[deepakprakash]

Yup, the free CDs is what I remember as the first thing about Ubuntu - and the fact that it worked out of the box.

There is a fun story as well: We were in college (in India) at the time and my friend went ahead and ordered 100 CD's or so (they actually encouraged it at the time for distribution). The package arrived at the local Post Office after a few weeks and he was asked to go collect it, which seemed strange. Anyways, he went and to his wonder was told to pay import duty on it by the customs! He argued for a while saying it was educational material and that it was being shipped for free - to no avail. He finally gave up and asked them to keep it for themselves and walked out.

In the end, they chased after him before he left the premises and gave it to him - no import duty, nothing.

I got my CD from this set. :)

[totalrobe]

Nothing has changed. Indian Customs vies for most corrupt in the world. They also have crazy high duty on electronics. Many software companies in India have offices that are "bonded warehouses", meaning that the computers have not had the duty paid on them and cannot legally be removed from the premise.

Source; I work in the Global Trade Management

[Danieru]

So does that tactic work because the computers are "in-transit"? What happens upon end of life? Do they need to ship the computers out of country?

[cbr]

Normally when something is in a bonded warehouse it's a storage-only situation. Looking online I can't find anything about indian special cases where this works differently, just the ordinary "store goods here until you sell them, and pay the duty then".

[Aloha]

It's not just indian customs - a friend of mine has had similar stories with Canadian Customs and free software. Customs exists to get money out of its citizens, I've had trouble with American Customs too.