Well,
Trisquel needs a public relations persons for starters. Every time there is a
release it needs to be shown off. This would build interest in the
distribution. Linux Mint does a good job of this. Right now Trisquel doesn't
get much press at release time.
Linux Mint has relationships with various other commercial entities:
They have three types: partners, donors, and sponsors
Trisquel already has a donors program. These are one time donations (although
they indicate when people have donated multiple times).
This month's donations so far: 68 donations, $1722.4
Then they have a sponsors program. This program is like Trisquel's associate
members program. This portion of the site is currently not working for Linux
Mint so I'm unsure how much it is bringing in at the moment. However I know
it is significant. The top 4-5 sponsors are contributing as much as $10,000
USD a month. That alone is enough for two paid full time developers.
They they have partners. These are companies that donate servers, bandwidth,
and similar services. As well as financing such as generating revenue through
programs such as search engines (duckduckgo). Then there are vendors which
contribute back a portion of the sales for each CD sold. We actually offer
this for Trisquel @ ThinkPenguin.com so there already something available
although it isn't advertised on the download page.
There is one last thing they have and this is advertisements. I believe this
is through Google.
They also have a partnership with one company for a media center.
Trisquel also has similar types of partnerships. ThinkPenguin for instance
contributes back a percentage of the profits.
To say Trisquel is far behind Linux Mint would be a bit of an understatement.
It needs more free publicity though. Hiring a public relations person might
not be a bad move in terms of the return on the investment.
