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Supporting Community Projects
Lulu has announced a new program of creating boxed sets around particular technologies. They've got Fedora Core 3, OpenOffice, Bugzilla, as well our little Slashcode . The boxes include documentation and the code on CD with the money going back to support the communities building it. Lulu also does a whole bunch of cool stuff around self-publishing for on-demand items.
I guess I'm not sure what the point is of this. If you want to support these projects, why not just donate it directly to them? Surely Lulu has to take the cost of physical production out of your money before giving proceeds to the project. Wouldn't it be cheaper to download it, burn your own, and give your $10 - $25 straight to the development effort? I know a pretty box and manual are nice, but does it really come with anything you don't get digitally?
I'm all for supporting open source communities, but I wonder how much of a slice Lulu actually keeps? Maybe a paypal d0nation would be Better...
The friendliest digital photography forums on the net!
i was just at www.fedora.redhat.com and the official core 3 is not released yet, core3/test3 is there and that is as current as it shows...
The boxes include documentation and the code on CD with the money going back to support the communities building it.
Many years ago, I worked as an intern for Ready To Run Software, which did something similar; they'd take common packages such as GNU textutils or gcc (which were not part of ANY Unix back then, and Linux was still in its infancy), clean 'em up, make a good installer (again, before the days of autoconf and clever install scripts), provide some decent documentation, and package it all with an executable wrapper onto the tape medium of your choice, for just about -any- Unix in use. Lastly- they supported the product with various contracts and telephone support. Now, they have a porting center with a zillion different Unixes, all set up to play nice, where you can port stuff from Odd Box A to New System B.
I couldn't find it now, but I know back then you could search on a couple of RTR employee email addresses and find stuff in changelogs for most of the core GNU software packages; often times they were one of the very few companies doing actual QA work on these packages (I know, my internship was in QA) and submitting patches and bug reports; they're probably responsible for a lot of the improvements in portability in these packages. RTR also did all the behind the scenes work for the Oreilly powertools CD...
Cool company. I liked working for them- and not just because of the Free Candy table with lots of chocolate (all the machines, and there were almost 50 of them, were named after chocolate. My powermac running linuxppc was 'orange', which took some finagling- "Orange chocolate?").
Please help metamoderate.
I'd like to know how they deal with updates - new versions, patches. The big OSS projects all have their fair share of vulnerabilities and need constant patching.
For the less technically oriented end-user, to whom I assume these boxes are pitched, some form of automatic download + patch would be a must.
Can't find anything on lulu.com that talks about this - without it, the product is going to be dangerous (unpatched vulns galore)...
"Lulu" is the german word for "piss". A french company once tried to sell a perfume called "Lulu" in Germany, and for obvious reasons they failed horribly.
No it's not. In baby-speak perhaps. Aside from the fact that I am german (though maybe a rather sheltered one), neither BabelFish nor LEO support your claim.
(If you don't know the LEO dictionary, you should really give it a spin! Above link points to the english version.)
Well, then check this page out:
p ostid=105961
http://www.selbstmordforum.de/wbboard/thread.php?
What does the guy mean with lulu if not piss?
Oxymoron 2: We use Open Source because we have no money. Therefore how could we pay you to use it?
Oxymoron 3: Even if we could pay you to use it, we could not do do because you've posted anonymously. We therefore do not know who to send it to.
Oxymoron 4: A troll that doesn't write in crayon.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I am pretty sure the .de version of the Lulu URL is a gay porn site.
This page (http://www.weiseworte.de/toiletten.html) knows the word:
urinieren, -> harnen, Wasser lassen, sein Wasser abschlagen, Pipi / Lulu machen (ugs.), klein machen (ugs.), puschen (ugs.), wiescherln (Kinderspr., österr.), ein Bächlein machen (Kinderspr.), pinkeln (salopp), pullen (salopp), pullern (salopp), lullern (salopp), seichen (derb), pissen (derb), schiffen (derb), brunzen (derb) oft: eine Sextanerblase haben (scherzh.) unfreiwillig: sich einnässen / nass machen, das Bett nass machen, Bettnässer sein;
My CD Burner is broken you insensitive clod!!!!! (this is actually true)
Also, for some reason, some high end training material and applications used to be sold in CD format, with all the information.
