Linux Today Founder Calls for Boycott of Linux Today 744
dave writes "I founded and managed Linux Today in 1998, bringing it up from nothing into the most powerful and large Linux news website in the world, in less than a year. I am now calling on the Linux community to boycott my creation until its current owners stop accepting money from Microsoft to publish blatantly anti-Linux/pro-Microsoft ads."
Same ads here... (Score:4, Informative)
have you seen the MS adds on Slashdot (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is (Score:5, Informative)
Imagine if it read like this:
"I'm now calling on the Linux community to boycott Slashdot until its current owners stop accepting money from Microsoft to publish blatantly anti-Linux/pro-Microsoft ads."
I personally would call upon the community to click every Microsoft ad they see. They get cheap advertising if nobody clicks on them. And they're not going away if you don't. Microsoft is definitely the high bidder on most of our sites.
Re:Ads on Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
OT manybe (Score:3, Informative)
You click on the link and it takes you to another linux Today page, with slightly more clipping (WTF) . Only when you click the second link, do you get to see the actual article.
Two clicks to visit a External Article, No thanks.
Adblock! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Ads on Slashdot (Score:2, Informative)
On topic: Go Dave- Linux Today started sucking when you left, I last looked about 4 months ago and it was a mess of a site. It sucks really bad.
The truth will out! (Score:4, Informative)
- Slashdot takes advertising.
- Some of the advertising Slashdot takes is from Microsoft.
- Microsoft advertising is paid for in U.S. dollars.
- The editorial side neither sells the ads nor chooses the advertisers; whether the ad at the top is for Microsoft, Red Hat, or The Estate of Jonas Savimbi, I'm just as surprised as anyone else by the particular banner that appears.
Above is just to point out that the ad-choice decision is not one I make
However (But! Nevertheless!), I don't think it's all that important anyhow. So long as ads are respectful of your browser (I hate Flash ads, and it goes without saying that no one is friends with popup ads or other eye-pokers), their content doesn't concern me a whole lot. (Could there be exceptions? Yes. But the MS ads I've seen on Slashdot, for example, have been tame as a churchmouse. Most of them don't even rise to the level of puffery, more straight 'product exists' notification.)
Ads for Microsoft Visual Studio appear on Slashdot; a lot of readers use that or similar products in their work. Ignoring the possibility that readers use source-secret software would be dumb on the part of the advertisers; they would be ignoring a rationally valuable resource. I'd prefer that people use more free, Free software --and they will. But I'm confident enough that people will choose open source stuff on their own for their own reasons that I don't think advertisements for The Other Kind are a huge concern. What would it say if they were? (Solar and wind power is great; there are still ads for gasoline generators in the back of Mother Earth News.)
I like seeing IBM and other companies push their open-source agendas (parallel and connected to their other agendas) in ads and other forums, but here, too, I don't think advertisements matter except as an input; people will still make up their own minds based on multiple, sometimes ineffable factors.
As at least one other poster has commented, wouldn't you rather the money flowed this direction than the other?
timothy
huh? ads? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ads on Slashdot (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Mommy, M$ isn't playing fair (Score:3, Informative)
You are taking away money from the competition, and putting ads on a page that most people ignore anyway.
Exactly, and *IF* he were smart he'd be using Mozilla/Firefox and (*gasp*) blocking ads.
And is linking to a site on
Sheesh.
Re:And will you... (Score:3, Informative)
If I don't like what they are doing, then I, as a member of the Linux community can voice my opinion and even call for action.
dave
Is Rombuu too stupid to read the article? (Score:3, Informative)
Are Linux Today's readers too stupid to think for themselves?
Rombuu, do you enjoy beating your wife? Come on, that's a really old troll. Ask a question that has no right answer and ignores clearly stated points. Here are those points:
All are legitmate. Microsoft adds are irritating and I hate seeing them. Besides being blatantly false, they are as visually annoying as any porn add. Running such garbage casts doubt on your editorial integrity and lessens the impact of your content. Worse, they might become dependent on M$ and join the long line of worthless Wintel publications ready to say anything. These are issues worth considering.
Re:Ads on Slashdot (Score:3, Informative)
Technology Road Shows have 960% more bull?hit than Linux Expos. Get the facts. [microsoft.com]
Re:Witness the amusing irony (Score:3, Informative)
I guess you don't keep up with current events.
VA Linux is no more. They became VA Software years ago, changed almost all of their internal systems to Microsoft, and only hawk proprietary software (SourceForge).
IIRC, VA Software has little or nothing to do with this site anymore.
Yes but rare (Score:3, Informative)
But you are right that in most cases the issue really isn't a big enough deal for people to bother. Also in this case the supporters did a very good job bringing things to the public eye, handing out flyers in front of grocery stores, to get people thinking about it right before they made a decision. Much more effective than posting in your blog, or a stupid chain email.
yes.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Question (Score:2, Informative)
privoxy vs. ads (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, privoxy doesn't work that way.
Privoxy is a web proxy, not a browser plugin. That means it slipstreams itself in between your browser and the server. When using privoxy, your actual web browser never actually directly requests anything from the web site itself. All of its requests go through privoxy, and (crucially) privoxy does not actually pass all of the incoming requests through to the remote server.
The result is that when you go to slashdot's home page and there is an ads.osdn.com banner at the top of the page, privoxy doesn't work by first downloading the ad from the server and then preventing you from seeing it. Instead it works by recognizing ads.osdn.com as an advertising site, and not even sending the HTTP GET request at all.
Now, it is true that privoxy has a second, independently functional ad-blocking mechanism that does rely on post-processing the ad after it is downloaded, but ads.osdn.com is well known enough that privoxy can (and does) already decide to eschew even the initial GET request based purely on the URL input.
Re:Question (Score:3, Informative)
Its not entirely on line, but over on USENET rec.guns most people are boycotting Smith And Wesson. Looking at their balance sheet it seems to be working. Been going on actively for nearly 10 years, with the goal to kill S&W as an example to others of why you don't sell out on your customers.
Linuxtoday is useless anyway (Score:3, Informative)
last 3 years. However that stopped 2 weeks
ago when I switched over to lxer [lxer.com]
It's a little broader and much less noise.
Try both over 56K modem to really see what I mean.