On Wednesday 12 April 2006 00:06, Annamalai Gurusami wrote: > My question is this. Why doesn't Debian GNU/Linux sell distribution > CDs? What about Debian Distribution Subscription? What is the > rationale behind not selling? Ethics. Read the Debian Social Contract at http://www.debian.org/social_contract to find out more. There is nothing that necessarily precludes Debian from selling CDs in distributed form, however, Debian seems more interested in building a community of distributors, consultants, users and developers that to do so would undermine Debian's own effort to some degree. Many distributors and consultants do donate money and equipment to Debian: Gift societies are the only place where the trickle-down theory works as advertised. > The FreeBSD project has this kind of revenue generation. I can buy > their distribution CDs. I can also buy user guide and administrators > guide (books). You can get the guides online for free in Debian. > The purchaser (user) would also have the satisfaction of supporting > the project by paying for obtaining a copy of the distribution. This > reason alone should be sufficient for putting in place and way of > selling the distribution. > > What are your thoughts? Instead of wasting all kinds of effort on setting up supply lines that might not ever see demand, it seems more productive to me to stay the course of improving the methods of distribution actually used. And if you want to have money go to Debian, it's better to give directly instead of looking for the "Every N dollars from purchase gets donated" type prize in the box. http://www.debian.org/donations -- Paul Johnson Email and IM (XMPP & Google Talk): baloo@ursine.ca Jabber: Because it's time to move forward http://ursine.ca/Ursine:Jabber
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