Re: Debian's relationship with money and the economy

[Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@debian.org>]

Hi,

On 12/03/13 at 12:06 +0100, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> my previous mail targeted the topic of using Debian's money
> (<[🔎] 20130312094330.GA30502@x230-buxy.home.ouaza.com>). But the topic
> of money in Debian does not have to be limited to that.
> 
> The Debian ecosystem includes many economical actors, be it companies
> or individuals, but we tend to hide those aspects as if they didn't
> exist.
> 
> Despite Debian's non-profit status, IMHO Debian's growth and success
> relies on the capacity of those "actors" to have some "economical
> success". And there are many ways to help those actors, without involving
> any direct flow of money from Debian to them, in particular at the
> press/publicity level.
> 
> When a project ultimately benefits to the Debian project, we should
> not fear to promote it even if that promotion helps the project
> initiator to make money (and IMO even more so when the project initiator
> is a Debian member).
> 
> Do you agree with this analysis and statement? If not, why?

I very much like the distinction between information and promotion that
Stefano made in
https://lists.debian.org/debian-publicity/2011/10/msg00022.html

And then, different media have different tolerance level. For example,
as long as someone mostly uses his/her blog to provide high quality
informational content about Debian, I'm not opposed to the use of the
same blog to promote sponsorship of such activities, even if I
understand that some people might differ.

I think I would generally be fine about an informational message in
Debian Project News about an fundraising campaign for something that
clearly benefits Debian. Btw, in the specific example of your book, have
you considered creating a Debian package for it?

However, I don't think that making Debian press releases about such
initiatives would generally be a good idea.

In any case, that's my opinion, but we have a delegated press team
anyway. See
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/03/msg00011.html

Lucas