[Linux-aus] LA's SFD CD Run

[Jonathan Oxer]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 11:45 AM, Michael Still<mikal at stillhq.com> wrote:

> Agreed. I personally think in this modern age of broadband handing out
> CDs at all is a bad idea. I figured I was less likely to win that
> argument though.

Assessing this based purely on the efficiency of transferring a chunk
of bytes from one person to another: I agree entirely.

In this particular case though the point of the exercise is only
obliquely to be found in the bytes of data on the CD itself. It's more
about the value perceived by the recipient who is accustomed to
forking over $$$ to receive an install CD for proprietary software and
will (hopefully) get a warm fuzzy feeling from having it given to them
free of charge and being *encouraged* to share it around without
feeling the guilt of participating in what they've been told over and
over again is "software piracy". It's a physical representation of the
difference between the proprietary and FOSS approaches on both
financial and philosophical levels.

It's also a reminder for later when they get home so they take the
next step rather than forgetting about that strange FOSS thing someone
was telling them about and oh yeah, what was that URL they mentioned?
I can't quite remember...

Cheers    :-)

Jonathan Oxer
Ph +61 4 3851 6600