I am a member of PESS, a shareware distribution group which shares some
duplicating costs and postal fees, but is not an organization in the
sense of sharing profits. As a general rule, duplicating disks properly
at home will run about $2/disk, assuming that you format, copy on the
data, and verify, print labels and attach them, etc. Then you have
ordering costs (ie time) and shipping cost ($ and time).

I charge $2/disk and $5/order for "free" disks, and that just about
covers labor, materials, shipping, and equipment wear. You don't get
someone reliable (at least in my area) for minimum wage, you get them
for about $5 and hour after tax).

  Duplicating services have very little labor, machines designed for
long use, etc. They will not be all that cheap though, either. I would
consider the price mentioned to be a definite profit making effort, but
it's not nearly as high as several posters have implied.

  If you don't like it, compete. I was going to distribute one of the
releases, but the need to offer source shot the idea down. I like the
idea of public service, but I'm not a charity, and if I can't offer the
5 disk set, I can't offer Linux. I'm putting the tamu disk set of images
up on the BBS and calling it done.
-- 
bill davidsen, GE Corp. R&D Center; Box 8; Schenectady NY 12345
    I admit that when I was in school I wrote COBOL. But I didn't compile.

Digest #606 was caused by a mail loop, and is not archived