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

[Rangeen Basu]

On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 9:48 AM, sankarshan<foss.mailinglists at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 9:36 AM, Rangeen Basu<sherry151 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> As much as I like everyone to receive a media. I guess that just bulk
> producing media to continue shipments is not going to be a good thing.

Extremely sorry if my thoughts were not clear but I wasn't tlaking
about bulk producing media rather I was talking about a way freemedia
contributors can send media to the requesters. Normally freemedia
contributors would buy media , burn them and pot them. I would be nice
if this cost could e borne by the requesters, if not in full then at
least a part of it. If there is a general consensus in this regard
then the freemedia contributors can start using this method.

> There should be ways and means to outreach. For example, there are
> UserGroups a plenty - can we figure out a way to tie into them as well
> as have them accountable for shipping the media. I know PuneLUG does
> an awesomely good job of doing so, how about other UGs ? The UGs at
> institutes for example - does their charter allow them to ship media
> at-cost ?
This is obviously a way but there is still the problem of postage
cost. The user group members are nothing more than volunteers and at
institutes, mere students. How can distribution of freemedia by a LUG
be funded? I know that the Institute LUGs do have the Institute as a
source of fund but that is not enough. Plus a lot of requests from the
institute students need to be served and after that little is left to
send out.Coming to shipping media at-cost, I think what I said about
freemedia contributors above holds for UGs as well. They obviously
can. But a general consensus is required and a message needs to be
propagated that "freemedia is not free as in free beer". If the
requesters agree, the contributors agree and the parent body i.e the
freemedia managing committee agrees then there will be very little
hindrance.

P.S: My thought about using VPP is only a way of collecting the money
and is probably the cheapest way other than wire transfer, which is
probably not feasible. I would also like to know what other people
think of this.


-- 
Regards
Rangeen Basu Roy Chowdhury
Fedora Ambassador
sherry151 at gmail.com