how should we handle vendor advertising
To date we have been completely vendor neutral in the way
we handle the advertisers. The vendors are ordered by when
their entry was added (which generally means that the longest
standing vendors are first). The only exception to this is
that vendors who only make snapshots get listed at the
end. This is done simply to make it less likely that a luser
will buy a snapshot when what they really wanted, but didn't
know it, was a CD with the Official release on it.
There are two problems we have been having: vendors who screw
up the CD and vendors who advertise one release but put
another on the CD. Infomagic is by far the most common culprit
for both of these, but other vendors occasionally make annoying
mistakes. For example CheapBytes usually does a good job but
the latest CD does not have the standard layout which messes
up cd_autoup.sh.
The first thing we need to do is decide what information should
be on the page. The current format was designed to give information
on what type of CD the vendor sells while minimizing information
about specific releases and prices. This was done to ease administration
of the page as no one wants to spend the time doing a thorough check
of every vendors' product that carries Debian.
The thought previously was that the vendors would send up updates
occasionally. While a few vendors did, most of them never did
which put the burden upon us to keep the page correct.
As many people judge us by the CDs, we need to come up with a better
system. I would like to list every vendors product that carries
Debian on the page. People can then submit corrections if they find
a problem with a specific product. This will help others avoid
that product while avoiding having us to blacklist vendors.
Anyone got ideas on this?
BTW, I'd really like someone to take responsibility for this page.
Jay Treacy
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