You are confusing Red Hat with the product they distribute. The FTC would consider this a nonissue, as the product is as freely available as leaves on the ground in the fall and purchase of the company would suppress nothing.
Please, please, please stop thinking of Linux in conventional market terms. They do not apply.
Which is why it would be lunacy for Microsoft to purchase Red Hat. It would make far more sense to "pull a Mandrake" and brand their own distro.
. ..by using Freenet you are being FORCED to distribute it.
Doctor, it hurts when I go like this.
As the faq itself notes no one is forcing you to do anything. If you are not comfortable with the idea of absolute free speech, do not run Freenet since that's what it's all about. It's that simple.
And that is the issue with truely free speech you understand? It's inherently an all or none sort of deal.
And I see any particular impediment to your writing your own "Kinda, sorta Free around the edges accept for the stuff we don't like Net."
If you think that will protect you from the powers-that-be though you aren't paying attention. One power's kiddy porn is another power's freedom tract.
. ..they might learn something about OS design . ..
They already know plenty about OS design and the core architechture of NT/XP was designed by one of the best in the business.
The problem is that MS is not a design company. They are a marketing company and this "informs" their end product to its detriment.
Anyone out there ever had the experience of crafting something really fine, and then having the marketing department get their hands on it and turn it into a steaming pile?
. ..because the ad told you it was the best selling, don't you?
Come on, admit it. "Most used" isn't a criteria for Open Source development. MS has very, very little to teach OSS, because they are innately in different worlds. Stop with the "market think" already.
If, and when, Linux takes over as the most used OS it will be as a side effect. If it does not take over, well, then at least it's a better alternative freely available to anyone.
Mercedes doesn't feel any obligation to make Escort knockoffs just because more of them are sold, and they are market driven.
From now on he's going to be known as Tony the Panthera tigris, and all Esso (remember them?) advertising collections will confiscated and redacted to read "Put a panthera tigris in your tank."
Of course America's entry into WWII was not really sparked by the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 as most people think, but by TigerDirect getting pissed off by Hitler's Tiger Program launched the previous May. TigerDirect argued that the tank's intended use in Blitzkrieg warfare, bringing them "direct" to you was an obvious complete ripoff.
Tune in later when we'll have the latest news on Pathera Tigris Woods, that bastard who keeps getting first page Google rankings.
The species, of course, will now be known by the common name of "That big strippy cat thingy" to knock them out of the first hit slot for the word "Tiger."
It's disturbing enough that there are people out there eating rodents.
North American rodents quite commonly found on someone's dinner table include, porcupine, squirrel, woodchuck, prarie dog, marmot, and yes, beaver (he, he!)
Just because you can't find it wrapped in plastic and the Grand Union or Piggly Wiggly don't mean it ain't damn good eatin'.
I suppose you're going to get really weirded out when I mention that there are huge swaths of the US where a good cicada "hatch" is considered a bit of a tasty holiday time.
The fact that it's your money, not theirs, and the fact that saving money makes it looks like they can stand to have their budget cut instead of increased.
How/who would I approach for making PC Boards and such? We are creating a network-controlled fluorescent ballast (like DALI)
That's a field I'm largely ignorant of. I've played around in it, but only doing hand hacking, so I'm clueless about who is likely already making product you could just buy, which would be the ideal way to do it. Ballast making is a fairly specialized field that goes beyond circuitry. However, see my closing statement.
In the old days I would have spent a few days knocking on doors at the WTC. Now I simply Google. The WTC has fallen. The internet has risen. They're all out there on it, vying for your attention.
Linksys routers . . . do you know how we could re-brand that?
That's a sticky wicket, because of course Cisco/Linksys holds their manufacturing as a trade secret. Look over one of the bare boards. There might be a tiny little maker's mark on it somewhere. Then you have to do some research to find the company that matches the mark. Then you simply contact the company over the internet (quite possibly through an already existing American agent) and ask if they supply the same board in bulk, or at least some workalike product.
I know z-com, http://www.zcom.com.tw/, in Taiwan is the actual designer and manufacturer of Netgear routers. You might want to start with them. It's even possible they are the source of Linksys stuff.
