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On 2/6/2014 5:59 PM, Andrew Lynch
wrote:
Hi
Jim! Thanks! Well you know we’ve discussed this before. I
am not anti-business by any stretch. Please try not to take
this as an insult but just my honest reaction.
Honestly, last time, when I asked for gerbers, I just received a
"thanks, but no". All of the following is good information, but
it's news to me.
The
only thing less appealing to me than starting my own
business or a non-profit organization is to be the
involuntary unpaid support staff for someone else’s
business.
To clarify, you're stating that if a commercial entity sells a board
at the same cost as you were charging, that's unacceptable?
That
is the root reason why I cringe at any sort of attempt to
commercialize or organize a formal N8VEM home brew computer
club organization.
Think
back in history to the original home brew computer club. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homebrew_Computer_Club
Did
they file paperwork to become a 501C3 non-profit
organization or open a storefront?
They have counterparts in today's world, and those groups are
sometimes both. It was a different time, then. A storefront would
have been a real one, need to be manned, and cost a lot of money.
Filing a 501c3 would have been a much more arduous process
pre-Internet, and no information (or little) would have been
available. I posit that the HCW would have set up a store today,
and would accept bitcoin :-)
They
were the incubator for the great founders of Silicon Valley
because they were basically one step away from anarchy the
whole time.
Yes, yes they were. But, I see them as visionaries as well. They
saw the value of putting technology into the hands of as many people
as possible. Also, remember that many of them played prominent
roles in the Internet culture we use today, a culture that allows
online stores and this forum.
It
is also why I am philosophically opposed to kitting and
assembled boards. Home brew computing is supposed to be
hard and difficult. It is not a toaster!
Hmmm, does the community agree? I admire your personal conviction,
but the median age of someone who cares about Z80s and CP/M is not
20, and many folks who find value in these endeavors are physically
handicapped or unable to solder. Would Woz have told a person
wanting a pre-assembled Apple I "no"? That the person needs to
learn how to solder, learn how to debug data busses, learn digital
logic? I doubt it. If the person said, "Woz, I'll pay for the
privilege of having you fully assemble my kit", he'd have done it,
because he wanted the computer in peoples' hands. In any case,
before folks say "it's OK, Jim, those of us on the list can assemble
one for Jim P., who's hands shake enough he needs to give up
soldering", let me note that these folks will not ask, because they
are humiliated and embarrassed that they could at one point do these
things, and now cannot, or that they never could and are now too old
to learn them (in their mind). They just suffer in silence, or move
onto something else.
You
become fully invested in your creation when you stay up all
night for days on end only to watch it burst into flames
when you power it up.
I think you can be fully invested in something in many ways. But, I
agree that bringing a system up from nothing is rewarding.
However
I fear we will lose something essential if it becomes just
another commercial enterprise.
I think that minimizes the effort. Even a "commercial enterprise"
such as mine is more than "just a". I buy old parts for stock to
help hobbyists, since I can afford to sit on the stock for years. I
buy new parts in bulk, because you can't, for example, buy C64 IEC
cables new anywhere anymore. I fund development activities, and
send boards out to people who want to write SW, but are low on
cash. I participate on forums, not just to answer questions on my
stuff, but to answer questions in general. I try to bring back
older HW that has been orphaned. All of that takes time and money,
and the proceeds from the sales fund those things. If the
"commercial enterprise" breaks even or shows a bit of a profit at
the end of the year, it's a great year, but it's not expected.
I'll be honest. I cringe at the emails that state "we have a great
new PCB design. I need 20 people to sign up to start this process"
not because of the email, but because of the uncertainty. If it's a
great new design, it needs to be made, and now! 20 people will
eventually show up. I cringe at the flurry of emails "Put me down
for one", because I know someone has to manually manage all of that,
and the payment, and the coordination, and the reminders, etc. I
cringe at someone hand cranking out mailing labels, hand figuring
overseas shipping costs. I cringe at that someone doing all of
these things when this someone (or someones) should be sitting at a
desk with a soldering iron, or writing some great new snippet of Z80
code (or 6502 of 386 code) to bring this new board to life. I
cringe at the lone enthusiast, struggling to source all of the parts
from 20 different places, and then just giving up. I cringe a bit
(no offense to folks in this thread) at the responses to this
forum: "Well, maybe we could adopt some boards", "are you sure we
can't just start doing payment another way", "what about this or
that". All of that brain activity, devoted to stepping around the
truth that the group should be playing with their new machines and
letting automation take care of the dirty jobs.
I realize my ideals and community ideals might be at odds, and
that's OK. I just wanted to suggest that there is a class of
commercial interest I think should be called "community commercial",
that serves to help address issues just like this. And, some of
them are educational in nature. The orders here, at least, are
filled by my 9 year old daughter, who asks every night "are there
orders tonight?" She gets paid for her efforts, has to ensure
orders are correct, and handles making sure things get done.
All that said, it seems Jack Rubin has made a nice offer, so maybe
that would work out.
Jim
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