From fnf@fishpond.cygnus.com Wed Aug 11 08:46:14 1993 Received: from fishpond.cygnus.com ([192.195.187.11]) by toadflax.cs.ucdavis.edu (4.1/UCD.CS.2.3) id AA15704; Wed, 11 Aug 93 08:46:07 PDT From: fnf@fishpond.cygnus.com Message-Id: <9308110902.AA23973@fishpond.cygnus.com> Subject: Re: Details on CDROM library distribution (2nd copy) To: zerkle@cs.ucdavis.edu Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 9:02:42 MST >From: Fred Fish Content-Length: 21850 Content-Type: text In-Reply-To: <9308110042.AA05324@toadflax.cs.ucdavis.edu>; from "cs.ucdavis.edu!zerkle" at Aug 10, 93 5:42 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Status: R > However, I still would like it with a ragged right margin. I will > post as soon as your message arrives, as it is appropriate for > comp.sys.amiga.announce (and you get unfair special treatment, > anyway). I haven't heard anything back from my last email offering to fix the posting, so I assume you either took care of it yourself or posted as is. In case you were waiting on me, here is a copy of the fixed posting. There is one minor change other than the formatting. I added a little more verbage about credit card orders and FAX orders, based on some questions I got about the copy that I posted to a cdrom mailing list I'm on. Thanks. -Fred ====================================================================== OVERVIEW -------- I have further details on the CDROM distribution. Things are still very much in the preliminary planning phase, but as details become available I'll continue to post updates. The quick summary of the situation is that I am going ahead with CDROM distribution and plan to produce several types of CDROMs. There will be a monthly CDROM containing several categories of material, including new material received since the previous month's CDROM, a continuously updated set of widely used "base tools" such as archivers, editors, compilers, text processors, etc, and possibly a few toys like the most popular PD games, and some random selection of older material on a space available basis. There will be a quarterly CDROM containing the archived form of all the previous new material from the monthly CDROM's to date, plus as much of the floppy distribution as will fit. When the floppy distribution reaches 1000 disks, there will be a CDROM with the contents of the entire floppy library (assuming it can be made to fit of course) and the library will migrate to CDROM distribution only (expected to happen in early 1994). Here is a quick summary of the topics that I'll cover in more depth later in this message (not in any particular order): o I now can be reached directly via FAX! :-) o Why I'm going to do CDROM distributions and what it means for the floppy distribution. o How the CDROMs will be organized and how material will be selected. o How often CDROMs will be issued and what the cost will be. o The initial production runs will be of limited quantities. o Legal issues; redistributability, copyright, etc. o Submission guidelines for authors. o Library facelift wanted (calling all graphics authors). There is a *lot* of info in this message. I decided to do it this way, rather than break it up into lots of small little messages, each dealing with a single topic. Feel free to upload this message to other electronic services (BBS's, Genie, BIX, etc) where it might be of interest. WHY CDROM DISTRIBUTIONS ----------------------- More Cost Effective It is simply far more cost effective, both for me and for the library subscribers, to distribute the library on CDROMs than on floppy disks. The current cost of a subscription averages about $40/month for less than 12Mb of new material per month. A CDROM distribution, depending upon quantity, is expected to be $20/month or less for 50-150Mb of new material per month (assuming there actually is that much available). Multiple Distribution Formats With the floppy distributions, the name of the game is sometimes to see just how much material can be crammed onto a single floppy. There is almost always a tradeoff between the convenience of having the material in unarchived format and the desire to get as much material as possible into a new release, or to make something fit on a single floppy. A fair amount of time actually goes into juggling things around until a set of 10 floppies achieves the desired density of 95-100% full. With a CDROM distribution, we get the best of both worlds. With a vastly larger amount of room to play with, the new material can be distributed directly in two forms, a ready-to-run form (unarchived) and a BBS-ready form (archived) on the same media. This is how the monthly CDROM will be organized. The quarterly archival CDROM's will contain only the BBS-ready form. COORDINATION WITH FLOPPY DISTRIBUTION ------------------------------------- Timing of Floppy Releases For the past several years, I've released floppy disks in batches of 10, with a new batch being released about every 2 to 6 weeks. Beginning with the first monthly CDROM release, floppy releases will occur when the CDROM is committed to production, and will not be any set number of disks. It is expected that when a new CDROM is released each month, that there will be 15-25 floppy disks that are released at the same time, the contents of which will make up some fraction of the new material that is included on each CDROM. Note that not all the new material will be contained on the floppy disks; the only way to get all the new material is via the CDROM. There will be a