On Sat, Sep 01, 2001 at 11:36:54AM +0200, Josip Rodin wrote: > On Fri, Aug 31, 2001 at 02:21:49PM -0500, James A. Treacy wrote: > > > > You say free, but the CDs cost money! > > vs > > You say free, but the CDs/bandwidth cost money! > > Personally, I find the original less confusing. Saying 'bandwidth > > costs money' makes me think someone is going to send a bill (above > > what is normally paid for connectivity) to download software. > > Of course you need to pay for connectivity, so what was the point of > > this change? > > Well it's simple -- you can't tell people that Debian is completely free of > charge if they have to download it over the Internet, analogously when they > have to record it to a CD. All of this "raw material" stuff costs money. > The incremental cost for an additional download (above what users already download) is negligible. I think your change just confuses the issue. As an analogy, people tend to think of riding a bicycle as free even though bicycles don't last forever and also need maintenance.
> > I suggest changing the word costless to 'without cost' on line 101. > > Uh, okay, I wonder why... > While costless is a perfectly valid word, I have never heard anyone actually use it. > > Although Debian is non-profit, we do have expenses. > > vs > > We don't make any profit from doing any of this, and we do have > > various expenses. > > It's not clear what you didn't like about the original. How about > > I didn't like the conjunction (it's messy to translate in at least one other > language :), and I didn't like "although", it implied that the reader > thought we don't have any expenses because we're non-profit. > > > Debian does not make any money from the sale of CDs, but we do have > > expenses. > > Well, we don't make any money from anything we do, except from Shaleh > selling T-shirts on trade fairs :) > But we do get donations. Non-profit does not imply cashless. In fact non-profits can even sell things. I still sugges the third version over the other two. > > Another change: > > <P>Don't take our word for it - try Debian out yourself. Since hard disk > > space has become less expensive, you can probably spare about 500MB to try > > out Debian. Debian can be easily installed on this extra space > > and can coexist with your existing OS. If you eventually need more space, > > you can simply delete one of your OSes (and after you see the power of the > > Debian system, we are sure it won't be ours). > > to > > <P>Don't take our word for it - try Debian yourself. Since hard disk > > space has become less expensive, you can probably spare 500MB. > > Debian can easily be installed on this extra space > > and can coexist with your existing OS. If you eventually need more space, > > you can simply delete one of your OSes (and after you see the power of a > > Debian system, we are confident which one it will be). > > Most of this doesn't really relate to my change, does it? :) I've always > said that work incites work, which is cool. > I simply went through the document. Not eveything relates to your changes. :) We're just trying to improve the document. > > Section > > How do I get support?< > > was changed to > > I can't set it up all by myself. Where do I get support for Debian? > > That doesn't sound to bad except what follows tells them to try and > > install it themselves. I suggest changing it back (s/How/Where/ if you > > want). > > The next paragraph tells them that they _can_ do it all by themselves... on > the other hand, that's a silly thing to promote, lart me :) > > It should be changed so it tells people that they can do it on their own, > briefly, and then mention consultants. > So what are you suggesting this section look like? -- James (Jay) Treacy [EMAIL PROTECTED]
