On Tue, Feb 06, 2018 at 02:28:15PM +0000, Stuart Henderson wrote: > On 2018-02-06, Ingo Schwarze <schwa...@usta.de> wrote: > > Hi, > > > > Andreas Kusalananda Kaehaeri wrote on Tue, Feb 06, 2018 at 02:11:54PM +0100: > > > >> I'm quite active on the Unix & Linux Stack Exchange site > >> (https://unix.stackexchange.com/). They are currently asking for > >> "Community Promotion Ads" > >> (https://unix.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4765/community-promotion-ads-2018) > >> and since I'm fairly fond of OpenBSD I thought I'd add an OpenBSD ad > >> there. These ads will show up in the sidebar of the main U&L site. > >> > >> However, I thought I'd ask here before I do, just to be sure I'm not > >> doing anything stupid or legally wrong. > > > > Doing classical marketing - in the sense of showing self-promoting > > information to people who never asked for it, either independent > > of context or based on nothing but AI decisions about context - > > feels wrong in principle to me. I consider it disrespectful in > > general. The fact that it is becoming more pervasive and harder > > to avoid today than it used to be a century ago, or even a decade > > ago, only reinforces the point IMHO. > > > > That is my personal opinion. I'm not quite sure how other developers > > feel; likely opinions vary. But i can hardly remember such questions > > ever being explicitly discussed. There is kind of an unspoken > > consensus that developers don't do marketing and that there is no > > interest in having non-developers do marketing. > > > > Personally, i wouldn't very strongly oppose the specific thing you > > want to do, but i am not really in favour of it either. It doesn't > > seem legally wrong, it seems to me it would be covered by what is > > said on the page linked below. > > > > Finally, note that mentioning OpenBSD and OpenBSD-related projects > > in specific contexts where they can actually help with problems or > > tasks that people are talking about is certainly very welcome. It's > > just that ads for OpenBSD feel somewhat weird - they might make > > OpenBSD look like a commercial project, or incite other misperceptions > > about what the point of OpenBSD is. > > > > It is most definitely not the goal of OpenBSD to have as many users > > as possible. Some goals are to be as simple, functional, and secure > > as possible. That's a quite different thing! The normal goal of > > marketing is to get as many people as possible to buy or use > > something, even among those who would actually be happier with or > > better served by something else. Maybe that's why i feel hesitant > > about your idea. > > > >> If ok, I wonder if there's a verison-agnostic image that I could > >> use (like the one on the OpenBSD Wikipedia page maybe?). > > > > https://www.openbsd.org/art4.html > > > >> I do not personally gain in any way from doing this. > > > > Yours, > > Ingo > > > > > > Well said on all counts, I totally agree. >
I appreciate the quick response, and the clear outlining of your thoughts on this matter (Ingo). I definitely understand this standpoint, and I agree. I will not do this. I'm happy I asked. Thanks, -- Andreas Kusalananda Kähäri, National Bioinformatics Infrastructure Sweden (NBIS), Uppsala University, Sweden.
