I am thinking that Debian should consider taking some steps to increase its commercial presence by becoming more attractive to small entrepreneurial business owners with low to moderate technical skills. The reasons for this is to provide an increased source of funding for Debian expansion. Lets consider some ideas. 1. Debian could maintain a list of consultants and technical workers who can and will support commercial Debian sites. (Perhaps at a discount.) 2. An off the shelf business development kit could be developed for web based businesses. Specifically I mean create some web page templets, some database templets, and, some spreadsheet templets. Then stitch them together with some interactive front-end that creates a small web based business. Just automate some of the process. Im not talking creating a multinational just something simple. Joe wants to try selling bowling balls on the net. There are plenty of applications which will help him to do this. Just sew them together in a way that makes it easier for a non or only slightly technical person to do it. This also might appeal to web hosters as service to provide.
These two ideas are aimed directly at people who will use Debian to make money. Therefore I see nothing wrong with asking for some of it. Asking not demanding or requiring. We should remember that although the volunteer structure of Debian is a wonderful thing certain facts remain. Advertising costs money, and so do many of the other things that will allow Debian to grow and continue to be a major Linux distribution I am not wedded to the ideas above, but I do think expanding the reliable capital base can not but help Debian in the long term. Any opinions? Tom
