[Fedora-India] Queries regarding the Free media project in India

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 07/05/2009 11:09 AM, Ankur Sinha wrote:

> -- The Free media requests are not spread evenly across India
> (obviously). Hence, some contributors (like me) only receive only one or
> two requests from our regions. I can contribute more than that ( at
> least 10-20 _locally_) on a monthly basis. On the other hand, I remember
> reading someone mass producing media (pressing to get rates as low as
> 2-3 rs a media??) and hence having extra copies that are going waste
> (not being used). Hence, there is untapped potential and also unfilled
> requests. Can anyone think of a way to use the resource? 

I haven't heard of anyone doing good quality media replication for 2 Rs.
If you find specific details, do let us know. What we try to do is to
fund the media replication costs for the media that is useful for events
and ambassadors and provide them with the means to reach out to more
people. Funding free media efforts is problematic not because of the
media replication costs but the distribution costs. More on this below.
> 
> -- Does anyone have knowledge of Ubuntu's project. We could take some
> points from there (if its okay to do so, that is). I've *heard* its very
> effective. 

It is effective but it is also funded in a very different way. I think,
you are missing the bigger picture here. Canonical, which is the
privately funded startup behind Ubuntu wanted to reach more users in a
crowded space of multiple distributions about five years back and spend
millions of dollars on free shipments. While that has certainly proven
effective atleast in the short run, I doubt we are going to follow that
model. Red Hat, the primary sponsor behind Fedora is a public company
with share holders and if money is going to be spend, it has to be done
in a sustainable way. Free media shipments essentially relies on the
community to help itself by supporting one another voluntarily. This is
by nature, a different scale of operations. If anyone has ideas on doing
it better keeping in mind the limited budget, feel free to share it with
us.

Rahul