Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Asks: Appropriate Place For Free / Open Source Software Artifacts?
A friend of mine who buys and sells used books, movies, etc. recently purchased a box full of software on CD, including quite a few old Linux distributions, and asked me if I'd like them. The truth is, I would like them, but I've already collected over the last two decades more than I should in the way of Linux distributions, on at least four kinds of media (starting with floppies made from a CD that accompanied a fat book on how to install some distribution or other -- very useful in the days of dialup). I've got some boxes (Debian Potato, and a few versions of Red Hat and Mandrake Linux), and an assortment of marketing knickknacks, T-shirts, posters, and books. I like these physical artifacts, and they're not dominating my life, but I'd prefer to actually give many of them to someplace where they'll be curated. (Or, if they should be tossed, tossed intelligently.) Can anyone point to a public collection of some kind that gathers physical objects associated with Free software and Open Source, and makes them available for others to examine? (I plan to give some hardware, like a pair of OLPC XO laptops, to the same Goodwill computer museum highlighted in this video, but they probably don't want an IBM-branded radio in the shape of a penguin.)
Give them to Timothy.
With any luck it will keep him busy and we wont hear from him for a while.
Figure out before you try to get rid of them which knickknacks and giveaways are actually special somehow. Take all the other ones, put them into bags, and take them down to the your local landfill for recycling. Now put the valuable ones on eBay, perhaps in one or more lots divided by brand. Not expecting to get any notable money, but that would be a nice side effect. It's just a nice way to handle getting paid for shipping, really.
Nobody wanted most of that shit when it was new. It has never ceased to amaze me how an industry which literally creates XL and 2XL customers will have 2000 size M tee shirts made, and 200 size XL, and 0 size 2XL. I've had to see some horrifyingly hairy midriffs in various technical departments.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Find the nearest dumpster and throw them in. Nobody (or very, very few people) wants worthless old CDs and floppies.