[Debian-uk] DVDs & CDs for Expo2002

[Philip Hands]

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Hi,

Obviously, I should have sorted this out earlier, but last week turned
out to be pretty hectic for me, so it didn't happen.

I think I may be just early enough to get away with it, except that John
Winters is obviously busy with RedHat so has only limited time.

John has agreed to let us have as much of his stock of DVDs as we want,
on a sale or return basis, which contain full source and binary on a
double sided DVD.

He's also willing to do the same for the CDs, but obviously doesn't
carry much stock, since he burns them as he needs them, so we can only
have about 1200 CDs max, because of limited time.

Unless we come up with alternative artwork, they will be printed with
John's normal label, which is pretty much exactly what I'd have put on
the CD anyway, but also has a "Produced by the Linux Emporium ...." line
around the rim --- I'm not particularly fussed about this, given that
John is willing to do these on sale or return as well, so it seems fair
that he gets back stuff that he can count as normal stock, given that
he's not going to lumber us with a load of CDs we don't need, and thus
effectively ensures we'll make a profit on the CDs (which would be handy
for buying a SCSI setup for open, eh Steve? :-)

Given the limited number of CDs we can have (about 1200), I'd be tempted
to make some 2CD sets, with just binary 1_NONUS & 2, for people who have
a decent internet connection, some full 7 CD sets, and a few 7 CD source
sets, but the question is, how many?

The first guess to make is the proportion of people with access to a DVD
drive on the machine they want to install Debian on --- it wouldn't
surprise me if that number is approaching 50%, and each one of those is
a CD sale we won't make.

Then we have the proportions of people that want source, and want full
binary sets, vs. the 2 CD set.   Unfortunately, I have a feeling that
most of them will want to get their hands on the full binary set  :-(

Last year we bought:

  750 sets of Debian 2.2r3 binary-i386 (3 CD/set).
  500 sets Debian 2.2r3 source (3 CD/set).

This was in some way inspired by the sales the year before, but I don't
seem to have a record of that.

We got left with about half of those last year, IIRC, but 2.2 was pretty
stale at that point, whereas 3.0 is fresh out of the oven.  I think that
was too many source anyway, and this time around we're going to have to
charge about 20 quid for the full 14 CDs, so presumably that will knock
demand down a little more.

So what do people think about selling the 2 CD sets?  Is it better to do
that than sell out completely, which seems like the alternative?  Should
we bother with source at all?  How about some sort of voucher scheme,
redeemable with John --- I think he'd be willing to cut us a favourable
rate, but would need to confirm that with him.

Cheers, Phil.
--=20
Say no to software patents!  http://petition.eurolinux.org/

|)|  Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]    http://www.hands.com/
|-|  HANDS.COM Ltd.                    http://www.uk.debian.org/
|(|  10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London  E18 1NE  ENGLAND

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