Then there's the more expensive, down and dirty way. Simply find your best price of Linksys routers at wholesale, buy a lot, rip out the boards. Stick your label on 'em. Some people get "itchy" about doing this, because they think there is something inviolate about a brand label, but it's really no different than buying the boards direct, other than your unit cost possibly being a bit higher (although it might well turn out to be the same, or even a bit lower, because you are leveraging Cisco's bulk buying power that way. People only assume that buying direct is cheaper. It often isn't. In fact, I've often found it cheaper to buy at retail for small lots than to buy at wholesale. NiCad batteries come to mind as a place where this is often true, because the retailer buys at a wholesale price low enough that they can offer retail prices lower than small lot wholesale. Think about this issue. Think about it hard. Do your research. Don't be afraid to do what works, rather than what you think of as the "conventional" approach).
". ..right now, I'm stuck soldering them myself -- with a toaster oven - whimper, but for qty 1-10, I'm not sure of another way"
You might also want to check out ExpressPCB, http://www.expresspcb.com/, 3 prototype boards for as little as 51 bucks. So much for getting into hardware manufacturing as being expensive. That's about the same as it cost me to crank out my first three plastic flutes with a hand chucked drill bit, an Exacto knife and a bit of sandpaper. Bulk orders get much cheaper. IBM and Lucent use them to make their products.
I'm telling you, the Asians have supplying services to people such as yourself, and even just the woodshed putterer, down to a fucking science and anyone who can afford a Java book can afford to have custom made PC boards. (Notice that their website very carefully avoids giving much of any clue as to where they are actually located? That's a clue).
If any of this proves useful, profitable, or just saves you a few bucks/hours, I drink cognac and sake; and I'm perfectly comfortable with the idea of "singing for my supper." I do it all the time.
Never underestimate social forces. Yes, the knights went out of business, but they did not do so overknight. Long bows, crossbows, and yes, even firearms had been in use for centuries before the knightly orders were disbanded.
We have tactical nuclear weapons right now, but we do not use them because of social forces. The use of depleted uranium in ordnance is highly controversial, to say the least. The same went for the crossbow for some time. It was internationally recognized as an "unethical" weapon, and those who went against the social stricuture were likely to find themselves in a world of enemies for having done so.
Read about the Battle of Thermopylae. Yeah, ultimately the 300 Spartans, who eschewed the use of bows on chivalric grounds, were cut down by archery fire, but not until the battle had raged hand to hand for some days. There was a purely social aversion to winning with archers, even amongst those who valued and used them. Relying on them impuned ones ablity to win by merit of force.
It was considered important not simply to win, but to do so by physically beating the crap out of your opponant, and Xerxes only resorted to archers when the 300 proved an embaressment by successfully opposing his hundreds of thousands by pure might of arm. In other words the embaressment of using archers eventually became a lesser embaressment than than being shown to be physically (and by implication, morally, in a might makes right society) weak.
The first known military unit commisioned and armed with handheld firearms was formed in the early 1300s. The knightly orders lasted for another 300 years or so, and the concepts of chivalry were at their peak at that later time.
And then they fell. Almost overnight. Not because of the existence of crossbows and firearms, but because there was a great change in society that made chivalry a pathetic and dead concept. Even the concept of an aristocracy was dealt a mortal blow, and it should be noted that projectile weapons are weapons of the "masses."
If you want to differentiate your hardware you won't do it by slapping your logo on someone else's design.
Go talk to Netgear and Dell. This is exactly what they do. Go talk to the soap trade. The entire industry is built around doing this, or, as per my above post, violin companies, all of whom market a nearly identical 400 year old Italian design.
Some people want to start up a business that competes with that outsourcer in Asia.
What, are they nuts?! Doctor, it hurts when I go like this. If you want to start a manufacturing business that competes with the Asian factories, but you only have $10k in capital available, then what you can do is . ..abandon that idea and come up with another that you can do for only $10K.
