Not Happy with ShipIt

[Al Gordon]

Has anyone other than me not received their Hoary CDs yet?  I'm
starting to give up hope on this one particular aspect of Ubuntu
Linux.

I ordered 100 CDs to distrubute to my user group, right around the
time that Hoary came out.  A month or so later, I finally got
confirmation that they were shipped, by logging into shipit and seeing
that they were sent on 2005-05-26.  An email notification would have
been nice.

So, they've been in-transit for about 6-1/2 weeks now.  Or, at least,
that's what it says on the site.  I have no way of verifying this,
like with a tracking number or something.  They were ordered about a
month or so prior to shipping.  At this rate, I feel that I'll be
running Breezy before I get Hoary discs.

Email to info at shipit.ubuntu.com has gone unanswered.  I specifically
wanted info on getting CDs for our next installfest.  We've scheduled
for October so as to (hopefully) be able to provide Breezy.  Do I need
to push that back to December?  Or even January?

I realize that the CDs are free, and that I should not complain
("beggars can't be choosers"), but Ubuntu's ShipIt program has set
certain expectations, and has not met them.  People in my user group
who were excited about installing Ubuntu, and distributing it to
friends, etc., are becoming less and less interested as time goes on. 
It's hard to extoll the greatness of Ubuntu Linux when the one
tangible thing that I tell people they do isn't happening.  I really
hate saying "It'll be here next month. Maybe."  In the meantime,
people are going out and buying SuSE Pro, or whatever.

If you want someone who's on the fence about trying out Linux to try
it (even a LiveCD), handing them a self-burned CD and telling them
"it's safe" doesn't exactly invoke a warm, fuzzy feeling.  It's really
vital, I believe, to be able to hand someone a professionally pressed
CD if you expect them to get over the fear of what "something new"
could do to their computer, and their precious data.

I really don't mean to rant or complain.  I just want my CDs, or some
idea as to when they'll arrive, so that I can distribute each and
every one of them, to help promote Ubuntu Linux.

Thanks,

-- 

  -- AL --