supported way of recreating individual copies of the floppy disk distribution from the contents of the CDROM. I expect to release one more batch, 901-910 before the first CDROM is completed. This batch should be released in the last week of August. I'm currently projecting the first CDROM master to be completed by the last week of September and committed to production in early October. Migration to CDROM Only Distributions Once the library reaches disk 1000, there will be no more floppy releases and the library will move to CDROM only. Part of the reason for this is to allow people time to acquire CDROM drives and part of the reason is that it would be a shame to get this close to disk 1000 and not reach it. :-) After the release of disk 1000, there will be a CDROM containing the entire library, possibly in the archived BBS-ready form. The exact details will be determined during production of the CDROM, taking into account experiences and feedback from users of the monthly CDROMs. ORGANIZATION OF THE CDROMs -------------------------- The Monthly CDROM The monthly CDROM is designed to meet the needs of users who want copies of new releases of material as soon a practical with a CDROM distribution. Depending upon when the material was received in the CDROM production cycle, and the time to go from CDROM master to production CDROMs, there should be an average latency of about 3 weeks. However since it is unlikely that there will be enough new material each month to fill a CDROM (or enough time to organize it if it was available), I might as well include some other material on the CDROM and make effective use of the available space. Although subject to change, it's anticipated that the monthly CDROM will be organized into several different sections: o A overview section containing information about the library, this particular CDROM, hot breaking news, etc. o A section containing material that is newly released with this CDROM, in ready-to-run (unarchived) form. o A section containing material that is newly released with this CDROM, in BBS-ready (archived) form. o A section containing installed versions of popular tools that are anticipated to be released in updated form on each CDROM. By leaving the CDROM mounted, you can potentially free up several hundred megabytes of hard disk space to use for other purposes. Of course the tools can still be copied from the CDROM to a hard drive if you prefer the faster access speed of the hard drive or don't wish to leave the CDROM mounted all the time. If this section gets too large, it may be split off onto a separate tools CDROM. o A "filler" section. Whatever space remains after putting everything else on the CDROM will be filled with selected material from a previous CDROM or from the floppy based library distributions. This may or may not include all the new material from the previous CDROM, depending upon space available. The intention is that if possible, users will be able to order every other monthly CDROM (at least in the beginning) and because of the overlap, not miss any of the new material. The Quarterly CDROM This CDROM is intended to meet the needs of users who don't want the monthly CDROM, and prefer to get their doses of new material in larger chunks over longer intervals. It also provides a way for BBS operators to have the maximal amount of recently released new material online using a single CDROM. All of the material on the quarterly CDROM will be in the BBS-ready format. The quarterly archival CDROM will contain all the new material from each of the previous monthly CDROMs, back as far as the CDROMs go or until the quarterly CDROM is out of space. For the first several quarterly CDROMs there will probably not be enough older CDROM material to fill it up, so material will be included from the floppy distribution, starting with the latest disk and working backwards until the CDROM is full. The Floppy Archival CDROM Once the floppy distribution reaches 1000 disks, there will be a CDROM with the entire contents of the floppy library, in the BBS-ready format. LIMITED PRODUCTION RUNS OF FIRST CDROMs ---------------------------------------- The first couple of monthly CDROMs will probably have limited production runs; basically the number of preorders plus some small percentage to cover post production demand (20% maybe?) and another small percentage to cover returns, promotional copies, etc (10% maybe?). Thus if there are preorders for 300 disks, I'll probably order an extra 100 or so. The reason for this is to reduce the risk of significantly overestimating the actual demand and having to heat my house with unused CDROMs, using the fireplace. :-) ORDERING INFORMATION -------------------- I've decided on the following price schedule, until it becomes more clear exactly what the actual demand for CDROMs will be. Depending upon the actual demand after the first two or three monthly CDROMs, the price may be adjusted either up or down. o $15 per CDROM, plus shipping and handling, for any four or more CDROMs preordered by Sept 1st. Consider this a special discount for helping to defray startup costs and for helping to determine potential actual demand early in the process. o $20 per CDROM, plus shipping and handling, for any CDROM preordered before the CDROM master is committed to production, which is expected to be late September or early October for the first CDROM and approximately monthly thereafter. o $30 per CDROM, plus shipping and handling, for any CDROM ordered after the master is