As it happens I make simple flutes, entirely in America and entirely out of American materials. I compete with the Pakistani flute makers, who you can find all over ebay, because my capital outlay came to less than $50 (which is the very reason the Pakistanis are making flutes instead of aircraft carriers). I did not go into the video card manufacturing business because it would cost more than $50. Don't decide what business you want. Decide what business you can afford. It's a pretty simple concept and the very point of the Slashdot article. Your suggestion is thus, in fact, off topic.
. ..you still have a lot of infrastructure required to do it.
Yeah, you need some means of getting to and from the store. Most of that infrastructure is socialized. Roads, the internet, etc. The same infrastructure as is needed by the software trade (that book on Java is a manufactured good, by the way, as is your computer. All businesses require manufacturing infrastructure to support them. Even "mowing" lawns with sheep).
Other than that all you need is the capital to purchase your first unit. A brown truck will even bring it right to your basement window.
. . . it costs quite a bit to outsource overseas. Big companies can do it successfully because they can move the volume needed to realize the possible efficiencies. Small companies have a much, much harder time with it.
It costs no more than whatever the per unit cost is times the number of units you order. If a unit costs $110 than you need invest no more than $110 to start outsourcing. You have missed my point that outsourcing doesn't mean setting up a factory in a foreign country. The factories are already there pumping out product like crazy. They have invested the captial to set up manufacturing and you simply place an order for the product, which they offer for sale to the open market.
A small company has a "harder time of it" in that the big company can "realize the possible efficiencies" by placing a larger order and only paying $$100 per unit instead of my $110.
But it still only costs you, the small startup, $110 for your first product.
I guess anyone can buy a white box and slap their logo on it...is that a viable start-up or long-term business?
My Creative DVD decoder card isn't made by Creative. It isn't "made for them" in some foreign factory that they have contracted to make their design. It is a Hollywood decoder card that Creative simply buys and puts a Creative decal on.
Dell is a whitebox seller. Nothing more. Nothing less. They make absolutely nothing. They outsource everything. These days usually including the assembly. They purchase their computers ready made from China through outlets now available to anyone.
Are Dell and Creative viable long term businesses?
For small volumes the quickest and simplest way to outsource is to simply go to the store and buy some stuff off the shelf, although your per unit cost may go up that way (although in some instances it may well go down quite dramatically because of the economies of scale available to the retailer. It is cheaper for me, for instance, to buy rough flute bodies at retail from a brick and mortar than it is to order them directly from the manufacturer.)
I did not choose the odd $110 figure at random. That is my per unit cost for outsourcing violin making to a factory in China. I purchase violins "in the white" from them through their already existing American agent, and finish the manufacturing by hand here, then put my label on them.
I started doing this in, yes, my mom's basement. Rent free. You can do it on the kitchen table of your apartment. There is nothing in the world more commditized than the student violin. You differentiate your product through branding and marketing.
Marketing is always the highest cost of doing any business, even a software business looking to be acquired before "selling a product" because the business is the product and you need to market it to the potential acquirers.
Violin making is a somewhat expensive business to get into, even outsourcing the rough manufaturing to a factory in China. My capital outlay was a couple thousand.
Simple flute making my total captial expenditures came to less than $50 by the time I had made my first profit.
If I wish to expand my market my costs will skyrocket. Because of the marketing expenditures. Marketing costs swamp manufaturing costs.
But that's the thing about hardware. You can start selling it right away. It has certain up front costs, but generates money quickly, so the total upfront costs to get started are no more, and may be considerably less, than a software startup. The hareware business fires itself on its own shavings, like a steam planer.
If you want to know what it takes to get into the software business, sure, talk to Mr. Graham, but if you want to know what it takes to get into the hardware business go talk to Mr. Dell, who grossed $6 million in his first year, starting from making white boxes on a card table.
And it was harder and more expensive to do it back then because
If you review my past posts you will find me railing against the use of "value" and "price" as if they are synonyms.
It ain't my fault we live in a culture that is so business oriented that the language no longer has a clear way to make such fine distinctions without linguistic machinations and the intended meaning was clear in the context of "make money" supplied to me by the post to which I was responding.
I am making an assumption from your closing sentence that this is the concept at which you are driving, as your opening sentence makes little sense on its own.
