Re: intro/about

[Josip Rodin <joy@cibalia.gkvk.hr>]

On Sun, Sep 02, 2001 at 10:53:03PM -0500, James A. Treacy wrote:
> I just committed some minor changes that you (Joy) shouldn't have any
> problem with.

Of course. (I saw the diff)

>  Here are the sections I'm still not happy about. Only two left. :)
> 
>   <P>Debian does not make any money from the sale of CDs, and we do have expenses.
>   Please buy from one of the
> This is awkward. The reason I joined the clauses with 'but' was to
> show that while we don't have a steady income stream, we need some
> money to pay for expenses. Here is another attempt at an acceptable
> change
>   <P>Debian does not make any money from the sale of CDs.
>   At the same time, money is needed to pay for expenses such as domain
>   registration and hardware. Thus, we ask that you buy from one of the

This is fine with me.

> I still say the following makes it sound like we are going to charge
> for someone to download off the net.
>   <H2><a name="CD">You say free, but the CDs/bandwidth cost money!</a></H2>
> Additionally, if someone in the next town said they had a free bicycle
> for you, you wouldn't tell them, "it's not really free since I have to
> drive there to get it". Again, I suggest the bandwidth part be
> dropped.

Well, the analogy tells me what exactly you are talking about, and I must
agree :)

However, saying "First, you don't have to buy a CD, you can download it off
the net" was still wrong to say, because in order to download a bunch of
Debian packages or Debian CD images, one needs a shitload of money, at
least in most non-first-world countries. Much more money than to buy a full
CD set, in fact. My main goal was to remove the aforementioned sentence, and
I figured adding "/bandwidth" would be straightforward...

I think we should simply kill that section name, and merge the sections that
talk about price and freedom. They do seem like a logical whole, and a
joined section wouldn't be too long.

> On a related note, I have made some changes to why_debian, including
> another plus - Debian is the best integrated linux distribution.

Cool stuff, especially the "While we feel dpkg has some advantages over the
rpm format, it is the integration between the packages that makes a Debian
system more robust." part... though I'll change it to say "deb format", as
that's the real name of the package format, cf. deb(5). :o)

-- 
     2. That which causes joy or happiness.