Hello, friends of Free Software in Europe,
I herewith offer to create T-shirts and other merchandising articles with the "Europa riding a gnu" graphics - if possible, before the Linux-Tag.
* T-shirts. On the other side can be a text "This T-shirt is a free T-shirt. You can copy it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License ...".
Other ideas? Special wishes for the T-shirts? Anyone who prefers polo shirts?
* Key chains with coins (Euro-sized) which can be used in supermarked trolleys and such. They will cost about as much as the T-shirts, but they are of a high quality - engraved metal, not printed plastic - see http://adele.gerwinski.de/~peter/coin-20010522/ .
The other side of the coin can display, for instance, the value "1 European GNU".
Other ideas?
* Badgets. I am going to get a machine to produce them. If someone who is located near Essen (Germany) wants to help, we can produce them at a very reasonable price. :-)
* Pins. These can display the famous "A gnu head" graphics (or something else?) and serve as pendants of the ubiquitous Tux Pins.
* Anything missing? Anything which will not sell in your opinion?
I will do this for cost price, and I am going to advance the initial investment from my private money. When we sell these articles, the profit will be donated to the FSFE.
Peter
On Wed, May 23, 2001 at 03:08:26AM +0200, Peter Gerwinski wrote:
I herewith offer to create T-shirts and other merchandising articles with the "Europa riding a gnu" graphics - if possible, before the Linux-Tag.
Great. :) That would be a huge advantage to have them.
- T-shirts. On the other side can be a text "This T-shirt is a free T-shirt. You can copy it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License ...".
I am critical of the "free T-shirt" text idea.
--- A T-shirt cannot have the same freedoms attached as digitial information can have, because a T-shirt is physical item and will be a property of somebody all the time. You also cannot copy it without much effort.
The graphics for the T-shirt in digital format can be copied of course, but the difference is subtle and will not be obvious even to hackers.
In the effort to secure the rights for Free Software authors to innovate we are trying to make the point that physical proptery (an apple), a piece of work (book content) and an idea (plot of the book) are completly different things which need to be treated differently by the community and the law.
Proponents of patents of software try to make people think that this is all intellectual property. Because people know the concept of physical proptery they are tricked into extending this concept on works and ideas. ---
Using the "free T-shirt" text will not help in explaining this to people. As a joke it is to hard to understand or explain, IMHO.
(Well if you are really crazy you can take my explainatory text, edit it until it is understandable and add it under the "This is a free T-shirt" slogan on the T-shirt...... )
Bernhard
Bernhard Reiter wrote:
I am critical of the "free T-shirt" text idea. [...]
Sime time ago, the FSF USA suggested to photocopy their T-shirts. I think that this metaphor can in fact help people to understand how Free Software works.
(Well if you are really crazy you can take my explainatory text, edit it until it is understandable and add it under the "This is a free T-shirt" slogan on the T-shirt...... )
Well, I _am_ really crazy, so this would be an option.
Another idea:
- Front side: Europa riding a gnu; "Support Free Software in Europe"; "http://www.fsfeurope.org"
- Back side: Europa riding a gnu from behind (Europa's hair, the gnu's tail); the text in mirrored letters.
WDYT?
Peter
Peter Gerwinski wrote:
(Well if you are really crazy you can take my explainatory text, edit it until it is understandable and add it under the "This is a free T-shirt" slogan on the T-shirt...... )
Well, I _am_ really crazy, so this would be an option.
I like this very much - as you can imagine;-)
Stefan
BTW: I can help, I live in Duesseldorf.
Hi everyone,
|| On Wed, 23 May 2001 03:08:26 +0200 || Peter Gerwinski peter@gerwinski.de wrote:
pg> * T-shirts. On the other side can be a text "This T-shirt is a pg> free T-shirt. You can copy it and/or modify it under the terms pg> of the GNU General Public License ...".
I think a good start would be a t-shirt with the logo on the front (small, printed in upper left quarter) and Anjas motive on the back.
pg> Other ideas? Special wishes for the T-shirts? Anyone who pg> prefers polo shirts?
