[fedora-india] What do we want to achieve through the Freemedia program in India?

[Rejy M Cyriac]

On 03/29/2015 09:09 AM, sankarshan wrote:
> "Are the recipients of the Freemedia program (in India) passive or, do
> we get to hear back from them about participating in the Fedora
> community via mailing lists and IRC?"
> 
> <https://plus.google.com/u/0/+sankarshanmukhopadhyay/posts/ZtHgytv8SQ1>
> 

The number of 'Thank You' mails that I get is quite less when compared
to the number of media that I ship out. But I take that as part of human
nature nowadays. However the few appreciation mails that I get are
so heartwarming that they provide me the motivation to go on with the
program. A lot of small town entrepreneurs, community self-help
projects, and students have written to me appreciating the delivery of
the Fedora media.

Since my primary focus is on getting more people to discover, use
and love Fedora, rather than in getting folks to contribute *directly*
to Fedora, I do not feel a requirement to track the number of recipients
of the FreeMedia program who contribute to the Fedora community.

If anyone feels that doing this sort of tracking could be useful for
Fedora, I am all for it, but this should not be mixed up with validating
the need for the FreeMedia program.

There have been many instances at the fedora-devel list that proposals
to stop making CD/DVD media for Fedora have been put up. I have always
fought against such proposals, because those take into consideration
only the perspective of folks living in the more developed parts of the
world. Just as CD/DVD media for Fedora is still relevant, shipping media
to those who do not have the means to download them is just as relevant.
I experience this first hand every time I go back to my native place, a
small town in Kerala, where there is no way I can finish a download (or
install) of Fedora from the internet in a sane period of time.

There are still way too many regions in India (and the world) which lack
the basic infrastructure that many of us take for granted, and also a
large population living even in the cities and large towns not able to
afford the download. The Fedora FreeMedia program works as an outreach
effort to popularize Fedora among all people.

-- 
Cheers,

Rejy M Cyriac (rmc)
rejymc at fedoraproject.org