We are looking to have all of the purchase transactions, printing and such handled by a 3rd party. Fedora does not currently have the means to handle maintaining the inventory or purchasing infrastructure. This has had us looking at places like cafepress, spreadshirt.com and such who do printing on demand to help make sure Fedora Project does not end up with money sitting on shelves as inventory.
That's a very reasonable concern :)
From the 3rd party print on demand vendors the Store SIG has evaluated
so far, spreadshirt.com seems to offer the most reasonable solution at the moment. Some of the pros and cons for them are listed here (as are some from other vendors we looked at):
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Store/PotentialDistributors
Spreadshirt does offer American Apparel shirts who say they are "sweatshop free". They also offer an organic shirt which is listed as:
One concern I'd have is that "sweatshop free" is very different to somebody receiving a fair wage for their work. But I guess it's a step in the right direction.
"Certified by the Control Union World Group, to the Organic Exchange 100 guidelines and the SKAL International standards for sustainable textile production."
Organic cotton is a significant +. I don't suppose people know about the issues surrounding growing cotton, but it does account for approximately 15-20% of the world's pesticide use, some of which makes it's way into water supplies etc.
Now, spreadshirt also offers more traditional shirts and are not an exclusive Fair Trade shop. But at least we present a potential Fedora store customer with a choice to support fair trade.
I guess my question would be, if we have the option, would we want to support non-fair trade and manufacturing practices?
Is fair trade popular in the US? It's certainly gaining traction here in the UK and I'd be happy to work on this. I already have a few possible connections that I'd be able to explore.
To be honest, I am not sure how popular it is in the US. My wife keeps our family very well aware of it and she does make an effort to buy fair trade goods. Not sure how prevalent it is beyond my household though. :)
If you have something in mind, feel free to outline the details and post to the list and update the Potential Distributors page:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Store/PotentialDistributors
I will see what I can come up with :) I think the print on demand limit could be a problem though, but I'm at least pleased to see that spreadshirt.com makes some effort!
Best wishes,
Jon