Hi there! Debian, as other players in the Free Software world, is often present at different meetings, expos or conferences around the world, in different manners. Beside having Debian attendees or speakers, most of the time there is a Debian booth, where you can usually find merchandise on sale. It can be a bit strange to read that Debian people are interested in merchandising. However, for a volunteer project like Debian handling merchandise has different goals.
First, it is the easiest way to promote Debian, the best example being some strange kilted guys [1] walking around in New York City during the last DebConf10 [2]: every time someone asked us the reason to wear a kilt, we jumped on the train and explained what Debian is, why it exists and so on. [1] <http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/DebConf7/Tartan> [2] <http://debconf10.debconf.org/> Second, Debian wants to please its users: which better way to make them happy than giving them the possibility to carry around a Debian "sign" (the swirl being the most famous one) on their laptop or T-Shirts, for example? And third, probably the most important one, merchandising is a way to gather resources to further Debian development, sponsoring various activities like Bug Squashing Parties [3] or Sprints [4]. Remember, Debian is a volunteer project and thus sometime it needs to find funds on its own. [3] <http://wiki.debian.org/BSP> [4] <http://wiki.debian.org/Sprints> Past, present and future ======================== In the past, there were two different contact points for event- and merchandising-related activities: they were the events@d.o and merchandise@d.o email addresses, respectively. This setup was no more reliable, especially if considering that most of the time the people contacting merchandise@d.o were the same guys who were organizing a booth, thus contacting events@d.o. You probably know that there was also a Debian Marketing team [5], given that in the past there were official delegations for marketing reasons [6]. Way before that, however, the Debian Publicity team was created with the intent to better communicate with the outside world [7]. [5] <http://wiki.debian.org/Marketing> [6] Message-ID: <20080416223047.ga18...@zoy.org> URL: <http://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/%3c20080416223047.GA18752%40zoy.org%3e> [7] Message-ID: <20060607142005.ga21...@ouaza.com> URL: <http://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/%3c20060607142005.GA21054%40ouaza.com%3e> At some point during last year it was clear that this fragmentation (events@d.o, merchandise@d.o, Marketing and Publicity teams) was worsening the situation and thus our resources were re-organized: first, the Marketing team was merged into the Publicity team [8] and, second, the Publicity team sent a clear message to the world, they were still alive and kicking [9]. [8] Message-ID: <20100810143014.ga3...@upsilon.cc> URL: <http://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/%3c20100810143014.GA3317%40upsilon.cc%3e> [9] Message-ID: <20100914103636.gs12...@melusine.alphascorpii.net> URL: <http://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/%3c20100914103636.GS12469%40melusine.alphascorpii.net%3e> Finally, during various (in)formal discussions at different events (e.g. the Debian Merchandise BoF at DebConf11 [10]), we decided it was time to deal with the last bit of publicity: merchandising. Thus, the event handling in Debian received two Christmas gifts [11]: the first one is the addition of two new members (Francesca Ciceri and yours truly) and the second one is the merging between the events@d.o and merchandise@d.o contact points. [10] <http://penta.debconf.org/dc10_schedule/events/683.en.html> [11] Message-ID: <20101224144600.ga...@upsilon.cc> URL: <http://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/%3c20101224144600.GA336%40upsilon.cc%3e> This announcement explains the overall infrastructure behind the event team and how to obtain the best from its work. Webpages on www.debian.org ========================== The canonical webpage is at [12]: everyone can find there information about forthcoming events (of any kind, from booth to keysigning) and also practical information if they are the ones running the event. [12] <http://www.debian.org/events/> While the overall pages still reflect the current situation, they will be reviewed and updated. The latter will be particularly done on the "material and merchandise" page [13], which must be connected to the "general" merchandise page at [14]. [13] <http://www.debian.org/events/material> [14] <http://www.debian.org/misc/merchandise> Submitting an event =================== This is the easiest part: whenever you know of any event Debian is present, simply send an email in English to <eve...@debian.org> [15]. We will then do all the necessary steps to find someone willing to participate/coordinate the Debian presence and announce the event to the appropriate debian-events-* mailing lists [16][17][18][19], if not already done. [15] <mailto:eve...