We might consider doing some polo shirts. But t-shirts should probably be our first priority.
pg> * Key chains with coins (Euro-sized) which can be used in pg> supermarked trolleys and such. They will cost about as much as pg> the T-shirts, but they are of a high quality - engraved metal, pg> not printed plastic - see pg> http://adele.gerwinski.de/~peter/coin-20010522/ .
Is there a demand for this? How many peoople would like to have such an item?
pg> * Pins. These can display the famous "A gnu head" graphics (or pg> something else?) and serve as pendants of the ubiquitous Tux pg> Pins.
Pins are a great idea.
I have always considered doing them for the "Brave GNU World" logo, because it is almost perfect for it. I'd be happy to see the FSF Europe raise funds with them. .-)
Even though it helps that Peter will finance the first investment needed to get things started, we really need to find a good way to deal with this on a resonably big scale, I think.
The FSF Europe needs to maintain a permanent supply of all items to be able to supply them for tradeshows and conferences... the central point for this will be the office in Essen.
Also we should make it easier for people to simply order small quantities of the FSF(E) merchandise. A perfect solution would be an online form where people simply enter what they want and have it delivered by mail.
Of course this requires dealing with the money transfers and packaging.
So there are essentially two problems that need to be solved:
a) We need a place that can print reasonably large quantities of t-shirts with a good quality (I think it is important they are as good as the U.S. ones) and deliver them to Essen. For this we should probably start gathering possibilities... I know Emma has already offered helping with this. Are there others who have good contacts to places doing such things?
b) We need to set up a good way to make it easy for people to get the things outside of tradeshows. Is there anyone here who has experience with such things and/or would be able to help?
Input on these matters would be greatly appreciated.
Regards, Georg
Georg C. F. Greve wrote:
pg> * Key chains with coins (Euro-sized) which can be used in pg> supermarked trolleys and such. They will cost about as much as pg> the T-shirts, but they are of a high quality - engraved metal, pg> not printed plastic - see pg> http://adele.gerwinski.de/~peter/coin-20010522/ .
Is there a demand for this? How many peoople would like to have such an item?
I don't know, that's why I asked on this list.
Even though it helps that Peter will finance the first investment needed to get things started, we really need to find a good way to deal with this on a resonably big scale, I think.
Well - give me 100 kEuro, then I will do the same on a really big scale. ;-)
But anyway I think that this can finance itself and grow.
The FSF Europe needs to maintain a permanent supply of all items to be able to supply them for tradeshows and conferences... the central point for this will be the office in Essen.
Also we should make it easier for people to simply order small quantities of the FSF(E) merchandise. A perfect solution would be an online form where people simply enter what they want and have it delivered by mail.
Of course this requires dealing with the money transfers and packaging.
Er ... I have experience with all this and just offered to do it for cost price. Of course, competent help is always welcome.
So there are essentially two problems that need to be solved:
a) We need a place that can print reasonably large quantities of t-shirts with a good quality (I think it is important they are as good as the U.S. ones) and deliver them to Essen.
My offer implied that I would use my connections to get everything produced in Essen.
b) We need to set up a good way to make it easy for people to get the things outside of tradeshows. Is there anyone here who has experience with such things and/or would be able to help?
IMHO the only reasonable way to do that is to sell the items in larger quantities to dealers. I have some contacts, e.g. to LinuxLand. Anyone else who has more contacts?
Peter
Hello again,
one question needs to be answered ASAP:
How many items do we want to have produced?
- T-shirts.
How many of them do we want in which sizes?
- Key chains with coins (Euro-sized) [...]
- Pins. [...]
Do we want them? How many?
- Anything missing? [...]
I got the suggestion to make baseball caps. Do we want them? How many?
Peter
|| On Wed, 23 May 2001 14:36:01 +0200 || Peter Gerwinski peter@gerwinski.de wrote:
pg> How many items do we want to have produced?
- T-shirts.
pg> How many of them do we want in which sizes?
Probably various sizes although computer freaks seem to have a tendency towards XL. Maybe we can make a little poll here: what sizes would YOU want? :-)
- Key chains with coins (Euro-sized) [...]
- Pins. [...]
pg> Do we want them?
I'd say yes.
pg> How many?
