Re: How could we give away Debian CDs/DVDs for free?
On 10/14/06, Jason Spiro <jasonspiro4+news@gmail.com> wrote:
This request reminds me of an idea I had:
What if we found some way to give away Debian CDs/DVDs to whoever wanted
them for free through the mail, like Ubuntu does?
The people to ask would be Ubuntu -- they know how much it costs to do
this; we can probably expect similiar demand.
We could either ship them from some central CD duplication plant, or we could
ship them from various places (this might also help cut down on customs fees).
Perhaps we could recoup the costs by somehow selling an IRC-, email-, or
phone-based for-fee tech support service. Perhaps the service could be
run partly or fully by volunteers. The service would be available in
addition to our current free support offerings.
Has anyone ever tried to set such a system up?
A number of companies have: Mepis, Skoelinux, Ubuntu.
Whilst it isn't uncommon for non-profit organisations to make money;
Debian is somewhat peculiar.
- it does not have legal status in most countries (we've tried to
delegate that to SPI but ...)
- in some countries (I speak principally of Australia), even though it
(Debian) has no legal status, there is still collective liability
- we have no "bank account" but a collection of funds held in trust
for us at various organisations
If only one of these were an impediment, I'd say it'd be 'doable' to
set this up -- with all of them (plus some others), I'd say that the
market for CD/DVD distribution is better handled by Mepis et al. or
other, local, CD vendors.
Also, if such a system would not be possible: Could we set up a standard
ordering form for users to buy Debian CDs at a fixed price from trusted,
reliable CD vendors from our "vendors" webpage? We could collect funds by
PayPal.
Paypal are evil but your idea of a standardised web-form is a good
one. The issue isn't buy in at our level though -- it is buy in from
the vendors.
They'll lose out on any branding, co-marketing and/or up-sell
opportunities they might have.
Regards,
Anand
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