Fedora Awareness & Profile. With many operating system choices available to the public, official fedora merchandise could be a part of the overall plan to start new conversations about Fedora Linux and generally raise interest in the Fedora project?
Increased Reach. With greater funding (arising from such a website), presumably more of Fedora's broader goals could be achieved? Fedora's funding goals may already be met (?) but any new net proceeds from donations, even possibly bequests or funds from regular and ongoing sales of merch would be unlikely to be a negative outcome for the Fedora Community?
Merch = Esprit de corps. Simple but "Community cool items" including the expected coffee mugs, shirts, caps etc could make the user/wearer feel part of that product's Community? Pride, belonging and may help start conversations about the Fedora Project and aid with contributor motivation and loyalty. As a Community driven project, it would seem that any sense of belonging and unity of purpose is only likely to be positive?
Start small. In the much longer term, a mature fedora donations/merch website could conceivably be a significant contributor to the Project, particularly if a bequests process was considered or if it were linked to the existing practice of corporate donations of both funding and goods but at the very beginning this could happen in a very small and simple way (simple merch website with few barriers to entry). A pilot site could act as a trial or initial discussion point as it's goals and website processes refine over time. Perhaps just aim to ship a few caps, pens, shirts, stickers etc initially. Then grow and expand the system. Merch could be "sold" in the conventional online way or if "selling product" was felt to be incompatible with the free and open Fedora way then official merch could simply be offered as optional 'gifts' to donators who make donations in a certain price ranges? Many possibilities for process seem apparent, but a small start could possibly lead to greater outcomes over time?
Thoughts?
Preceding Matrix chat below (no need to read : ) )
mph FranciscoD_ mph Who is the best person/what is the best forum to discuss Fedora donation/merchandise policy and implementation? Thanks Probably the mindshare team for a start 🤔 No doubt this question/idea has been dealt with many times before and likely controversial due to commerciality issues but I wondered if having an official Fedora website for donaations/merchandise might assist with funding of Fedora's goals? (I found the 'goods in kind' site) Yesterday Vipul Siddharth mph FranciscoD_ mph Who is the best person/what is the best forum to discuss Fedora donation/merchandise policy and implementation? Thanks Probably the mindshare team for a start 🤔 not sure we are looking for that (or if Fedora's funding goals are not met -- I mean you could always have more people working), but opening a council ticket would be the right place instead of direct person contact IMO: https://pagure.io/Fedora-Council/tickets/issues
I've created a topic on Fedora Discussion for this ticket.
Please keep this ticket focused. Discuss there, and record votes and decisions here. Thanks!
For a variety of reasons, we won't be accepting donations for now. But once #394 is complete, we can create a page with a list of places to buy authorized merch.
Metadata Update from @bcotton: - Issue marked as depending on: #394 - Issue priority set to: Waiting on External (was: Needs Review)
Thanks Ben. Rocky linux merch solution/approach may be of interest when /if merch options considered further in future. As for donations, foresaw numerous legal and philosophical hurdles, fair enough if not viable now.. : )
See discussion linked above. Closing this ticket because we don't have anything to act on immediately (not because it's a bad idea!)
Metadata Update from @mattdm: - Issue close_status updated to: no action needed - Issue status updated to: Closed (was: Open)
Log in to comment on this ticket.