I have gathered information about this at some point. They are only produced in the far east, it seems and the minimum would be about 2000. Then they cost about 0.5-1EUR per piece. They quickly get cheaper if you order more because the biggest cost factor is to create the mold.
- Anything missing? [...]
pg> I got the suggestion to make baseball caps. pg> Do we want them? How many?
Baseball caps would be nice, I guess. Dunno how well they'll sell, though.
We should probably start with a certain amount for the LinuxTag and that'll hopefully finance the production of a bigger batch then. The LinuxTag expects 25000 visitors. I think we could sell quite a bit there...
Regards, Georg
hi,
On 23 May 2001, Georg C. F. Greve wrote:
I have gathered information about this at some point. They are only produced in the far east, it seems and the minimum would be about 2000. Then they cost about 0.5-1EUR per piece. They quickly get cheaper if you order more because the biggest cost factor is to create the mold.
so there certainly will be a difference if have to create a new shirt from scratch. So is it therefor a big difference if you order now e.g. 20'000 and then nothing for a year or if you order now 2'000 and later 15'000 again?
The whole shirt sounds pretty 'cheap' - it's one you also like to sell, like to buy and like to wear, isn't it? Still not everything what is "cheap" has to be bad ;-)
We should probably start with a certain amount for the LinuxTag and that'll hopefully finance the production of a bigger batch then. The LinuxTag expects 25000 visitors. I think we could sell quite a bit there...
Probably there is interest from resellers who sell software under the gnu gpl to sell these t-shirts, too. If we could get orders from them already now we would have a basis of calculation prices and stuff ...
just my 0.5-1EUR :) Michael
-- Michael Bracker - if it is to be Bavaria, Germany - it is up to me +49-(0)89-1488-203227
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Probably various sizes although computer freaks seem to have a tendency towards XL. Maybe we can make a little poll here: what sizes would YOU want? :-)
i've said that before but i'd rather restate it :) -- i want one in S, if that is possible somehow :))
sl, gpg - public key 0x1FE281EB karin "kyrah" kosina http://kyrah.net http://the.system.at +-----------------------------------><---------------------------------+ [ please sign the petition against software patents at ] [ http://petition.eurolinux.org ]
On Wed, May 23, 2001 at 03:20:58PM +0200, Georg C. F. Greve wrote:
Probably various sizes although computer freaks seem to have a tendency towards XL. Maybe we can make a little poll here: what sizes would YOU want? :-)
Just to let you all know that the guys in the fsfe-portugal mailing list decided to order the t-shirts together. I will send a message to the list asking for the number and sizes they want and I will report them here.
Peter Gerwinski a écrit :
Hello again,
one question needs to be answered ASAP:
How many items do we want to have produced?
- T-shirts.
How many of them do we want in which sizes?
We might plan to sell some at the LSM too if we manage to get them on time.
I think APRIL or FSF France can manage to buy them in advance.
Just to inform that the FSF has launched a GPL FAQ at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl-faq.html
Hello again,
I wrote:
- T-shirts.
How many of them do we want in which sizes?
- Key chains with coins (Euro-sized) [...]
- Pins. [...]
Do we want them? How many?
- Anything missing? [...]
I got the suggestion to make baseball caps.
And cotton bags.
Do we want them? How many?
I have never sold T-shirts before (or key chains, pins, baseball caps for that matter) and have no idea which sizes sell best. There seems to me a trend towards L/XL/XXL, but there were also requests for M (my size), S/XS/XXS.
My first estimate would be to order
7n XXL 10n XL 10n L 7n M 5n S 1n XS 1n XXS
2n key chains with coin 30n pins 7n baseball caps 15n cotton bags
for a suitable value of n > 0.
But I may be completely wrong.
Also, I asked friends about what colour they would prefer for their T-shirts, and there was a strong tendency towards black. What do you think?
Is the following what we want?
- Black T-shirt - 180g fabric - A large, white circle on it - "Europa riding a gnu" in the circle - Other stuff (yet to be determined) on the T-shirt is in white colour (on black fabric)
Also, we still need a final shape for "Europa riging a gnu". But that's another thread.
