Fedora print magazine proposal from Linux Pro Magazine

[inode0]

On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Max Spevack<mspevack at redhat.com> wrote:
> [Trimming the recipient list down a little bit.]
>
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>> Linux Pro Magazine (LPM) has proposed to make a special Fedora print issue
>> for F12 - thousands of magazines out on newsstands internationally with an
>> F12 DVD tucked inside. This would be very, very cool. We're trying to figure
>> out whether this is possible, whether we should do it, and (if both of those
>> are "yes"), how the balance of work would be distributed between the Fedora
>> community (perhaps with help from the Red Hat Brand team) and LPM.

Does anyone know the circulation or sales numbers. How many
"thousands" would get distributed via LPM?

>> We'd love your thoughts and feedback. This is moving quite rapidly (it
>> first came up on Wednesday afternoon; we need to give a yes or no for F12
>> next week), so I've summarized the current state of things on a project page
>> at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_print_magazine.
>
> There are a few points that I'd like to add to this discussion.
>
> (1) Nothing has been decided yet -- as a collective, we need to think about
> the ideas presented by LPM, as well as the timeline that we would have to
> operate under, the content that we would need to produce, etc.
>
> (2) There is a price tag associated with this project, that (if we say yes
> to it) will require us to get a bit clever with the way we plan for Fedora
> 12 media, especially in North America and Europe (where the magazine is
> published).
>
> If we say yes to this overall deal, it will get us three things:
>
> + Magazines (including the 32-bit DVD) on sale at news-stands and bookstores
> in North America and Europe
>
> + 1,000 magazines (including DVD) shipped directly to the Fedora Project,
> that we can do with as we choose.
>
> + 8,000 DVDs shipped directly to the Fedora Project, that we can do with as
> we choose.
>
> That means 9,000 DVDS (and 1,000 magazines) that we would probably use as
> the VAST MAJORITY of our media during the Fedora 12 cycle.

These will all be 32 bit DVDs, right?

> We would probably *not* produce a large quantity of separate LiveCDs, which
> has been the habit for the past several releases.

While these are still popular I really think we might be able to
substitute more USB sticks at major events as we move forward. Big
events seem to always have vendors giving away USB sticks and with
some advertising at these events we could make these bootable easily
enough for folks who would like the live image. Or we could give them
the live image on the stick for them to make their own CD with. Or in
North America they likely can download it quickly anyway.

> Furthermore, the DVDs would come in plain white sleeves (not Fedora-designed
> sleeves), and the artwork on the face of the DVD would be Fedora-related,
> but would also have the Linux Pro Magazine logo on it.

This doesn't bother me much if the distribution through the magazine is large.
Assuming the distribution is large my instincts are in favor of doing
this even if it limits what media we end up distributing ourselves for
one cycle. We presumably can save some funds for other uses, a good
thing, and perhaps will learn something about alternatives available
to us that we aren't yet effectively using for distribution.

John