AMD, Wine & Valve Dominated August For Linux Users

[jagoly]

Why do you switch the channel in the TV whilst they play adverts? Did you look at the movie? You MUST watch them!

Because the money only actually goes to Michael if you see the advert. TV adds are paid for in advance.

[schmidtbag]

Seems a lot of people still don't have a clue how internet ads work, but the simplest way to put it is they're almost never, if ever, pre-paid like TV or radio ads. There are several ways internet ads produce revenue.

Anyway, I personally use flash block since it bogs down my internet and puts a dent in firefox's performance. I'm not sure if the ads are considered loaded, though. Enough of the ad is loaded that the browser knows it is flash and therefore disables it, but the ad is never fully loaded or activated. Anyway, I never intentionally block ads.

[sdack]

Strictly speaking Michael is not giving it away for free, he is publishing it as a combination of content plus revenue-generating advertising.

No. He is giving it away for free and you are free to disagree.

I am not going to back down on it, because I love AdBlock. It makes the Internet a whole lot nicer. However, I would be happy for him if he finds a solution that makes him happy, too, and where everyone wins. Phoronix is not just any web site, but it has got a strong focus on free software, which "strictly speaking" is all about liberating our computers and giving control back to us. Would you not hate to see it if this freedom gets taken away again?

[bridgman]

No. He is giving it away for free and you are free to disagree.

OK thanks, I will

Michael is making the content available with an attached price tag (viewing the ad). In most jurisdictions you do not have the right to say "I will take the item but not pay the asking price", and the argument that "he left the item on display in the store so it must be free" doesn't hold water. The debate is obviously made more complex by the existence of convenient tools to separate the item from the asking price, and aggravated by the general suckiness of the infrastructure used for serving ad content.

Very few things annoy me more than waiting for ad servers, and that happens far too much. I can live with viewing ads (and very occasionally I'm even interested in what is being advertised), but I draw the line at waiting 10-20 seconds for the ad to come up.

I'll stay away from the obvious "free as in freedom vs free as in beer" point you raise.

EDIT - changed my mind -- I don't think "free software" and "free content" are necessarily the same thing.

[sdack]

I'm ok with using AdBlock with some websites where some ads pop-up everywhere and some files get downloaded and all. But that's not the case here...
Begging is not really effective indeed. And I hope for you that you will never have to beg to someone like you..

I said I generally dislike begging. I did not say I specifically dislike it. It means I do make exceptions, when I know it comes from people who are truly in need. I actually have people in my neighbourhood who frequently ask me for a quid (one British pound). When I see they are truly down do I give some, but I can tell when they are just being cheeky and then I tell them no. Just recently could I not get past a young woman, who frequently hangs out with other addicts, but who sat alone in the street crying quietly. I was about to walk past her just to leave her alone and turned around and gave her a quid. She had not asked me for it, just looked at me and it put a spark into her eyes. Another time I caught a young man going through public garbage bins, not bothering anyone, and who I actually met once before (he has got one hell of a life behind him and cannot stop). I gave him something, too, just so he did not need to do it. Make of this what you want, but they actually respect me for it. I am pretty sure Michael Larabel & Co. are far away from anywhere as needy as they are.

[kurros]

I've emailed multiple times and have never gotten a response but I would pay in a heartbeat for Premium if there was a full-text RSS feed available (multi-page feature articles exempt).

[gutigen]

As long as ads showed here are fuckin' skin smoothing tissues or other not even remotely relevant stuff (taking more screen space than articles) I'll keep using adblock.

How about stop being lazy and establish this place as a serious business with sponsored ads from hardware manufacturers, open source foundations or software (maybe even gaming?) studios? I bet Phoronix has enough montly views to at least get some companies to sit down and talk money.

[Michael]

As long as ads showed here are fuckin' skin smoothing tissues or other not even remotely relevant stuff (taking more screen space than articles) I'll keep using adblock.

How about stop being lazy and establish this place as a serious business with sponsored ads from hardware manufacturers, open source foundations or software (maybe even gaming?) studios? I bet Phoronix has enough montly views to at least get some companies to sit down and talk money.

What country are you in? Most advertisers are just interested in US/AU/NZ/EU and very little else....

It's not a matter of being lazy and it's IDG TechNetwork who handles the ad sales. While they're a tech-focused site, most tech companies are only interested in the aforementioned geographies. But aside from that, there aren't really many companies interested specifically in Linux advertising, in fact some have negative comments about Linux users to the ad reps. For the ones that are interested in Linux, we end up delivering more than enough impressions where we still have leftovers that get rerouted to normal network campaigns.

[curaga]

But aside from that, there aren't really many companies interested specifically in Linux advertising, in fact some have negative comments about Linux users to the ad reps.

Can we get an article airing those negative comments? Don't mention the names of course

[gutigen]

What country are you in? Most advertisers are just interested in US/AU/NZ/EU and very little else....

It's not a matter of being lazy and it's IDG TechNetwork who handles the ad sales. While they're a tech-focused site, most tech companies are only interested in the aforementioned geographies. But aside from that, there aren't really many companies interested specifically in Linux advertising, in fact some have negative comments about Linux users to the ad reps. For the ones that are interested in Linux, we end up delivering more than enough impressions where we still have leftovers that get rerouted to normal network campaigns.

I'm in Poland.

Thanks for clarifing about companies, fair enough. Have you though about setting up a foundation for Phoronix? You could propably funnel more donations that way and maybe get some tax exempt