I expect to get an offer on Monday, so prices can be fixed and orders can go out next week and we will have all the stuff in time for Linux-Tag in July. :)
Greetings,
Peter
El Sat, May 26, 2001 at 05:02:22PM +0200, Peter Gerwinski deia:
- Anything missing? [...]
I got the suggestion to make baseball caps.
And cotton bags.
Another possibility would be mouse pads. Just a random thought. I have no idea whether they'd sell.
Also, I asked friends about what colour they would prefer for their T-shirts, and there was a strong tendency towards black. What do you think?
I like black T-shirts, but I'm not sure I'd like black for this one. I think the drawing would look better on a white t-shirt that on a white circle in a black T-shirt. What does people think?. What do you think, Anja ?. Maybe I'm just so bad at painting that I can't imagine how it would look on black.
Did you show the picture to the friends you asked, or did you just ask in general what color do they like their t-shirts ?.
Xavi Drudis Ferran wrote:
Did you show the picture to the friends you asked, or did you just ask in general what color do they like their t-shirts ?.
The latter one. Maybe that was an error ...
Peter
On Sat, 26 May 2001, Peter Gerwinski wrote:
Also, I asked friends about what colour they would prefer for their T-shirts, and there was a strong tendency towards black. What do you think?
Is the following what we want?
- Black T-shirt
- 180g fabric
- A large, white circle on it
- "Europa riding a gnu" in the circle
- Other stuff (yet to be determined) on the T-shirt is in white colour (on black fabric)
Ick, white circles. No style, No style I say! ;-P
Have a black t-shirt with the pictures on a black background, and a white one with pictures on a white background. (This might need a few adjustments to colour schemes, Anja knows about that best, I'll warrent :-) )
Also, we still need a final shape for "Europa riging a gnu". But that's another thread.
Well as long as she's riding it, I'm sure it'll be fine. :-)
I expect to get an offer on Monday, so prices can be fixed and orders can go out next week and we will have all the stuff in time for Linux-Tag in July. :)
Cool, I'd like to get a couple for to use in the Netherlands too. I've already sort of collected a small order, and I wasn't even trying, honest! ^_^;;; . Will you be able to send them out in small quantities, and/or sell them via some nice web store or so too?
read you soon, Kim Bruning
Oh dear, where did all the smilies come from?
On Sat, May 26, 2001 at 05:02:22PM +0200, Peter Gerwinski wrote:
I have never sold T-shirts before (or key chains, pins, baseball caps for that matter) and have no idea which sizes sell best.
XL usually sells best, but you never know with geeks. :) L being second.
Also, I asked friends about what colour they would prefer for their T-shirts, and there was a strong tendency towards black. What do you think?
Black for T-Shirts is good.
Bernhard
On Sun, May 27, 2001 at 08:59:38PM +0200, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
Also, I asked friends about what colour they would prefer for their T-shirts, and there was a strong tendency towards black. What do you think?
Black for T-Shirts is good.
* I do love my Copyleft T-Shirt with a blue (]) on yellow ground, * Black TUX on green ground * GNOME footprints on black
IMO, black sells best, but a second color (white or blue :) does make sense 'cause I like the picture on it every day, not only when I wear black clothes.
Eike
Hello once again,
I wrote:
- Key chains with coins (Euro-sized) [...]
- Pins. [...]
- [...] baseball caps.
- [...] cotton bags.
Do we want them? How many?
Current plan:
* 500-1000 white T-shirts. (You have convinced me that black ones will not look good with "Gnu and Europa" on them.) 190g fabric. (The T-shirts of the FSF USA only have 180g.;-) Front side: "Gnu and Europa" with the latin motto around it. Back side: Some text (the four freedoms?) and the official FSFE logo. Sizes: S, M, L, XL in some reasonable relation.
* 1000 Pins with "A Gnu Head", 20-25mm diameter.
* Cotton bags, natural color, "Gnu and Europa" on one side, combined with some text and the official FSFE logo.
* Badges (buttons). 3cm or 6cm diameter. Can we sell them? For what price?
No key chains with coins yet. They cost as much as the T-shirts, and I do not expect them to sell equally well. No baseball caps yet.
Further suggestions / comments / bug reports / protests?
