Sun has suspended their NetBeans IDE DVD Starter Kit distribution program indefinitely. Yes, you read it correctly; they have done it. So many developers used to get most of Sun (free) products through the distribution program. Students with less bandwidth (in some colleges & universities); specially users without Internet access to home computers are fond of this service as NetBeans DVDs are freely delivered to their hands at no cost. According to NetBeans.org;
"Since August 30th, 2005, NetBeans.org has shipped more than 225,000 CDs & DVDs to developers around the world through this initiative! During this period, NetBeans has experienced explosive growth as a download, media kit, and a community. To stay ahead of this encouraging trend we are looking into ways to effectively satisfy increasing demand for NetBeans software worldwide."
For sure this service played a huge role in helping so many Java developers. Also the program is a good marketing option for NetBeans since Eclipse (the best free Java IDE) provides no such services, rather than allowing free download. Sun also has decided to follow the same; stick only for free downloads. However the Starter Kit is available for download as an ISO image. In near future may offer downloads via mirrors and bit torrent; but not sure how near that future is. Anyway we are grateful to service Sun provided us.