@debian.org> [16] <http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-eu/> [17] <http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-ha/> [18] <http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-na/> [19] <http://lists.debian.org/debian-events-nl/> Where to discuss what ===================== While the events@d.o address is the main contact point, we also need a place for wider discussions. This because emails sent to events@d.o are not public and it is easier to reach a bigger audience when posting to mailing lists or wikis (e.g. event participation/coordination is mostly done on the Debian Wiki [20]). [20] <http://wiki.debian.org/CategoryEvents> During the last years, the Debian Publicity team [21] has done a huge amount of work in promoting Debian. Its already established community and position within the Debian world is an invaluable resource that should be used as much as possible. We (the people behind events@d.o) thus decided to direct any general discussion about event/merchandise there [22]. [21] <http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Publicity> [22] <http://lists.debian.org/debian-publicity/> For anything strictly related to the website, the Webmaster team [23] still remains the major contact point. If you find any error there, feel free to contact the mailing list [24] or, better, submit a bug to the virtual pseudo-package 'www.debian.org' [25]. [23] <http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Webmaster> [24] <http://lists.debian.org/debian-www> [25] <http://bugs.debian.org/www.debian.org> Merchandise =========== In the previous years, merchandise for Debian events has always been dealt by local Debian sister association (e.g. Debian Brasil [26], Debian UK [27] or debian.ch [28]) or companies that extensively work on Debian (e.g. credativ [29]). [26] <http://www.debianbrasil.org/> [27] <http://www.einval.com/~steve/DebianT/> [28] <http://debian.ch/merchandise/> [29] <http://www.credativ.de/> While this situation has worked so far, it is far from being optimal and it is difficult to know who has what, a fact that has two results: end-users do not have a single list of what is available and booth organizers do not know who should be contacted. Again, the merging between the events@d.o and merchandise@d.o contact points seemed natural in this respect as well. But our plan is not restricted to that: the main idea is to have two official liaisons taking care of the merchandise handling, one in Europe and one in the Americas (the continents where most of the events occur). Our aim is to go even further, with the creation of a standard "event box" to be sent to booth organizers, containing some material (e.g. flyers and posters) and merchandise (e.g. stickers and T-Shirts). For this reason we are looking at volunteers within Debian Developers willing to take care of this task. Future applicants should send an email in English to <eve...@debian.org> [15]. One nice side effect of this position is that sometime you are more involved in participating at a particular event you have never been before. For the future, there are already some ideas for new merchandise: the debian.ch folks [28] is looking into a Debian version of one of the symbol of Switzerland itself, the Swiss Army Knife, and in the production of a Debian-branded USB stick pre-loaded with the Debian Installer [30] or Debian Live [31]. Without forgetting a black version of the well-known Debian Umbrella after so many fans requested at different events. [30] <http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/> [31] <http://live.debian.net/> We are looking for new and fun ideas of any kind, T-Shirt designs being the simplest to realize: have you ever being tired of buying yet another Debian T-Shirt? Feel free to discuss your ideas on the Debian Publicity mailing list [22]! We did that just a bit less than two weeks ago. Following the lenny Valentine T-Shirt [27] we had two years ago at FOSDEM 2009 [32] to celebrate the lenny 5.0.0 release [33], we repeated ourselves for the squeeze 6.0.0 release [34]: at FOSDEM this year there were rocketed swirls on the back of proud owners of the squeeze Space Fun T-Shirts [28], the default overall theme for that release [35]. [32] <http://www.fosdem.org/> [33] <http://www.debian.org/releases/lenny/> [34] <http://www.debian.org/releases/squeeze/> [35] <http://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/SpaceFun> Where to find merchandise ========================= All the material available will be present in both webpages on the Debian website [14] and on the Debian wiki [36]: while the latter contains a more detailed list of what is available, with direct links to the producers, the former will still continue to act as a favor to our loyal users, listing companies selling Debian merchandise, most of them in any way affiliated with the Debian project. [36] <http://wiki.debian.org/Merchandise> Should any company want to be enlisted on the "general" merchandise page [14], please follow the instructions at the end of that page, which summary in sending an email in English to <eve...@debian.org> [15] with the following information: the company name, the URL for your main page, the URL where Debian merchandise can be found and the list of Debian merchandise sold. Please be aware that we are only interested in advertising Debian related gear. Since we are protective of our reputation, we take customer service seriously and with the same high standards we deserve for our distribution. Lately, it has come to our attention that some online merchands listed on the Debian website [14] are free-riding on the good name of the Debian project, and are taking orders without delivering goods. People are strogly advised to contact <eve...@debian.org> [16] if this happens, so that the Debian project can take measures. On behalf of the event team. Thx, bye, Gismo / Luca
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