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Supporting Community Projects

Posted by Hemos on from the support-them dept.

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.

4 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. More money to the developers? by RandoX · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

  2. Awfully vague descrptions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    So pretend that you don't know what Fedora Core is, and try to figure it out from this description:

    The Fedora Project is a Red Hat sponsored and community-supported open source project. It is also a proving ground for new technology that may eventually make its way into Red Hat products. It is not a supported product of Red Hat, Inc.

    Colin Charles is a Fedora developer and has previously written countless how-tos, FAQs, tutorials and curricula. He co-authored a Linux desktop guide available via the United Nations Development Program's International Open Source Network.

    In Fedora Core 3: Made Simple, Colin brings his experience together in an easy-to-use guide that stresses learning by doing. Buy the book or the software separately, or get both in a boxed set. Heck, it's up to you. No matter what you buy or why you buy it, most of the profit goes to Colin and the development community.
  3. Re:Support by salutor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A PayPal donation would obviously be better in the sense that it would provide more money to the community in a more direct way, but some people who might not otherwise donate will be motivated by the idea of getting a physical something in exchange for their money. It's sort of like Public Radio offering you a coffee mug or a sweatshirt for your donation.

    Keep in mind that Lulu was founded by Bob Young (Red Hat), so this is not that much of a stretch.

    --
    http://MarketingType.com
  4. Updates by tomalpha · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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)...