committed to production. Availability cannot be guaranteed, and is on a "first come first served" basis. o Shipping and handling is $3 per CDROM for domestic USA first class mail shipments and $5 per CDROM for overseas airmail shipments. Special arrangements such as federal express are available for a $10 special handling fee, plus actual shipping charges. You can order CDROMs using the same address as for the floppy distribution: Fred Fish 1835 East Belmont Drive Tempe, AZ 85284 USA FAX: (602) 491-0048 (FAX only, no phone orders via voice) Payment can be made via: o cash (suggest registered mail) o check, money order, international bank draft (payable in U.S. dollars) o credit card (VISA or MasterCard; minimum order $100). Be sure to state in your order which CDROMs you want and include the appropriate shipping and handling as indicated above. As with the floppy distributions, funds not immediately used will go into an escrow account (fully refundable at any time), to be charged against as CDROMs are shipped. If you already have an account for the floppy distribution, you can transfer to the CDROM account, and automatically switch over to the CDROM distribution, by simply notifying me that this is what you'd like to do. Currently I can only accept MasterCard or VISA orders if they are $100 or more. I'm trying to work out an arrangement that would let me handle smaller amounts. I'll post a followup message if this becomes reality, but it probably won't happen until early September. Please include a statement with your order that you agree to have the charge made to your card before delivery of the CDROMs, subject to full refund on demand of any unused portion. If you FAX in a order, please sign it somewhere. Since I prefer to have a hardcopy on file somewhere of all orders received, I'm not accepting email'd orders, with payment via credit card, at this time. HYPERMEDIA CONCEPTS CDROM V1.7 ------------------------------ The next Hypermedia Concepts "Fred Fish Collection on CD ROM" disk, version 1.7, should be available by mid September. By special arrangement with Hypermedia Concepts, this update will be available from me under the same conditions as the other CDROM disks, and can be one of the four or more disks preordered by Sept 1st to get the special $15 + S&H rate. FAVORITE and MOST USED PROGRAMS ------------------------------- One section of the monthly CDROM will be devoted to containing programs that are likely to be useful to a large segment of Amiga users, with a slight bias towards developers. They will be in a ready to run form; I.E. you will not have to copy them off of the CDROM onto your hard drive (though of course you can if you want). In fact, getting them off of the hard drive to free up space is part of the motivation for including them in a ready to run form. I'm soliciting input from the user community for tools that you'd most like to see available on the CDROM. Some of the more obvious ones that come to mind are GNU Emacs, GNU C / C++, TeX, etc. If you submit the name of something you'd like to see put on the CDROM, try to tell me where you think the latest version is available from (ftp site name plus directory path is fine). REDISTRIBUTION and COMPILATION COPYRIGHT ---------------------------------------- Free Redistribution Will Continue The library will continue to contain only freely redistributable software. That is, if a user wishes to take something off of the CDROM and distribute it directly to other users, or make it available for electronic access, no permission is needed from me to do so. Compilation Copyright I struggled quite a while with this issue. I've always explicitly disclaimed a compilation copyright on the floppy distribution, mostly to make it simple for users to redistribute complete floppies, or the collection as a whole. It would not have been feasible to have a single source for the floppy based distribution and have the library achieve the popularity that it has today. However, CDROMs change the entire picture. It is anticipated that there will eventually be almost an order of magnitude more time and effort put into acquiring and organizing the material on each month's CDROM, than what goes into the current floppy distribution. This is mostly because it is anticipated that there will eventually be an order of magnitude more material to organize. So instead of 50 hours or so of work spread out over several weeks to organize the material on 10 floppy disks, it may take several people, working the equivalent of a full time job, several weeks to produce each CDROM. As with the floppy distribution, a significant percentage of the cost of each CDROM will go towards compensating various people for this labor. There will also be significantly higher fixed monthly costs associated with maintaining or contracting for the necessary equipment and software to produce CDROMs. In short, CDROMs may bring a slightly more commercial flavor to the library (at least at the point of origin) than what has been traditional in the past for the floppy based distribution. However I will still strive to keep costs down and produce a CDROM that is an excellent value for the price. I hope the user community will understand the need for this change. For these reasons, I have decided that the CDROM will have a compilation copyright, but the only restriction will be that it cannot be "cloned" and redistributed on CDROM or similarly priced optical media without prior permission, nor can it be used as the basis for generating a substantially similar CDROM distribution. There will of course be no restrictions on mounting the CDROM and making its contents widely available for electronic distribution, copying the entire contents of the CDROM to non-optical media such as hard drives or tape, or copying any of the contents to media of much smaller capacity like floppy disks. