Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 00:52:00 -0700 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> To: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Promotional CDs and evil customs agencies. Message-ID: <25283.906018720@time.cdrom.com>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
[ I know that this is typically -chat material, but I'm not going to reach the people who are actually involved by sending this to -chat ] I just thought I'd let folks know that I've reached a hard, but irrevokable, decision with regard to sending promotional CDs overseas: I'm not going to do it anymore. This decision doesn't come easily since I know that there are a lot people overseas who have done some very good work with promotional CDs in the past, but these people also need to understand that almost every single batch of CDs I've sent overseas has come at considerable personal cost. I've probably had over 500 long and tortured conversations regarding CDs stuck in customs, CDs which got billed to the wrong people and CDs which just plain got destroyed on the dock. I just can't afford to spend that kind of time on this sort of thing. Not only do european and asian customs deparments make the process of sending "freebies" a total nightmare (no matter how we declare them, and we've tried just about everything from free to cost-of-materials to full-value on the declaration forms), but the shipping is very expensive, even by boat. Most people don't know that we spent over $10,000 shipping the 2.2.6 CDs to various people overseas, and if I ever do something like that again I'll be taken out to Walnut Creek CDROM's parking lot and shot in the back of the head by the financial controller. I won't even get a fair trial first. So anyway, please don't send me lots of emails going "gosh, don't do that, we can pay shipping!" or "I have a brother in customs who can smuggle them out, just tie a red ribbon around the parcel and mark it ``attention Sigfried''" - I really have thought about this and it really is just too much trouble for us. My mind is made up. No more non-U.S. freebies. The shipping department, already overloaded with work as it is, also refuses to send special letters or otherwise attempt to mediate when stuff gets stuck at customs if the whole deal is only going to cost money (e.g. they'll do this if you're a paying customer, but it's too much to expect for free), so it's really just not practical to try and do this anymore. If you know of someone in the U.S. who is willing to deal with all these issues for you or otherwise provide "trans-shipment" outside the U.S., then that's obviously something else entirely and I'm perfectly willing to do that. Sending CDs within the U.S. is not a problem. What this all says to me is that maybe it's time for some company like S.U.S.E. to pick up the job of making and selling FreeBSD CDs in europe since Walnut Creek CDROM isn't doing much of that anymore in any case. Don't get me wrong - I'd love to see us have a bigger european presence, along with a big inventory of FreeBSD CDs over in Europe which could be sold and/or given away for promotional purposes, but I also don't see that happening anytime soon. We tried to do that about 3 years ago and the whole idea just sort of fizzled out, as much as I would have loved to have seen "Walnut Creek CDROM, Europe." It's not just enough to have a distributor there, you need to have the CDs *made* in europe in order to avoid customs problems. My sincere apologies to the various non-U.S. folks who used to get promotional CDs from me, but I think you also know even better than I do just how much trouble customs can cause and can pretty much relate to my predicament. If it were just one or two incidents a year, I'd deal with it, but it's a heck of a lot more work than that and if I so much as see one more customs declaration form, I'm going to scream! :-) - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?25283.906018720>