From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Oct 20 21:25:47 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA17181 for chat-outgoing; Mon, 20 Oct 1997 21:25:47 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat) Received: from pluto.plutotech.com (ken@mail.plutotech.com [206.168.67.137]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA17176 for ; Mon, 20 Oct 1997 21:25:43 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from ken@plutotech.com) Received: (from ken@localhost) by pluto.plutotech.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id WAA16428; Mon, 20 Oct 1997 22:25:31 -0600 (MDT) From: Kenneth Merry Message-Id: <199710210425.WAA16428@pluto.plutotech.com> Subject: Re: Free FreeBSD CD-ROM donations to environmental/non-profit groups? In-Reply-To: <199710210300.WAA11923@Venus.mcs.net> from Douglas Carmichael at "Oct 20, 97 10:00:54 pm" To: dcarmich@mcs.net (Douglas Carmichael) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 22:25:30 -0600 (MDT) Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28s (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Douglas Carmichael wrote... > I was looking at the WWW site of an organization called the > Environmental Support Center (http://www.envsc.org) and one of their > functions is to donate Lotus software and computer equipment (Windoze :-( > to non-profit environmental groups. > > What do you think of a program to donate FreeBSD CD-ROMs (because a lot > of small grassroots organizations have no Internet access) to non-profit > groups working on environmental or animal rights issues? > > Benefits: > * Promotes FreeBSD > * Gives the groups an advanced, open OS base for their own > networking and computing needs without the extra cost of source licenses, > etc. > * Strengthens the goodwill of Walnut Creek (and FreeBSD Inc.) in the > computing community and the activism community at large. > > Any thoughts on this? I think the FreeBSD project should avoid political involvement of any kind. I think that we would lose more than we would gain by supporting one political point of view over another. If the issue were supporting some computing-related political issue, it is (remotely) possible that FreeBSD might benefit from it. (it would have to be thoroughly discussed and widely agreed to, IMO, though) In this case, though, I don't think it's a good idea. [ just my $.02 ] Ken -- Kenneth Merry ken@plutotech.com