On Sunday 15 July 2007 18.08:01 Balu V wrote: > But its not a problem though! I would still like to know more about > Debian, because after graduation, I want to work mainly in the open > source industry. Reading your questions below, it seems to me that you do not yet know what Free Software / Open Source is about. Answering your specific questions: > About publicity, I'm curious as to how you guys let > people know that so and so Debian products are available, Debian has a mailing list (debian-announce) that is ultimately the official source where new releases of the Debian GNU/Linux system are announced. > and are much > better than corporate stuff? Debian (the project, as organised under the vague umbrella of SPI and lead by the Debian Project Leader) does not have a policy of comparing Debian with other products or projects. You will find any number of comparisons (by various criteria and of wildly different quality), but they are written by third parties. > Where do you mainly get the funding from for > the publicity? The Debian project gets funding mostly from donations, but as far as I know no project money is being spent on publicity. The closest you could come is that some money may be spent occasionally to faciliate setting up booths at exhibitions and getting people and stuff there, but mostly exhibitions offer booths for free to Free Software project. (Others may correct me here, though.) > And which media (or medium) are the main source (internet, > tv etc.) of advertizing Debian products? The Debian project does not advertise. There is the main website, but its main purpose is not advertising Debian, but offering useful information. > Also, I'm curious as to how open source survives even after most of its > products being free of cost? This question demonstrates, to me, that you seem to not yet understand how Free Software works. I suggest that you read up about it some more, for example: * http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html * http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/ * any good Book on the history of Unix * http://opensource.org/ (in particular http://opensource.org/docs/osd) * some of the links in this google query may be helpful: <http://www.google.com/search?q=why+does+opensource+work> Debian specific: * http://www.debian.org/intro/free * http://www.debian.org/social_contract It's very important to know that all of these links (and this is especially true for the first two, although they are sometimes called "foundataion documents" of the Free Software/Open Source movement) are just opinions or perceptions of their authors. But better than all reading: go to the nearest Linux / open-source event taking place near you, and talk to people. I hope this sheds some light on your questions greetings Adrian -- Could this mail be a fake? (Answer: No! - http://fortytwo.ch/gpg/intro)
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