However, yes, I would argue that profit is a null concept in science, other than the profit of personal discovery. Any practical use is irrelevant to the process, including cures for cancer, most of which research is being conducted in the hopes of making a fucking killing in the marketplace.
And it's entirely likely, in fact even probable, that the cure for cancer will come not out of the cancer research labs, but from some totally unexpected corner of biological research done entirely to scratch someone's personal itch. I have no idea whether that research will be done in a lab, on the back of a cocktail napkin, or come in a flash of insight inspired by a Jackson Pollack painting.
The itch scratching is the profit. The cure is incidental, although certain individuals, and perhaps society as a whole, may well coincidentally profit from it. That is the way of science.
Here's an idea to chew on though. It is possible that the end result of cancer research will be a proof that there is no cure for cancer in the strictest technical sense of the word.
Are web based startups different from hardware manufacturing startups?
No, not really. You buy the product from Asia, slap your decal on it, then market it on the web.
Hardly anybody even designs the shit over here anymore. It's all just branding and marketing. Look up the fiasco about the Netgear backdoor. Netgear themselves had no idea it was there, because they neither built nor designed the unit.
How do you think China has built of a dollar cash reserve of $600 billion in just a few years?
Slashdot Mirror
. . .would be laughed out by the FTC. :)
You are confusing Red Hat with the product they distribute. The FTC would consider this a nonissue, as the product is as freely available as leaves on the ground in the fall and purchase of the company would suppress nothing.
Please, please, please stop thinking of Linux in conventional market terms. They do not apply.
Which is why it would be lunacy for Microsoft to purchase Red Hat. It would make far more sense to "pull a Mandrake" and brand their own distro.
KFG
"And I don't see any particular impediment"
The "don't" got lost in an edit.
KFG
. . .by using Freenet you are being FORCED to distribute it.
Doctor, it hurts when I go like this.
As the faq itself notes no one is forcing you to do anything. If you are not comfortable with the idea of absolute free speech, do not run Freenet since that's what it's all about. It's that simple.
And that is the issue with truely free speech you understand? It's inherently an all or none sort of deal.
And I see any particular impediment to your writing your own "Kinda, sorta Free around the edges accept for the stuff we don't like Net."
If you think that will protect you from the powers-that-be though you aren't paying attention. One power's kiddy porn is another power's freedom tract.
KFG
. . .they might learn something about OS design . . .
They already know plenty about OS design and the core architechture of NT/XP was designed by one of the best in the business.
The problem is that MS is not a design company. They are a marketing company and this "informs" their end product to its detriment.
Anyone out there ever had the experience of crafting something really fine, and then having the marketing department get their hands on it and turn it into a steaming pile?
Well, that's Microsoft all over.
KFG
This different is not subtle. . .
Indeed, it means that the person who uploaded the show has done something wrong.
KFG
. . .because the ad told you it was the best selling, don't you?
Come on, admit it. "Most used" isn't a criteria for Open Source development. MS has very, very little to teach OSS, because they are innately in different worlds. Stop with the "market think" already.
If, and when, Linux takes over as the most used OS it will be as a side effect. If it does not take over, well, then at least it's a better alternative freely available to anyone.
Mercedes doesn't feel any obligation to make Escort knockoffs just because more of them are sold, and they are market driven.
KFG
There was stagflation and high unemployment. The cold war was in full swing. The Chinese were butchering Tibetans left and right.
And don't forget the oil crises and a very tense state of affairs in the middle east.
My, how times have changed.
KFG
From now on he's going to be known as Tony the Panthera tigris, and all Esso (remember them?) advertising collections will confiscated and redacted to read "Put a panthera tigris in your tank."
Of course America's entry into WWII was not really sparked by the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 as most people think, but by TigerDirect getting pissed off by Hitler's Tiger Program launched the previous May. TigerDirect argued that the tank's intended use in Blitzkrieg warfare, bringing them "direct" to you was an obvious complete ripoff.
Tune in later when we'll have the latest news on Pathera Tigris Woods, that bastard who keeps getting first page Google rankings.
The species, of course, will now be known by the common name of "That big strippy cat thingy" to knock them out of the first hit slot for the word "Tiger."
KFG
It's disturbing enough that there are people out there eating rodents.
