Online Vendors List

Paul W. Frields stickster at gmail.com
Thu Feb 18 14:18:13 UTC 2010


On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 04:49:36PM +0530, susmit shannigrahi wrote:
> >>> do we need such pages at all
> Trademark guidelines allow third parties to sell fedora.
> So it may be convenient to keep such a page.

There are two questions here:

* Is a listing of online vendors useful?

  I believe the answer is yes, because FreeMedia cannot guarantee
  service to every single person that wants Fedora, and because in
  some parts of the world it is much more convenient to pay a small
  fee for media.  We want to give people every possible route to get
  Fedora even when a download or FreeMedia shipping is not possible.

* How can we better maintain the listing of online vendors?

  Susmit, you are working on some improvements to how we track online
  vendors, correct?  It seems like it would be an easy task for either
  contributors on the FreeMedia or Marketing teams to:

  (1) send a form letter email to all vendors on the list a week
  before each release to (a) remind them of our release date and
  encouraging them to grab the new release for offering their
  customers, and (b) inform them that we'll be checking back within
  1-2 weeks to ensure they have the latest copy available.

  (2) go through the current list within a week or two after a release
  to ensure that they've followed through, and if not, deactivate them
  from the listing and send a second email saying we'll restore them
  when they send us an email confirming they're providing the latest
  Fedora again.

> > IMHO there must be one place to get Media and for which we as Fedora
> > Project need to take care for:
> > - http://fedoraproject.org/ $COUNTRY /get-fedora
> > and it's mirror!
> 
> I am not sure what do you mean.
> Do you mean we don't need the offline vendors at all?
> There are countries, say India where bandwidth charges are exorbitant
> and there are vendors who sell it from 20INR.
> In fact, we are thinking of promoting them better so to make number of
> freemedia requests less.

That's right.  It doesn't make sense to me to restrict Fedora
distribution just to places with excellent download bandwidth.

> > Also imho a vendor who sells fedora media (expect the free media
> > project) should donate us with the revenue he earns with "our"
> > stuff (Code, Artwork, usage of Trademark etc.). But that's only my
> > opinion; also my opinion is that there should be only FEDORA where
> > you get medias OR official authorized PARTNER (!= vendor) ...
> 
> Yes, ideally they should donate us something.
> But the licensing (GPL and most others) and current trademark
> guidelines  *does* allow others to sell Fedora (and the codes)
> legally.

We cannot and should not demand that anyone donate to Fedora for sales
of free software.  I don't even think we should think of it as
"ideal."  One of the tenets of free software is that you are free to
sell it for whatever you choose, provided you comply with licensing
(e.g. make source available), and provided you have someone who will
buy it at the price you offer. :-)

> I think if we keep a tab on them and list their prices against their
> listing, they will be forced to bring down the prices.

We shouldn't concern ourselves with market pricing pressures.  That is
a problem that will solve itself according to demand.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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