On Fri, 2003-09-12 at 12:47, Udo Rader wrote:
Am Fri, 12 Sep 2003 01:20:05 +0000 schrieb Adam Williamson:
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/partners/advertising
...
no.
I don't understand some peoples negative attitude towards advertizements. A couple of month ago my company (a small OSS startup) has decided to become a mdk partner for various reasons. At some point (depending on how much money we will once invest into this partnership [which we haven't done yet ...]) I think one can eventually expect some kind of pay-back.
Yes I know, there are lot's of really _great_ voluntary contributors to mandrake that may dislike ad's as screensavers but who will eventually be hurt by this?
I bet that all users at "a bit better than newbie"-level will be able to
install the regular screensavers as well. And in the end: screensavers
start up when there is no activity on the system - so why should I care
that much what is happening on my screen when I'm not using it?
As I said in my previous email, it's all about impression. Adverts immediately send the message "this product cannot support itself. it needs to sell other products to be viable." This is absolutely not the message you want to send out. Clear?
As mud.
Do you ever watch sports? Take the US Open that just wrapped up last weekend.
With the name *J.P. MorganChase* is plastered all over the walls of the courts in Arthur Ash stadium with the *IBM* scoreboard high above the crowd Andy Roddick received the US Open trophy along with a check for $1,000,000 from *Ford Motor Company* while wearing an outfit from *Reebok*. Afterwards you are taken to commercials by *Citizen*, *Heineken*, *Olympus*, *MassMutual*, etc. You can read all about the tournament by going to usopen.org where you will see adds for *Princess Cruises*, *IBM*, *USTA.com*, *American Express*, *Lincoln*(Ford Motor Company), *George Forman*, etc..
Does this mean that the tournament can't support itself without outside involvement even though they are making sales of tickets to the tournament? Not neccesarily. Does it mean that they now what makes money and take advantage of that knowledge. You're damn right it does. Does it mean that they have a bad product? No it doesn't. It means that they are smart enough to use the avenues that are available to them to make as much money as possible. It provides them revenue as well as the sponsors.
When I see this kind of sponsorship for an event I don't get the impressions that this is a sign of a horrible product that needs to be propped up by various thrid parties. I get the impression that people want to be associated with the event because of the benefits of the association.
Is it really a good idea to deny Mandrake the same type of revenue source because of an incorrect impression of advertising?
I also absolute hate the fact that the way this is being implemented
sets a precedent for the impairment of the actual functionality of the
OS through adverts, which is the effect of putting adverts on the
default home page and on the browser bookmarks.
-- Brant Fitzsimmons [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________________________________________
Linux user #322847 | Linux machine #207465 | http://counter.li.org/ AMD Duron 1.3GHz | Mandrake 9.1 | Kernel 2.4.21-0.16mm-mdk KDE 3.1.3 | Mozilla 1.4 Mail Client Uptime: 11:00:00 up 5 days, 22:16, 1 user, load average: 0.14, 0.25, 0.27 ___________________________________________________________________
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Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being
self-evident."
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