Re: Fwd: [reiserfs-list] Viability of Open Source Business Models
On Tue, 11 Dec 2001 14:36, Sam Johnston wrote:
> http://www.everythinglinux.com.au sells 'debian donation' items at $1.00 a
> piece. Each one sold results in AUD1 being donated to debian. This is a
> great idea, although I don't know how well it would scale in terms of sites
> offering this 'service' and projects supported. In the mean time debian may
> want to say set up and advertise a paypal account or equivalent and/or
> publish bank account details for wire transfer. Actually I just read a
> bunch of reasons why not to use paypal so scratch that. Also a wish list of
> hardware, etc. would probably be useful.
>
> One thing that could be good for debian (aside from minimising the number
> of 'required' discs by marking all bar 1 'extra', 'optional',
> 'supplementary', etc. so as burnt/pressed cd's aren't triple the price of
> other distros) is to sell a boxed product to stores w/ 'donation' included
> (say $10 for packaging, $10 for debian and the rest for the reseller). Then
> you price it at, say, 1/6 of windows - ie AUD50 so as the reseller makes as
> much at 60% of AUD50 as they would selling linux as they would selling
> windows at 10% of AUD300).
It wouldn't gain Debian much really as we already have plenty of money put
aside with no definate plans for spending it. Until recently we received
donations of all necessary hardware and connectivity for hosting servers.
Not that the .com market has collapsed getting free hardware for the Debian
project is more difficult and purchase may be necessary.
The real issue is developer time. If there was some way for people to
directly fund developers then it would really help. The fact that most
developers are only able to contribute one day per week or less limits what
we can achieve.
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