I think this may help: http://www1.mandrakelinux.com/en/mdkads.php3
it clears up some misconceptions and definitely eases my mind regarding the situation. I think the problem is that when you say "Ad" people think of the most common example: spam or popups. Those are very intrusive and annoying. I don't mind advertising as long as it's removable, discreet, and contextual to where the Ad is placed. I don't think Ad's in the screensaver are a good idea, but bookmarks and installer Ad's shouldn't be a problem if they aren't terribly annoying or distracting. Just another $0.02. Scott Quoting Jan Ciger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Hello, > > Vincent Danen wrote: > | I hate to say it, but it cracks me up how people are so against > advertising, > | our business model, and things we do to make revenue so that the > developers > | and others in the company can eat and afford to spend all of their time > | working on the distro. Sounds like the community would rather have a nice > | distribution but all the developers should be homeless and starving. > > I think, that this is just not true and most people here will agree. > There are plenty of ways how to make money out of the product without > resorting to ads. E.g. selling support, selling special "enterprise" > versions (e.g. RedHat is doing this) or making the distro > semi-commercial (aka Suse). > > I do not think, that there is a problem with making money out of the > product. Most people here are Club members or bought their boxes. > > Problem is, that : > > a) this alienates the users - I do not know anybody who is fond of ads, > most users hate them. Yes, you could remove them, but I do not think > that the user will come back if the first thing he sees is an ad for > some unrelated product. Especially the default screensaver decision is > bad :-( > > b) nobody even bothered to say something to people in Cooker. There are > plenty of people there, who are spending lots of time working on Cooker > without any remuneration. People here are not even worth a mail from MDK > saying something like "oh, btw, there will be ads in the upcoming > version, what do you think?", it seems. Somebody had to notice this on > an obscure web page and also Slashdot picked it up before somebody from > MDK bothered to say something. > > | (And no, I won't bother contributing to this thread anymore) > > Me neither, had enough already. But it also shows, that Mandrakesoft > does not care much what their developers and users think. Nice :-( > > Regards, > > Jan > > > > - -- > > Jan Ciger > VRlab EPFL Switzerland > GPG public key : http://www.keyserver.net/ > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iD8DBQE/Yhznn11XseNj94gRAtSoAKDOlBBYOaPj4jm3TGlSbuG8o70V6ACbBYS4 > Y322pnIU0kEhh9l7k4iiSaA= > =1Dkd > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > > >
