On Friday 16 July 2004 23:45, David Megginson wrote: > Curtis L. Olson wrote: > > But any way you cut it, putting advertisements on our web site will > > change the look and feel of our web site and probably influence the > > impression our project projects to the world ... > > Yes, it will make a significant difference to FlightGear and a lot of extra > hassle for Curt. > > We'll look less like a friendly, volunteer Open Source project and more > like a corporate Open Source startup. That may significantly change the > kinds of volunteers we attract and the way we're treated by conference > organizers and the press, as well as users' expectations of code stability, > support, etc. People don't volunteer to help with corporate OSS projects > like JBoss the same way that they contribute to, say, Mozilla, Apache, > Linux, or FlightGear (and even JBoss doesn't have ads on its site, I don't > think). It's hard to find any really friendly OSS projects with wide > participation *and* ads on their site. > > When I was paying to keep the main SAX site at megginson.com and getting > many thousands of hits each day, I was also briefly tempted to run ads to > help cover expenses, but I realized that doing so would have changed the > way people saw and used SAX. > > I'd suggest trying some different approaches: > > 1. Set up a PayPal voluntary donation button on FlightGear.org -- no one > will mind that (but see tax issues below). > > 2. If you cannot cover expenses with the voluntary donations, set up a > separate *.com site (flightgear.com was already taken, last I checked). You > can use it to distribute extra information, set up forums, etc., and > perhaps you can run ads and offer consulting services through it. > > 3. If you absolutely *must* run ads on flightgear.org, please use Google > text ads and not banner ads. > > That last point is important. Managing an advertising account is a tricky > job, and not one that you want to do on top of everything else. With Google > ads, you know you'll get paid and you don't have to worry about the > advertisers. > > Another important point is tax. FlightGear is not a legal not-for-profit > organization, so I think that any ad revenue that comes in will have to go > onto Curt's tax return, and he'll end up paying a big chunk of it to the > government. The same is true for a PayPal donation button. > > So, in the end, my advice is not to do it. If you want to make a living or > partial living from FlightGear, set up a separate commercial site and be > prepared to learn about CRM, tax laws, incorporation laws, legal fees, > insurance, NDA's, contracts, and all the other fun that comes with running > your own small business. If you just want to cover expenses, try posting to > the list with a subject line like "Need new $500 hard drive", and I'm sure > that a lot of us will be willing to pitch in. > > > All the best, > > > David
These are good points. Glad it's not my call. LeeE _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