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS --------------------------------- If you have written a program that you would like to see appear in the library, I encourage you to submit it to me on floppy disk or 1/4" cartridge tape (for large submissions), along with a letter indicating you would like to see it included in the library. If you have internet access you can notify me that it is available on a particular site via ftp, and I will attempt to retrieve it from there. However I'd still like to have a physical letter on file indicating that you give permission for it to be included in the library, and in particular, have no objections to it being included on CDROM distributions. In the future, no material which restricts distribution on CDROM will be accepted into either the floppy or CDROM based library. You can increase the chances of your submission being accepted by following a few simple guidelines: o Don't submit bootable disks or disks with any other proprietary material included, since I then have to go examine each file to decide if it is distributable or not, and if not, what effect removing it might have. o Organize the distribution in a manner similar to the library disk organization. I.E., place all files related to a particular program under a single directory on the disk. If there is more than one program per disk, place each one in its own directory. o Try to write a simple entry for the "Contents" listing that summarizes your submission. It should be about 3-10 lines, and include the current version number, the version and disk number of the most recent version (if any) that was last included in the library, whether or not source is included, and an "Author" list. o Ensure that your submission will run correctly from its subdirectory and that it does not depend upon the name of the disk or whether the disk is writable (for CDROMs). If necessary, supply a script runnable from workbench (via c:IconX) that makes all necessary assigns, copies fonts and libraries, etc. SHAREWARE --------- The prefered method for shareware to be included in the library is for it to be submitted directly by the author. However, shareware acquired from other sources (such as third party submissions or electronic services such as via ftp) will be considered if it appears that the author wishes it to be widely distributed and there are no specific prohibitions against inclusion in libraries such as this one. The intent is not to exclude shareware received from other sources, but simply to ensure that the author has no objections to its inclusion. CD32 and CDTV COMPATIBILITY --------------------------- Nothing has been decided yet about this issue, since I don't know anything about it yet, other than you have to pay a royalty of about $3 per CDROM to Commodore to include the necessary software/files on the CDROM. I don't know exactly what this buys you, or if it is important to a large percentage of the potential subscriber base. More info later as things become clearer. INFORMATION OVERLOAD -------------------- Some people have expressed concern that a monthly CDROM, containing as much as 100Mb or more of new material, is too much too often. I'm expecting that the advantages of having all the new material on one media, having better methods of indexing the material, and having the material in ready to use form, will alleviate the problem of information overload. One goal is to have the material organized so that someone can get a pretty good idea of what they are interested in, and what they are not, within the first 30 minutes or so of playing with the CDROM. GIVING THE LIBRARY A FACELIFT ----------------------------- One of the things I'd like to do with the CDROM distribution is come up with a better look and feel for the library. I.E. prettier icons for the standard files, directories, etc, and using the standard system tools where appropriate. If you have artistic ability and would like to participate in this, please contact me for further details. GROUP CDROM DRIVE PURCHASE -------------------------- A significant number of people that responded to my questionaire posted on usenet indicated that they did not currently have a CDROM drive but would consider purchasing one to use the CDROM distributions. Over the next few weeks I'll investigate the possibility of organizing a group buy for CDROM drives to get the best possible price on a new, high quality, drive. Preliminary investigation reveals that we can probably get about 200 Toshiba 3101 drives for around $250/drive, 150 Toshiba 3301 drives for around $350/drive, and an unlimited quantity of the new Toshiba 3401 drives for around $450/drive. A software driver, if you don't already have one, will probably run about $40. More information will be supplied as it becomes available. If you are interested in this option, be sure and let me know. That's it for now folks. -Fred ====================================================================== |\/ o\ Fred Fish, 1835 E. Belmont Drive, Tempe, AZ 85284, USA |/\__/ 1-602-491-0048 (voice or FAX) fnf@fishpond.cygnus.com ======================================================================