We are in the process of creating a mirror of some open source / free software in Malaysia, since the local mirror situation is not good. What is the mirror situation like in India / South Asia?
My main question:
Broadband rollout is currently low in Malaysia. We could help open source here by sending out CDs of the key open source apps / distros / packages. They'd probably be sent free since we have some funds for Malaysian open source development. But we don't want to be taken advantage of. Also, we'd like to encourage the software to spread further than just the people we send to.
Can anybody see some way of turning this into a pyramid? I am thinking, maybe we could send 1 or 4 copies. If 4 copies, your name gets added to a database on the web, and others near you can come and get the other 3 copies. Something like that.
It could be heavily engineered (credits for helping out on a web site, credits for sending copies to extra people, debits when we send people CDs) or all based on trust. Trust is probably better. But we want to make sure that the people who benefit are those who really don't have the bandwidth, rather than somebody who has access to the data in other channels but prefers us to send to them. We also have to make totally sure that we are distributing legally (for GPL, would we have to bundle source with binary, or just make the URL for the source very clear on the CD with the binary?)
Thanks for your thoughts....
Imran