Ubuntu Ship it: Not really free?

Well, about two months ago I learned about Ubuntu ShipIt from Digg. Well, today I recieved my CDs. All 30 of them actually. I was so happy, to be honest, I almost died. Well, I took my CDs out, and and put them away, but not before giving a few away.

But eventually, about a hour ago, I decided to read the package in case I missed something. I did. A little letter to me on a sticker on the package. Here’s what it said:

To whom it may concern:

Cornonical Ltd. is a global organisation headquartered in the isle of Man commited to the development, distribution and promotion of open source software products, and to providing tools and support to the open source community.
One of Cornonical’s products in the Ubuntu Operating system. Ubuntu is developed as free and open source software and can be used, modified, and redistributed without permission and completely free of charge. As part of it’s promoting Ubuntu, Canonical Ltd. sends CDs completely free of charge through the mail to users who request them. The software on the CDs can also be downloaded at no cost throught our website.
The Ubuntu CDs in all shipments are distributed completely free of charge. For shipping purposes, we declare a 0.26 EUR value for each CD. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me personaly.

Sincerely,
Benjamin Mako Hill
Community Development Coordinator

Now, can someone put this in Lamen’s terms for me? I read that thinking he was saying these were DISTRIBUTED free of charge? Then in the last paragraph he says he wants money for the shipping? Also, the website said they were free. No shipping. Now, it says they want $7 from me? I don’t understand these people. And do make this worse, I have a little sticker on here, and the only part I understand, is the parts that says “E”5.00 (5.00 EUR). the rest is in German or some other language. So, before you rush out and order your “free” CDs, make sure you have some money for shipping.

Now, since it said feel free to contact him…

The reponse (comment):

The CDs *are* free. Totally free. We \don’t charge anything. We do not recieve any money from CDs we’ve shipped to people.

By default, the CDs are shipped without any documentation as to the price of the CD. In some places, mostly in the developing world, customs officials stop the CDs and ask to see some sort of documentation on their *value* (not cost) because they usually charge some portion of the value in tax — regardless of how much was paid for them. It turns out that they simply won’t believe us if we say the CDs have no value or just a few cents. As a result, we declare a value of 0.26 for customs officials who ask because that seems to be the lowest number that works most of the time.

If you life in a country where customs stops your package and if they do not believe the “these CDs were sent completely free� line, you may be charged taxes based on the value of those CDs. We do not charge you for the CDs or the taxes. Your country’s government does. In reality, this only happens less than 1% of the time and almost never within the developed world. It is also very rare in orders of less than, say, 100.

Benjamin Mako Hill

So if you are sick of windows, give ShipIt a try. It take’s about a month for you to get them, but if you have a slow connection (or a lot of friends), it worth the wait.

Thank you Benjamin Mako Hill for the response, and I look forward to recieving the next version of Ubuntu.