The future of optical media within the project.

[Jon Masters]

On Wed, 2011-01-12 at 19:10 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> On 01/12/2011 06:43 PM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
> > On Wed, 2011-01-12 at 17:34 +0000, "Jóhann B. Guðmundsson" wrote:
> >> I'm just wondering if the board has discussed the future of optical
> >> media with in the project and perhaps set any dates/releases where we
> >> plan to no longer support them.
> >>
> >> This is just intended to get the discussion going and the pros and cons
> >> of continuing to distribute cd/dvd sized images as opposed to ( larger )
> >> images targeted against USB flash drives.
> >
> > A big pro to abandoning CD size images for the default install is the
> > option of including more languages than just English...
> 
> A con would be loosing all machines which don't have a DVD reader and 
> which can't boot from USB.

Another con would be people living outside of North America, Western
Europe, and parts of Asia (also known as the "rest of the world")
getting access to distribution bits. In theory[0], it is possible to
give someone a DVD today who might otherwise only have dialup access, or
might pay a lot to download data, even over a modern cell network. And
even in the US, there are still many regions without broadband.

Jon.

[0] Excessively excessive update churn rate not withstanding.