From: schwager@mike.cs.uiuc.edu (Mike Schwager)
Subject: Re: to be or not to be
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 01:56:52 GMT



I will be sending this directly to Fred, also...

Personally, I'm not really surprised.  Whenever the funds get low on for
ux1, I start thinking, "Hmmm... how long am I going to keep this up?  What
am *I* getting out of the deal?  And if I feel this way, what is Fred
getting out of it?"  Actually, I had rather suspected Fred was making a
living off the Fish Disk distribution, especially with the number of disks
that have been coming out lately!  Ok, call me naive... :-)

I think it's up to Fred to decide what will ultimately make him happy.  I 
now have a mailing list of 273 people for the Fish disk announcements... if
each one of them sent $10 every time I asked for donations, I'd have $2700+
coming in.  As it is, I end up with about enough money within the space of
a month to order a new set of 100 disks, and then more money comes in
later.  Figure about $400 comes in per plea to the Net average.  Given
Fred's announcement, I don't know what we can reasonable expect from
Netoids.  If it were up to me, I'd say hey- let's indeed put our money
where our mouths are.  Fred has been nothing but generous to a fault for
the last 7 years now.  I thought he was just plain "generous", but now that
I find out he's making nary a cent I'd qualify him as "generous to a
fault" :-).  So, were it me I'd do something like this:

     1. Change the charges for disks:

     - The current rate chart for individual purchasers

     - Double, or triple the current rate chart for non-profit
       organizations (eg, Internet ftp archives)

     - Triple, or quadruple it for profitable (CD-ROM) organizations

     2. Change the README file, to encourage more people to become direct
        subscribers.

Also, if Fred is having time constraints, I might suggest he get some
reliable helpers amongst the Amiga community to sift through the incoming
software. I think that would be viable only with fast network connections
(both regionally and locally).  As Amiga users are the most dedicated and
fanatical of all computer users (and I say that with the utmost regard), I
think it would not be too hard for him to find people willing to go the
extra mile.  But the logistics of communication could be a problem...
Perhaps it could be divided by software types.  In the "Submissions" file,
as a start Fred could suggest sending programs with source code to Person
X, at 1985 Amiga St, Apt. 1000, Santa Clara CA.  And that person would sift
through all the source-code-included stuff.  Then see how it goes.  If it
goes well, another person could do sound and graphics, or whatever sort of
dividing makes sense.  I dunno, just an idea.

Really, I think Fred should at least get an Amiga show and a vacation per
year out of the deal.  I, too, would hate to see the Fish go the way of the
Dinosaur.  I would like to hear from Fred more specifics about what he
wants.  I don't think "encourage more people to subscribe" will work in the
long run.  People respond more readily to direct appeal or guidelines.
Then it is up to us to act responsibly and fairly.

So Fred, what do you think?  What would it take to keep things going?  75
subscribers again, or simply X dollars per month?

My $0.02... enjoy it! :-)

BTW, I will be contacting my mirrors to see if I can extract some dollars
out of them.
-Mike
Mike Schwager                 | Machine: Amiga 500, 3 MB RAM/52 HD
Address: schwager@cs.uiuc.edu | Bike: '83 Kawasaki KZ750 LTD      //
Band: Poi Dog Pondering       | Hero: Walt Whitman            \\ //
DoD: #0301                                                     \X/Amiga

U.S. Mail Address:
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Fish Archive Spots: (updated 1/11/93)
128.174.5.59    ftp.cso.uiuc.edu (disks from 50-current)
     Maintained by Mike Schwager (schwager@cs.uiuc.edu)
     (try not to use that number; it will change... use the hostname instead)
128.255.19.233 grind.isca.uiowa.edu  (all disks)
     Maintained by Michael T. Pins (amigapd@isca.uiowa.edu)
128.171.44.7 ftp.hawaii.edu (mirror of ux1: disks 001-current)
     Maintained by amiga@ftp.hawaii.edu (Baron) 
     The disks on ux1 say: "...I want to be a Fish Disk in Hawaii!" :-)
16.1.0.2 gatekeeper.dec.com has FF #1-600 or so in /pub/micro/amiga/fish
     Maintained by vixie@pa.dec.com   ... does not appear to be current
128.252.135.4 wuarchive.wustl.edu  has the newest in systems/amiga/fish/fish
     (Woah!  Now lots of disks at one of America's premier ftp sites!)
IN AUSTRALIA:
139.130.4.6     archie.au
     a mirror of wuarchive.wustl.edu?  Maintained by ???
IN EUROPE:
128.214.6.100 ftp.funet.fi carries all Fish disks in /pub/amiga/fish
     maintained by a cast of a dozen:  <amiga-adm@ftp.funet.fi>
137.226.112.172 ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
     /pub/amiga/fish/f?         Disks 600+
     /pub/amiga/fish/olddisks   Disks 1-600 (mounted from CDROM)
     Maintained by Stefan Becker
     <stefanb@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de>