[NTLUG:Discuss] Sorta OT: dvd

[Steve Baker]

Greg Edwards wrote:
> Steve Baker wrote:
> 
>>
>> For SuSE 9.2, you have your choice of shoveling five or six CD's into
>> the thing (which requires you to sit next to the machine for several
>> hours) - or putting in the DVD-ROM and getting on with your life while
>> it installs.  DVD drives are getting to be nearly as cheap as CD drives,
>> because in the end, they are almost identical in terms of components
>> and parts count.  It's just the natural evolution of the format.
>>
> 
> Remember that the M$ way is to force you to buy NEW hardware just to 
> upgrade.  I really hope that the OSS community isn't heading down that 
> path.  I've already got CDs and I don't want to HAVE to buy DVD drives 
> for all of my servers just to do the next upgrade.  If the transition to 
> DVD only is slow (several years) then I can live with it.  However, if 
> it is forced on us ;(

Of course - but we also have to recognise that there are limits to this.

If every distro also had to come with a crate containing 5,000 1.44Mb
floppies...well, you can see the problem!

Prerecorded CD's cost something like 50 cents - so if you were to ship
an 8Gb distro for $50, then 10% of the price would be going into supporting
what is essentially an obsolete media format.  If you only make a small
profit on distribution, that could easily make the difference between
a successful business and a bankrupt one!

Once the size of a typical Linux distro has grown to fill a couple of
pre-recorded DVD-ROMs, it'll be impractical to ship 22 CD's to provide
the same data for people without CD-ROM drives.

Then for applications like computer games, asking people to swap
CD's whenever they progress to another level would get old fast.
Doom3 comes on three CD-ROMs - it doesn't take much imagination
to realise that they'll be going to DVD-ROM pretty soon.

So there will come a time (pretty soon I suspect) when CD's will die
as a software distribution format - but by that time, DVD-ROM drives
will be down to $30 and CD-ROM drives will have quietly ceased to
be available.

---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
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