By simply printing a copy, binding it, and attaching the CD (about 0.0000000...001% of the costs) the customer thought it was worth an extra grand or so...
good business!
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
and found this book I might actually buy:
Living in Vertical Time
by Brian Narelle
Description: The Teachings of Murray the Buru. These ruminations on life, love and peace were inspired by a donkey named Murray, a special soul housed in a 600 pound body. My friend, my teacher...my '"buru". (104 pages)
This really is the perfect gift for our not-so-geekily friends. I'm mostly taking about the Open Office package. This is a great opportunity to give a couple of friends (and maybe a cousin or two) some cool software (which I've been trying to get them to try) and having it look like a "real" product, rather than some doo-hickey I want them to download. As a benefit, the project gets a few cents. Kudos to Lulu. Now advertiste the hell out of it. I want to see a copy of Open Office under every Festivus pole this year.
I found that Lulu.com's "ISBN Plus" service was the easiest and cheapest way to get my book listed on Amazon.com and BN.com. For less than $200 you get an ISBN and inclusion on these two major sites. You still need to do all the marketing myself, but there are numerous discussions in Lulu's forums about "guerilla marketing" your work. Getting it reviewed on Amazon and BN, creating Amazon lists of best-selling items that are similar to yours and including yours on that list, creating a "So you want to..." page and including your item on the page along with similar items, uploading a complete description/cover/excerpt for your product, etc. Seems that some of these would apply to marketing your software as well.
I'm curious about how effective getting listed on Amazon and BN is for software. Do many customers bother searching these sites when they're shopping for software? Or do they use dedicated tech sites, or just go right to Google for the software? I'd like to see some comments posted in a few months by some of the software sellers who've tried this.
User Training for Busy Programmers
In the last 10 years much, MUCH better web forum software has come down the pike (such as scoop and phpbb). While slash was great in the mid 90's, it's looking a bit worn and dated now that it's the mid 00's.
I use a combination of the Mixonic; custom CD-R printing and Jewelboxing; cases to make up bundles for my web clients. I deliver all of the project deliverables (code, images, initial database loads, etc.) as well as video tutorials on using the content management system, photo galleries and other tools installed on the site (using Wink) . The packaging uses one of my templates, but both the template for the CD and the packaging has slots for their logo and company information, so each bundle is completely customized to their company. The packaging really cements the client's confidence in the work done and it really ends up as an inconsequential cost with much higher benefits. It costs a little more than having 100 CD-R's printed all the same (5x more), but $5 is still dirt cheap for a serious web project. When I started doing this, it actually cut down dramatically on complaints about the bill size. They had something in hand to match up to the invoice. I'm amazed at the number of software companies, web design companies and others that just don't take the time to put a bit of polish into their presentation. I've paid $150 for software that came on a store-bought CD-R with Sharpie marker as the "label" and others with a cheap paper label sloppily slapped on the disc.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
Isn't this similar to what CafePress does? CafePress does self-publication too or lots of stuff. CDs, books, T-Shirts, etc. Is there something I'm missing?
-- Taj
Tell the truth and you won't have so much to remember.
I guess I'm not sure what the point is of this. If you want to support these projects, why not just donate it directly to them?
I see quite a bit of value in Lulu's products. When I want to encourage support for FOSS among people who are unfamiliar with it, these package deals could be just the ticket. This is something I could send as a gift to a relative, or pass around in a meeting while I was presenting the advantages of a windows to linux migration.
I will probably buy the OpenOffice set in the next month or so and if it is as well done as it looks on the web site, I expect to make heavy use of it next year (without ever spinning its CD).
I understand where the "just donate through PayPal" guys are coming from but they're forgetting one important fact: people are lazy.
