>>>>> "Colin" == Colin Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Colin> /usr/share/doc/debian/debian-manifesto is a pretty good Colin> start. Debian is a distribution free in terms of both speech Colin> and beer. If we start charging our users for downloading it, Colin> we will be making the lives of many of our users much more Colin> difficult, which I completely oppose. OK. But some people downloading it are not users - they are re-sellers. Here is a somewhat off-topic question : You know all those nice CD vendors that have a donation checkbox for Debian. How do I know they are really donating the money ? And if they sell Debian CD's why aren't they _required_ to have a donation checkbox ? Colin> Throwing them a bone by saying that 56K downloads will remain Colin> free isn't acceptable either. Take the recent case of a You are correct - it's not a very good idea, is it ? Colin> friend of mine who wanted to set up a router, but didn't have Colin> any Unix experience. I pointed her at linuxiso.org, she Colin> downloaded and burnt the first potato CD, and I walked her Colin> through the installation process via IRC. Easy. If she'd had Colin> to wait days to download what she needed over dialup, I doubt Colin> she'd have bothered, and I would have felt ashamed that Colin> Debian had made her life more difficult just for the sake of Colin> a few extra bucks. A great example and a situation which had not occurred to me. Colin> The fourth clause in the Debian Social Contract is "Our Colin> Priorities are Our Users and Free Software". If you forget Colin> either one, it stops being Debian. Well don't forget that I'm bringing this all up as a potential way to make life better for users in the long run. Debian will certainly not go away, but it could degrade to a point where a very small number of people will use it which means that for all practical purposes it has gone away. Colin> Donations, maybe - but charging for downloads is just wrong. No maybe about it. Volunteers spend time on Debian which is in fact a donation. Without donations nobody could download that ISO on DSL at full speed. Donations are not optional. Charging is. What I was trying to figure is : More packages, more complexity - without bringing in additional resources will Debian start to falter ? Is there some equitable way of charging to help with that ? Practically speaking it doesn't look like there is. Colin> Another thing that's worth saying: the Debian QA team, which Colin> does a lot of the "unfun" work you talk about, is manned Colin> almost entirely by unpaid volunteers. Then I guess I should join that team instead of tying up the mailing list with silly ideas. Brian