Peter
On Thu, May 31, 2001 at 06:05:48PM +0200, Peter Gerwinski wrote:
Current plan:
Looks fine to far. Personally I do not buy badges and pins to I trust your judgement there.
- 500-1000 white T-shirts. (You have convinced me that black ones will not look good with "Gnu and Europa" on them.)
Please *beg* at least some black ones. :) I think that a version with green background map in some sort of white circle might look really nice on black.
Bernhard
Peter Gerwinski peter@gerwinski.de writes:
Sizes: S, M, L, XL in some reasonable relation.
I think you will need at least XXL too :-) The printshop can probably tell you a reasonable relation, or you could ask for some statistics from the FSF.
* Badges (buttons). 3cm or 6cm diameter. Can we sell them? For what price?
I don't think we'll be able to sell these. Stickers would be nice to have though.
On Thu, 31 May 2001, Jonas Oberg wrote:
I think you will need at least XXL too :-) The printshop can probably tell
Yes, please. I don't like white ones but this is more my problem I guess (or is there chance for a blue one).
Werner
* Peter Gerwinski (peter@gerwinski.de) [010531 18:24]:
Further suggestions / comments / bug reports / protests?
The label would fit exactly for a CD, what about a CD with well sorted GNU stuff, some nice elisp packages for the (x)emacs, and many many GNU-Software?
Matthias
On Thu, 31 May 2001, Peter Gerwinski wrote:
Hello once again,
Current plan:
- 500-1000 white T-shirts. (You have convinced me that black ones will not look good with "Gnu and Europa" on them.)
<beg> NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I didn't convince you of this I'm sure. Anything Anything, even a white circle on them, just have some black T-shirts, Please! </beg>
- Cotton bags, natural color, "Gnu and Europa" on one side, combined with some text and the official FSFE logo.
Cool. Any chance of dying some Black?
- Badges (buttons). 3cm or 6cm diameter. Can we sell them? For what price?
No key chains with coins yet. They cost as much as the T-shirts, and I do not expect them to sell equally well. No baseball caps yet.
When you get some, could you have some in black too please? Thanks.
Further suggestions / comments / bug reports / protests?
Protest: good plan.
+-------------------------+ | Equal Rights for Black! | +-------------------------+ || || || <----- Picket Sign || ...
Having said all that, even if you ignore this mail, thank you very much for taking this initiative, I think it's cool. :-)
read you soon, KIm Bruning
Hi Kim and all!
Kim Bruning (seperate for lists) wrote on Jun 01, 2001 at 08:48PM +0200:
On Thu, 31 May 2001, Peter Gerwinski wrote:
Current plan:
- 500-1000 white T-shirts. (You have convinced me that black ones will not look good with "Gnu and Europa" on them.)
<beg> NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I didn't convince you of this I'm sure. Anything Anything, even a white circle on them, just have some black T-shirts, Please! </beg>
[...]
+-------------------------+ | Equal Rights for Black! | +-------------------------+ || || || <----- Picket Sign || ...
ROTFL! :)
How could one resist this ...
What about printing the lines in some shade of "glowing" light green on a gray map? I mean like the samples on the bottom of the page:
http://agnes.dida.physik.uni-essen.de/~anja/gnu/lineart/
I think that any writing on the back should be printed in white.
I still haven't decided which gnu is best. I need to focus on one and work out the final version this weekend. If you favor a specific gnu (or a specific combination of the existing ones) please let me know. I have already collected some votes but there are not enough to really do statistics. I am very interested in hearing what you prefer.
Best wishes,
Anja
Dear Anja!
On Sat, Jun 02, 2001 at 03:18:45AM +0200, Anja Gerwinski wrote:
What about printing the lines in some shade of "glowing" light green on a gray map? I mean like the samples on the bottom of the page:
Hmmm, not really my favorite. I like the original white background / grey or black text more.
I still haven't decided which gnu is best. I need to focus on one and work out the final version this weekend. If you favor a specific gnu (or a specific combination of the existing ones) please let me know.
I like 1c best! It looks more friendly then the others. Keep up the good work!
