Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: > AFAICT from our <http://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/> page, this situation > is fairly peculiar as other vendors are for-profit, even if some of them > permits CD buyers to pay more and give the difference to Debian. I > think that difference warrant some kind of "blessing" of debiancd.org, > as buying via them would support the Debian project more than other > vendors. What do you think of that? If you agree, I'll be happy to > propose a specific wording.
On balance, I think it's a poor idea. As others have noted, the benefit to the debian is not increased directly by their non-profit status. There is already the "Allows Contributions" which is more relevant to us. Secondly, a simple for-profit/non-profit distinction would leave for-social-benefit enterprises in a grey area. In one interpretation, cooperatives and other social enterprises are non-profit (because all surplus is spent to achieve our social goals), but some of us show a profit on the accounts we file with government because of local laws. Also, how would we define non-profit? Is it just if the actual vendor company is non-profit, even if they are a subsidiary of a for-profit company? I'd prefer subsidiaries of for-profit business to be excluded because it can be an tax/accounting trick, but it might be hard to check in some places and it seems like a can of worms. Finally, I think I spotted one non-profit vendor on the CD page already (Steve McIntyre). Who is willing to contact all vendors and check their status? > As an alternative, if you don't think the difference warrants the > blessing, we might add a differentiation among for-profits and > non-profits CD vendors, and furthermore among worldwide and non > worldwide vendors. If we must, I think a "Has Paid Contributions" differentiation would be better. > The best of both worlds might be to do the "blessing" from start and > then generalize it if other similar projects show up in the future. I definitely don't think we should ignore existing non-profit vendors. Hope that helps, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-www-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100729085954.3254ff7...@nail.towers.org.uk
