-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Sudhanshu Raheja wrote: > Hi guys, > > You have a number of valid points in the discussion here, but I would beg to differ from you on a couple of things. > > The aim of giving free cds is to make it easier for people to start using Ubuntu. The aim of giving free cds is not that more than 5-10% should use is after the first time (I'm not sure how you got that figure), but that when somebody gets a free cd, they tell others about it, who tell others. We have been hanging around in Ubuntu since Warty days, when the entire idea of Free ship-it was ever born. During Breezy and Dapper days, Canonical used to send how much ever CDs people asked for. What enthusiastic people did was they ordered in numbers like 100, 200 without even having a clue of how to use them. I know people who still have 100s of breezy CDs lying in their dungeons. Then, a lot of feedbacks from the community (like us) made Canonical realize that their resources were going waste and idea of Free Shipit wasn't being utilized correctly, so they decided to reduce the maximum amount of CD that can be ordered to 10/20, which still got reduced to 1/2 when Feisty was released.
> > So basically the idea is to have as many copies floating around as possible, so that people find it when they need one. I found my copy from a friend who never ever installed it. You yourself stand as an example ;) > > Now coming on to not wasting other people's money, that is quite a good point. So what are the alternatives? IMHO, broadband availability and hence downloading a CD image is no more a luxury in urban places. So, when you download loads and loads of movies from torrents why don't you download a Ubuntu CD and share? It is indeed written on top of CDs sent through ship-it that "Please Recycle". We strongly suggest you to get a CD and share with maximum amount of people you can. Use and pass it on (take a backup of the image for future). > > One would be to buy cds yourself, write them and distribute it. > > One would be to find the hardware vendor, where people in the college buy most of the pc's from, and ask him to sponsor it. And how. You ask him to pay only for CDs, say 500. Then you find a cd writer, and write all those yourself, and when you distribute the cds, you put it the sponsor details too. I know it works. Yep, you can ask some of the sponsors (who do not themselves have an Distribution) to sponsor for the CDs, it shouldn't cost them much. Then ask them to print a CD sticker or a small Logo, burn Ubuntu into CDs and put the "CDs sponsored by foobar" on top of it. Or you can even write it with a marker pen. > > The end user has to get a free CD. Someone who hasn't converted to Ubuntu doesn't give a sh** who paid for it. If you're going to make them do it like you are suggesting, the conversion rate would be even less than the what you have observed. Nobody ever cared and as a result, Canonical's money was getting wasted. They realized it and took appropriate measures (only 1 or 2 CDs, only for registered Ubuntu users). > > When you're trying to convert people, you need to think of *marketing* not *saving money*. Nobody is really trying to convert people here. He do advocacy sometimes, not evangelism. We use Ubuntu, feel it works well for us and want others to benefit too, provided they are interested to try it out. If they want to, we help them to. Else, who cares a ****** of what they use. We are passionate Ubunteros, but not fanatical. - -- With Regards, Parthan aka Technofreak [GPG] :0x2FF01026 [web] :http://technofreak.in [blog] :blog.technofreak.in [photos]:photos.technofreak.in [irc] :teKnofreak @ irc.freenode.net (#linux-india) [mobile]:BLR +919845446647 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHnrZ4k4vYYS/wECYRAsnfAKCKxkVNOpAzzKvJe2TGDsvz8LUUAwCgiY2f OjP8VGQrh8fk5pEpG5qOC0E= =PtJ1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ubuntu-in mailing list ubuntu-in@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-in
