2009/3/27 Theo de Raadt <dera...@cvs.openbsd.org> > ... > > ... and how well does that work. A request for money to buy 3 new > infrastructure machines gathered more donation money in 1 week > ... than all the other donations for the previous 6 months. I often > wonder how many of those were "FTP install donations". Very few, I > think. Either there aren't a lot of people, or they are poor, or > they lack the spirit. Shrug. > > I believe you have to consider that international shipping is quite expensive, not only for the shipping itself but because most people that need it are from developing countries.
Take my case for instance, I'm from Brazil, 1CDN is about R$1,83 (Brazilian currency), take into the fact that 50CDN is about 1/5 of the monthly wages (ok everyone that would use openbsd gets at least 4 minimum wages) plus 30-40CDN of shipping costs, it's a lot of money, way more for us than for europeans and or Canadians/North Americans. Consider the population in BRIC countries plus all the Asia, billions of people that don't have other option besides ordering. Yes, there is a distributor here, but it costs more than ordering, I believe it is the same with the other countries. What I'm trying to say is: Yes, people download because they are "poor". I bought myself a 4.4 poster and a t-shirt, and I would love to buy the 4.5 CD and another poster, but it's quite a hit in my account, so I will end up downloading... If we could only get those CDs for a cheaper price, I really believe the outcome would be much better, I'm saying cheaper price for poor countries, I guess it's better selling for a cheaper price than not selling at all. As for donations... I feel much better transfering money to a paypal account as I do not feel "harmed" as I do when paying international shipping costs. Again: I'm not pointing a solution I'm only exploring the view of "Yes they are poor" and I do NOT feel that the CDs itself are expensive, but with international shipping FOR developing countries they then get expensive. Best Regards -- Christiano Farina Haesbaert