North American rodents quite commonly found on someone's dinner table include, porcupine, squirrel, woodchuck, prarie dog, marmot, and yes, beaver (he, he!)
Just because you can't find it wrapped in plastic and the Grand Union or Piggly Wiggly don't mean it ain't damn good eatin'.
I suppose you're going to get really weirded out when I mention that there are huge swaths of the US where a good cicada "hatch" is considered a bit of a tasty holiday time.
KFG
You're the sort of guy who's going to cause trouble when I discover your house, aren't you?
KFG
What have they got against saving money?
The fact that it's your money, not theirs, and the fact that saving money makes it looks like they can stand to have their budget cut instead of increased.
KFG
. . .unix/linux administrators cost companies more money. . .
And specifically because there is a shortage of them. Supply and demand.
KFG
You watched a lot of Charles Bronson movies as a kid, didn't you?
KFG
Excuse me now while I blow my brains out with a shotgun
Now that might well be funny, but it's a bit more Rowan Atkinson that Python.
KFG
How/who would I approach for making PC Boards and such? We are creating a network-controlled fluorescent ballast (like DALI)
.right now, I'm stuck soldering them myself -- with a toaster oven - whimper, but for qty 1-10, I'm not sure of another way"
That's a field I'm largely ignorant of. I've played around in it, but only doing hand hacking, so I'm clueless about who is likely already making product you could just buy, which would be the ideal way to do it. Ballast making is a fairly specialized field that goes beyond circuitry. However, see my closing statement.
In the old days I would have spent a few days knocking on doors at the WTC. Now I simply Google. The WTC has fallen. The internet has risen. They're all out there on it, vying for your attention.
Linksys routers . . . do you know how we could re-brand that?
That's a sticky wicket, because of course Cisco/Linksys holds their manufacturing as a trade secret. Look over one of the bare boards. There might be a tiny little maker's mark on it somewhere. Then you have to do some research to find the company that matches the mark. Then you simply contact the company over the internet (quite possibly through an already existing American agent) and ask if they supply the same board in bulk, or at least some workalike product.
I know z-com, http://www.zcom.com.tw/, in Taiwan is the actual designer and manufacturer of Netgear routers. You might want to start with them. It's even possible they are the source of Linksys stuff.
Then there's the more expensive, down and dirty way. Simply find your best price of Linksys routers at wholesale, buy a lot, rip out the boards. Stick your label on 'em. Some people get "itchy" about doing this, because they think there is something inviolate about a brand label, but it's really no different than buying the boards direct, other than your unit cost possibly being a bit higher (although it might well turn out to be the same, or even a bit lower, because you are leveraging Cisco's bulk buying power that way. People only assume that buying direct is cheaper. It often isn't. In fact, I've often found it cheaper to buy at retail for small lots than to buy at wholesale. NiCad batteries come to mind as a place where this is often true, because the retailer buys at a wholesale price low enough that they can offer retail prices lower than small lot wholesale. Think about this issue. Think about it hard. Do your research. Don't be afraid to do what works, rather than what you think of as the "conventional" approach).
". .
You might also want to check out ExpressPCB, http://www.expresspcb.com/, 3 prototype boards for as little as 51 bucks. So much for getting into hardware manufacturing as being expensive. That's about the same as it cost me to crank out my first three plastic flutes with a hand chucked drill bit, an Exacto knife and a bit of sandpaper. Bulk orders get much cheaper. IBM and Lucent use them to make their products.
I'm telling you, the Asians have supplying services to people such as yourself, and even just the woodshed putterer, down to a fucking science and anyone who can afford a Java book can afford to have custom made PC boards. (Notice that their website very carefully avoids giving much of any clue as to where they are actually located? That's a clue).
If any of this proves useful, profitable, or just saves you a few bucks/hours, I drink cognac and sake; and I'm perfectly comfortable with the idea of "singing for my supper." I do it all the time.
If none of it does, well, I tried.
KFG
I was dubious about anybody getting it, even here.
KFG
A download total number (used for marketing) is essentially used as a "vote of confidence".
Damn straight! I have so much confidence in it I downloaded it 79 million times just to let them know how much I appreciate it.
