CD Distribution

[Pasi Lallinaho]

Charlie Kravetz wrote:
> On Mon, 9 Feb 2009 16:21:33 -0800
> Larry Cafiero <larry.cafiero at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> This brings up an interesting question because I've always downloaded
>> and burned all of my own Xubuntu CDs -- does Canonical (or someone)
>> produce Xubuntu CDs for distribution (like they do with the Ubuntu
>> Live CDs)?
>>
>> Larry Cafiero
>>     
>
> No, they do not have funding for Xubuntu cd's through Ship-It. Thus the
> need to do it through other means. Perhaps through LoCo's would be the
> easiest way at the present time. Doing it internationally through
> centralized point would be fairly difficult, I think. However, I would
> like to see a central location for a request list to be maintained.
> Then if the individual is close enough, someone could burn a cd and
> pass it on to them.
>
>   
Hello everybody who is involved in this discussion.

I think this is a great idea and we should use LoCo's for this as much
as possible. LoCo's can be very helpful with these kinds of things, but
they also have some problematic points. I believe in the goodwill of
people. I even believe that many LoCo participants are ready to use one
of her CD's and burn the image to it and send it to somebody who needs
the CD - and I have seen this happen for many times.

However, it is a completely different thing to rely completely on the
LoCo's on this behalf because we don't know how many request it would
generate if we say that LoCo's will handle this. It can bring quite a
lot of financial losses to people and they might also need to use a
unreasonable amount of time to do it. (A sidenote: The financial loss is
a big question especially in areas, where people don't have much money
(either the LoCo participant or the CD receiver). As it happens to be,
these places are often the places where people don't have such great
internet connections. And that's where Shipit came along anyway.)

Maybe we need a starting point for those whose LoCo can't supply them a
CD - or who don't have a LoCo to ask one for.

Here is what I think we should do:
1. Point people asking for CD's to LoCo's. I suppose many LoCo's are
willing to help in their own way, or we can write them a general
strategy how to handle things like this. (There was also lots of
discussion in the community track in UDS that LoCo's need to cooperate
with each other more and share positive experiences anyway.)
2. Believe in people's goodwill and tell people to ask for a CD in
xubuntu-users mailing list. I've seen this working for a few times also.
3. Maybe at some point set up something for those who just can't get the
CD anywhere. This would be where Eddy's idea and Larry's and Fedora's
experience comes in. I of course would help with this. Charlie's idea in
the last post is something what we should do. (Centralised location for
request, but some kind of system to calculate the nearest LoCo or a few
nearest people who have volunteered to ship/burn CD's)

Before doing this, we need to hear Cody and other people.

I want to emphasize that this is truely a great idea and will support it
if we decide to go that direction. But maybe we need to rethink and
adjust our working methods on this before we can honestly say the
current situation is bad enough.

Charlie, unfortunately there is no one else in the marketing team but
me. I hope we can get this changed. Eddy? :)
Larry, #xubuntu-devel would be the most appropriate IRC channel on this.
You can recognize me from the nick knome, as Charlie pointed out earlier.
Cody, maybe you would like to give an opinion?

It might be I missed something from the discussion. In that case, ping
me at IRC or just ask again.

-- 
Pasi Lallinaho
Xubuntu Marketing Lead
Web-designer, graphic artist
IRC: knome @ freenode