On 01/05/17 21:33, Adam Borowski wrote: > On Mon, May 01, 2017 at 07:45:06PM +0200, martin f krafft wrote: >> For many of us, it goes without saying that we'd not take a margin >> off merchandise we create/sell for our project, mainly because of >> our idealism. >> >> However, at the end of the day, all things considered, if Didier or >> Person X would mark those items up, say, 5% to cover the incidentals >> (not the time spent), then I wouldn't have a problem with that. >> It'll certainly help if they were entirely transparent about it, >> though. > > I for one would be glad even if he _did_ take a fair fee for his time spent. > > And it would make a difference: > > # It's been fun in 2011, but I would not do it again, no. I have better > # uses of my Debian time. :) > > If you get compensated beyond the costs, you don't get that warm fuzzy > feeling of doing gratis work, but still do provide a welcome service to > members of the project. If that can tip the threshold between the service > being provided or not, then why not? >
There are various reasons why not: - opportunity cost: time spent on this is time not spent on other things where people have more to give - financial reward isn't always a smart motivation (see Lepper and Greene, 1973) - Debian's constitution states we are volunteers, so if people do stuff like this with Debian money maybe they can't personally be paid for it. but I personally have no objection to somebody profiting from this if they are transparent about it and provide a good service to the community. >> Note also that there's nothing that prevents Person Y from producing >> Debian merchandise and offering it with a more substantial markup. >> If people buy it (i.e. the price is right), then everyone benefits… > > Note the data mentioned in this thread: > * decent printed shirts cost $0.60 in a large batch (including the > manufacturer's profit) > * "very good quality" printed shirts made in a small batch retail for $3 if > you skip most of the "rich country" artificial markup (ie, the price you > pay in shop is "what the market will bear" rather than just what would > keep the seller in business) > > Thus, there's a massive gap between doing it for costs and a full commercial > operation. It's not hard to find a sweet spot in between that would flood > relevant places with people in Debian-themed clothing while not cutting into > volunteers' unpaid time. > Those are very different cases though: the embroidered shirts would probably be more simple (just the logo) and designed for a long shelf life. The screen printed shirts may have more topical designs (e.g. for DebConf17 or Stretch) and in these cases the smaller quantity is fine. Regards, Daniel