KFG
The good news is, the *third* derivative is positive. . .
What a jerk.
KFG
Guess I've been doing too much mind melding with the Horta.
KFG
Never underestimate social forces. Yes, the knights went out of business, but they did not do so overknight. Long bows, crossbows, and yes, even firearms had been in use for centuries before the knightly orders were disbanded.
We have tactical nuclear weapons right now, but we do not use them because of social forces. The use of depleted uranium in ordnance is highly controversial, to say the least. The same went for the crossbow for some time. It was internationally recognized as an "unethical" weapon, and those who went against the social stricuture were likely to find themselves in a world of enemies for having done so.
Read about the Battle of Thermopylae. Yeah, ultimately the 300 Spartans, who eschewed the use of bows on chivalric grounds, were cut down by archery fire, but not until the battle had raged hand to hand for some days. There was a purely social aversion to winning with archers, even amongst those who valued and used them. Relying on them impuned ones ablity to win by merit of force.
It was considered important not simply to win, but to do so by physically beating the crap out of your opponant, and Xerxes only resorted to archers when the 300 proved an embaressment by successfully opposing his hundreds of thousands by pure might of arm. In other words the embaressment of using archers eventually became a lesser embaressment than than being shown to be physically (and by implication, morally, in a might makes right society) weak.
The first known military unit commisioned and armed with handheld firearms was formed in the early 1300s. The knightly orders lasted for another 300 years or so, and the concepts of chivalry were at their peak at that later time.
And then they fell. Almost overnight. Not because of the existence of crossbows and firearms, but because there was a great change in society that made chivalry a pathetic and dead concept. Even the concept of an aristocracy was dealt a mortal blow, and it should be noted that projectile weapons are weapons of the "masses."
We call that social change "The Plauge."
KFG
If you want to differentiate your hardware you won't do it by slapping your logo on someone else's design.
.abandon that idea and come up with another that you can do for only $10K.
.you still have a lot of infrastructure required to do it.
Go talk to Netgear and Dell. This is exactly what they do. Go talk to the soap trade. The entire industry is built around doing this, or, as per my above post, violin companies, all of whom market a nearly identical 400 year old Italian design.
Some people want to start up a business that competes with that outsourcer in Asia.
What, are they nuts?! Doctor, it hurts when I go like this. If you want to start a manufacturing business that competes with the Asian factories, but you only have $10k in capital available, then what you can do is . .
As it happens I make simple flutes, entirely in America and entirely out of American materials. I compete with the Pakistani flute makers, who you can find all over ebay, because my capital outlay came to less than $50 (which is the very reason the Pakistanis are making flutes instead of aircraft carriers). I did not go into the video card manufacturing business because it would cost more than $50. Don't decide what business you want. Decide what business you can afford. It's a pretty simple concept and the very point of the Slashdot article. Your suggestion is thus, in fact, off topic.
. .
Yeah, you need some means of getting to and from the store. Most of that infrastructure is socialized. Roads, the internet, etc. The same infrastructure as is needed by the software trade (that book on Java is a manufactured good, by the way, as is your computer. All businesses require manufacturing infrastructure to support them. Even "mowing" lawns with sheep).
Other than that all you need is the capital to purchase your first unit. A brown truck will even bring it right to your basement window.
KFG
. . . it costs quite a bit to outsource overseas. Big companies can do it successfully because they can move the volume needed to realize the possible efficiencies. Small companies have a much, much harder time with it.
It costs no more than whatever the per unit cost is times the number of units you order. If a unit costs $110 than you need invest no more than $110 to start outsourcing. You have missed my point that outsourcing doesn't mean setting up a factory in a foreign country. The factories are already there pumping out product like crazy. They have invested the captial to set up manufacturing and you simply place an order for the product, which they offer for sale to the open market.
A small company has a "harder time of it" in that the big company can "realize the possible efficiencies" by placing a larger order and only paying $$100 per unit instead of my $110.
But it still only costs you, the small startup, $110 for your first product.
I guess anyone can buy a white box and slap their logo on it...is that a viable start-up or long-term business?
