On Sat, 2003-09-13 at 13:38, Buchan Milne wrote: > So, it's better to have a public policy on advertising, and break it, than > to not have one?
Pragmatically, yes. As I said, the fact that there's a known policy limits their possibilities; all they can do is bend the rules. Breaking them outright would be a bad move for them. > Or is it the fact that the advertising is unobtrusive? If so, we can't > judge Mandrakesoft's actions until we see the adverts. And I am quite sure > any advertising will also be more relevant than IBM at Wimbledon. It's slightly more sophisticated than that. Unobtrusive advertising is the *goal*. As I've already posted, what I'm mostly worried about is that unobtrusive advertising sets a precedent for obtrusive advertising. The point about Wimbledon's policy is that it, *effectively*, more or less limits them to unobtrusive advertising. If Mandrakesoft were to issue a policy saying "we will never use <x y z types of advertising>", it would have a similar effect of constraint and reassurance. > Just because we only have photographic evidence of the speedo and the > clock doesn't mean that's the only places there was advertising. I am > quite sure there was more, but I don't see the need to go hunting around > for it all ... but I have found a few more: And the point is you had to *hunt*. It's not something that's blindingly obvious. It is, as we seem to have agreed, unobtrusive. :) > IMHO, gaining revenue from the advertising in the installation is a good > idea (unless you would prefer MS-style propaganda as to why Windows 2003 > is better at everything, more secure, never crashes, etc etc). And, if you > hit the "details" button (about the only reason you would actually want to > watch the installation), you won't see the advertising. Personally, I can't stand advertising in virtually any form. But I know it's not such a problem for most people. Which is why the objections I've made above aren't my own personal problems but what I think is best for mdksoft as a whole. > developers. Did the webpage actually say that the adverts were going to be > for Viagra etc??? Or did the news sites jump to conclusions, or did the > posters jump to conclusions? I don't think any news sites said that. OSNews and Slashdot basically just linked to the corporate site with a recap of what it said. Linux Today linked to the later Mandrake public announcement. The only people who made such comments were idiotic thread posters. BTW, exercise to prove what I was saying about public relations: compare the comments made on Slashdot and OSNews *BEFORE* Mandrake made its public clarification with the comments made there *AFTERWARDS* and with the comments made on the Linux Today thread, which only ever linked to the clarification. Notice that the second set of comments is massively more favourable to Mandrakesoft. This rather proves my point that it would've been a hell of a lot better to get the clarification in first. -- adamw