Bye, Marc _______________________________________________________________________________
email: marc@greenie.net email: m.a.eberhard@aston.ac.uk, web: http://www.aston.ac.uk/~eberhama/
On Sat, 2 Jun 2001, to the sound of much happiness and jubilation, Anja Gerwinski wrote:
Hi Kim and all!
What about printing the lines in some shade of "glowing" light green on a gray map? I mean like the samples on the bottom of the page:
http://agnes.dida.physik.uni-essen.de/~anja/gnu/lineart/
I think that any writing on the back should be printed in white.
I still haven't decided which gnu is best. I need to focus on one and work out the final version this weekend. If you favor a specific gnu (or a specific combination of the existing ones) please let me know.
Wow, not only do they look nicer than I imagined, they look nicer than I could have imagined. (As A.C.Clarke would say)
As to voting... oh dear, ummm, the 1as look nice, but the GNU on 1c looks more friendly. :-) Any of them look nice enough for me to be impatient as to when I can finally get my FSFEurope T-shirt.
Okay okay, enough amazement for one day.
[ In other news: http://savannah.gnu.org/images/floating.jpg
is a really cool image, which should be T-shirtified at some point also, for the discerning GNU guru's out there. (But that's for another day, I'm sure :-) ) ]
Thank you very much Anja!
read you soon, Kim Bruning
May Saint IGNUcious bless you and your computer. ;-) http://opop.nols.com/gnu.html http://www.stallman.org/saint.html
Hello,
I wrote:
Current plan:
- 500-1000 white T-shirts. [...]
I changed this to 250 black and 250 white T-shirts. Anja is just working on the final graphics.
- 1000 Pins with "A Gnu Head", 20-25mm diameter.
Will do.
Cotton bags, natural color, "Gnu and Europa" on one side, combined with some text and the official FSFE logo.
Badges (buttons). 3cm or 6cm diameter. Can we sell them? For what price?
No cotton bags, no badges. We would have to sell them for at least 3 Euro each, which does not make sense, IMHO.
Most certainly we will have the pins and T-shirts in time for Libre Software Meeting and Linux-Tag in July. :-)
Also I have the prices now:
T-shirt (both colours, all sizes from S to XXL): 15 Euro, including 5 Euro donation to the FSFE
Pin "A Gnu Head": 1.50 Euro, including 0.25 Euro donation to the FSFE
(VAT included.)
My company G-N-U GmbH will handle the orders, so you can order T-shirts and pins by writing an email to
bestellung@g-n-u.de
When ordering T-shirts, please specify sizes and colours (black or white).
Shipping costs are
* 3.07 Euro for small orders (e.g. up to 20 pins) inside Germany
* 5.11 Euro for small orders inside Europe
* 10.23 Euro for small orders outside Europe
* 6.65 Euro for bigger orders (e.g. up to 5 T-shirts) inside Germany
* 16.11 Euro for bigger orders inside Europe
"Europe" in this context essentially means the geographical Europe, but without Norge, Turkey and Russia.
For everything else or when in doubt, please ask bestellung@g-n-u.de.
You can pay
* by cash in advance to G-N-U GmbH, Antonienallee 1, 45179 Essen, Germany, account number 300 1083 at National-Bank Essen, BLZ 360 200 30 (Beware: In international money transfer, banks sometimes charge over 7 Euro from both the sender and the recipient! Money orders (e.g. Western Union) are usually cheaper. In any case, please make sure that the correct amount reaches us.), or
* by cash on delivery (only inside the EU; current fees are 3.32 Euro inside Germany or 6.14 Euro elsewhere), or
* by cheque, payable to G-N-U GmbH, Antonienallee 1, 45279 Essen, Germany (only inside Germany).
You have my personal guarantee that G-N-U GmbH will transfer the profit (5 Euro per T-shirt, 0.25 Euro per pin) as a donation to the FSFE.
(BTW, the name "G-N-U GmbH" stands for "GNU-Nutzer-Unterstützung" which means "GNU user support".:-)
Please help us to reduce the shipping costs and the work load by making collective orders. Specialized resellers may have cheaper ways to do shipping and handling than we have; please point them to bestellung@g-n-u.de if you have contacts.
It's on the way ... :-)
Peter