As an upgrader to mixed grill, I agree. I moved and I've been happy. I assume at some point I'll be asked to move again from the shared smart machines as they currently exist (which, as near as I can tell, are identical to the shared accelerators), and I'm cool with that.
But because you (Jason) appear to be actively monitoring this thread, I'm going to make a suggestion:
E-mail everyone on the old BSD textdrive servers and tell them that they really should migrate.
Tell the month-to-month customers that you're end-of-lifing that product and on February 29th of 2012 (because nothing ever happens on Feb 29th) it will no longer be there. If you like, offer them whatever account is similar to the one they're on with a 50% discount 1 year discount if they take you up on it in the next month, 25% the three months following that and 10% up to the 29th.
For the VC customers just tell it how it is. You will continue to support the systems for however long you need to, but the newer stuff is just better. You appreciate their trust in your company etc. but they will probably be happier with the shinier stuff if they migrate.
Then follow up every couple of months with another e-mail. You could even make it interesting and say what percentage of VCs have migrated, what cool new stuff is available to those who have moved etc. (though if you do that, I'd like to receive those e-mails too).
If you want to incentivize the move for the stragglers, go ahead, their bitching pisses me off anyway and if you can get them to move and STFU by offering them something I didn't get, that's fine by me.
But most importantly send an e-mail. Don't post on the forum, or on the blog, or the wiki. I know that the forum, RSS feeds and blog are how Joyent likes to communicate but e-mail goes into my inbox. If I don't pay attention to it I'm the only one to blame.
If two or three years down the line people still haven't migrated. EOL the BSD servers. I'm pretty confident the "lifetime" I paid for was for lifetime of hosting with particular storage, server access, and bandwidth levels, not lifetime of hosting on a single machine with a particular OS. I could be wrong, but I think it's reasonable to assume that your hosting provider will change technologies as time progresses. I also am happy if they keep on giving me higher quality service with no reoccurring fees.
But because you (Jason) appear to be actively monitoring this thread, I'm going to make a suggestion:
E-mail everyone on the old BSD textdrive servers and tell them that they really should migrate.
Tell the month-to-month customers that you're end-of-lifing that product and on February 29th of 2012 (because nothing ever happens on Feb 29th) it will no longer be there. If you like, offer them whatever account is similar to the one they're on with a 50% discount 1 year discount if they take you up on it in the next month, 25% the three months following that and 10% up to the 29th.
For the VC customers just tell it how it is. You will continue to support the systems for however long you need to, but the newer stuff is just better. You appreciate their trust in your company etc. but they will probably be happier with the shinier stuff if they migrate.
Then follow up every couple of months with another e-mail. You could even make it interesting and say what percentage of VCs have migrated, what cool new stuff is available to those who have moved etc. (though if you do that, I'd like to receive those e-mails too).
If you want to incentivize the move for the stragglers, go ahead, their bitching pisses me off anyway and if you can get them to move and STFU by offering them something I didn't get, that's fine by me.
But most importantly send an e-mail. Don't post on the forum, or on the blog, or the wiki. I know that the forum, RSS feeds and blog are how Joyent likes to communicate but e-mail goes into my inbox. If I don't pay attention to it I'm the only one to blame.
If two or three years down the line people still haven't migrated. EOL the BSD servers. I'm pretty confident the "lifetime" I paid for was for lifetime of hosting with particular storage, server access, and bandwidth levels, not lifetime of hosting on a single machine with a particular OS. I could be wrong, but I think it's reasonable to assume that your hosting provider will change technologies as time progresses. I also am happy if they keep on giving me higher quality service with no reoccurring fees.