and ungrateful, I know, that's a different story).  
My point is that things like that will only be magnified when people pay 
for the equipment, and no matter how much you tell them where to go for 
help, their complaints are going to go where their dollar went.

Principally, there is nothing -wrong- with it, but as soon as we sell 
something from the store we (Gentoo) had better be ready to support it.  
Issues will be brought up in mailing lists, forums, and IRC.  I would 
have no hesitations if Gensi were to provide a person to proactively 
field those issues that land in our court.

Cheers,

-Corey

-- 
Corey Shields
Gentoo Linux Infrastructure Team and Devrel Team
Gentoo Foundation Board of Trustees
http://www.gentoo.org/~cshields


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