My Creative DVD decoder card isn't made by Creative. It isn't "made for them" in some foreign factory that they have contracted to make their design. It is a Hollywood decoder card that Creative simply buys and puts a Creative decal on.
Dell is a whitebox seller. Nothing more. Nothing less. They make absolutely nothing. They outsource everything. These days usually including the assembly. They purchase their computers ready made from China through outlets now available to anyone.
Are Dell and Creative viable long term businesses?
For small volumes the quickest and simplest way to outsource is to simply go to the store and buy some stuff off the shelf, although your per unit cost may go up that way (although in some instances it may well go down quite dramatically because of the economies of scale available to the retailer. It is cheaper for me, for instance, to buy rough flute bodies at retail from a brick and mortar than it is to order them directly from the manufacturer.)
I did not choose the odd $110 figure at random. That is my per unit cost for outsourcing violin making to a factory in China. I purchase violins "in the white" from them through their already existing American agent, and finish the manufacturing by hand here, then put my label on them.
I started doing this in, yes, my mom's basement. Rent free. You can do it on the kitchen table of your apartment. There is nothing in the world more commditized than the student violin. You differentiate your product through branding and marketing.
Marketing is always the highest cost of doing any business, even a software business looking to be acquired before "selling a product" because the business is the product and you need to market it to the potential acquirers.
Violin making is a somewhat expensive business to get into, even outsourcing the rough manufaturing to a factory in China. My capital outlay was a couple thousand.
Simple flute making my total captial expenditures came to less than $50 by the time I had made my first profit.
If I wish to expand my market my costs will skyrocket. Because of the marketing expenditures. Marketing costs swamp manufaturing costs.
But that's the thing about hardware. You can start selling it right away. It has certain up front costs, but generates money quickly, so the total upfront costs to get started are no more, and may be considerably less, than a software startup. The hareware business fires itself on its own shavings, like a steam planer.
If you want to know what it takes to get into the software business, sure, talk to Mr. Graham, but if you want to know what it takes to get into the hardware business go talk to Mr. Dell, who grossed $6 million in his first year, starting from making white boxes on a card table.
And it was harder and more expensive to do it back then because
If you review my past posts you will find me railing against the use of "value" and "price" as if they are synonyms.
It ain't my fault we live in a culture that is so business oriented that the language no longer has a clear way to make such fine distinctions without linguistic machinations and the intended meaning was clear in the context of "make money" supplied to me by the post to which I was responding.
I am making an assumption from your closing sentence that this is the concept at which you are driving, as your opening sentence makes little sense on its own.
However, yes, I would argue that profit is a null concept in science, other than the profit of personal discovery. Any practical use is irrelevant to the process, including cures for cancer, most of which research is being conducted in the hopes of making a fucking killing in the marketplace.
And it's entirely likely, in fact even probable, that the cure for cancer will come not out of the cancer research labs, but from some totally unexpected corner of biological research done entirely to scratch someone's personal itch. I have no idea whether that research will be done in a lab, on the back of a cocktail napkin, or come in a flash of insight inspired by a Jackson Pollack painting.
The itch scratching is the profit. The cure is incidental, although certain individuals, and perhaps society as a whole, may well coincidentally profit from it. That is the way of science.
Here's an idea to chew on though. It is possible that the end result of cancer research will be a proof that there is no cure for cancer in the strictest technical sense of the word.
And that discovery would be a profit.
KFG
Are web based startups different from hardware manufacturing startups?
No, not really. You buy the product from Asia, slap your decal on it, then market it on the web.
Hardly anybody even designs the shit over here anymore. It's all just branding and marketing. Look up the fiasco about the Netgear backdoor. Netgear themselves had no idea it was there, because they neither built nor designed the unit.
How do you think China has built of a dollar cash reserve of $600 billion in just a few years?
KFG
Rupert: Hey, Rupert. You're running that piece on Star Wars, right?
Rupert: Well, duh!
Rupert: Ok, don't get your knickers in a twist, I was just checking.
Rupert: No problemo, but, just to be safe, don't tell anyone we had this little chat. They might suspect a conspiracy.
Rupert: What chat? Who are you?
Rupert: Muahahahahah!
KFG