There are a lot of very competent computer users that have no idea that free/OSS software that is often superior to it's proprietary cousins is available... and rather than looking all over the internet for the best free/oss app for their needs, then downloading a crapload of disparate parts, then the documentation, then some HowTo they'd rather pluck down their cash on an all in one package. This does nothing if not add noteriety to the products LuLu or whatever thinks is best and it can only be good for the community. Feel free to hit the "Donate through PayPal" button if you like.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
I thought we all loved to hate Slashcode for antiquated and bloated HTML that doesn't even begin to approach standards compliance. Why would we want to buy it? :)
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
this is a discussion about community projects, and slash was specifically mentioned.
The parent post was in no way "off-topic"
Because Fedora Core 3 hasn't been released yet. If you go to the Fedora website, you'll see Fedora Core 3 Test 3 and Fedora Core 2. So...how do these people have Fedora Core 3, given that it doesn't exist?
Some people like to support the software that they use. Consider it more a "donation" than a purchase.
You can imagine my feigned surprise...
Someone please explain to me why anyone in their right mind would want to buy Slashcode?
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
a couple of things to think about:
:-)
the open cd: Free apps for windoze
ubuntu livecd - if you try the cd in windoze it lets you install OO.o and a couple of other Free apps
Now, to decide which to include in all my xmas presents this year....
-Leigh
I thought the exact same thing when I read that line.
Money certainly is important in supporting open projects, but there are other things that need to be done as well. I'd say there are three main categories:
* monetary support--help feed the coders
* technical support--dontate time and skills to find and fix bugs, or add functionality
* moral support--advocacy/evangelism, marketing, publicity.
The first two everyone has been aware of for some time. People have donated $ to software causes and sent in patches since before the dawn of GNU. The last point is one that has been neglected until recently (Mozilla has woken up and realised the importance of such support for example). Lulu has done something brilliant in addressing the third form of support, while still helping the cause financially.
In order for FOSS alternatives to become mainstream they have to be marketed in a more mainstream fashion. Mainstream computer users mostly run systems with closed software, and are used to going to Best Buy, picking up a box with a printed manual and a plastic disc and paying for it. If they buy online or mail order they expect something shipped.
The averager person is not as comfortable as the typical FOSS geek with supporting a system that has no tangible goods associated with it. Illogical as it seems to us geeks, simply having the software available on a CD, in a box with a printed manual all professionally done, lends the product credibility.
Look at Windows. It has been playing catch-up to Linux stability- and security-wise for years now. The pack-in documentation of the retail box distribution is pretty much useless and is never read. Furthermore, most people get nothing but a lisence certificate and recovery CD with pre-installed OEM editions. Regardless, tech support is nearly useless and real documentation is buried in online files.
Sometimes, it seems that the mere fact that Microsoft professionally packages the product and fills store shelves world-wide make MS Windows or MS Office appear to Joe Schmoe to be more credible than Linux Distro X or OpenOffice. Yeah yeah, MS is a monopoly and could put feces in the box and make money, but they weren't always a monopoly. They got there not with the best technology but with shrewd business decisions and effective marketing at a time when competitors had neither.
Thanks for the warning! Now we all know to ignore those features on Amazon, if we didn't already.
The point seems to be increased visibility and availablity of open source products, with the benefits of earning some cash for the developers.
Why do so mnay people keep using language like "support these projects" when they ought to just say "buy". "Buy" is not a dirty word.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I took a quick glance at the site, and I'm not sure they are following the GPL correctly. They have a link to the Fedora sources, but I don't think that satisifies section 3 of the GPL. Section 3 of the GPL states that if you deliver GPL binaries to somebody you either must 3a) deliver the source code along with the binaries; 3b) provide a written notice valid for at least 3 years to provide the sources for the cost of media duplication to any third party; or 3c) provide a link to the sources if you ship the binaries unchanged, providing you are a non-commercial distribution, and you are passing the binaries on untouched that you received. Section 3c would not apply since they are a commercial distribution, and it appears they are not selling the sources (since they have a source html link, and don't mention sources anywhere else). I have no problems with them distributing GPL stuff, just that they should follow the rules. There are other distributors (such as cheapbytes.com) that do distribute sources.