[Consortium] Advertising Policy - linuxaudio.org

[Patrick Shirkey]

Hi,

Putting aside the issue of an application for US based 501c3 status for
now the dns for linuxaudio.org is not hosted on Viginia Tech servers. The
domain name is owned and managed by Daniel James and IIUC 64 Studio Ltd is
in charge of the actual payments for keeping the domain alive. That means
we are completely free to have subdomains hosted on entirely different
servers *if we choose to do so*.

There is no technical barrier for having

   <insert name>.linuxaudio.org

subdomain hosted on any publically accessible web server anywhere in the
world. As an extreme example with apache proxying we could even have a
Chinese language version of the entire domain hosted on a Chinese server
in mainland China if we wanted to.

My proposal is to allow the Linux Audio eco system to grow in a certain
direction which has a long term goal of providing a reliable source of
funding and a powerful marketing channel to enable multiple benefits to
flow from there. For example if we are able to get a regular income we
could look at applying for 501c3 status or the equivalent European option.

I would like to be clear that *I am not* proposing that the entire LAO
domain become a marketing free for all. Simply that some of the sub
domains are given authority to take paid advertising which we can then use
to fund additional projects and work.

Given that Linux Audio has very little industry support in the mainstream
media some of us feel that creating a Linux Digital marketing channel is a
 valid direction for long term growth and promotional opportunities. Given
that Linux Audio is one of the foundations of an open source media
platform I think it is appropriate for us to make some movements in that
direction. Effectively creating an open source marketing channel built on
top of Libre technology and expertise.

There are many companies in the audio/media industries that would be happy
to pay us money to advertise their brand in association with the high
quality and stability that Linux Audio represents.

I think it is entirely within our remit as a consortium to allow for and
support growth in this direction. After all as we own the channel we also
control the message. That is a powerful foundation to build on...

If we can agree on the subdomain issue then we will be free to make some
headway in this direction building on top of 10 years of combined content
and SEO across the LAO domain. Otherwise we are forcing the channel to
essentially start from scratch and that seems counter to our stated goals
of supporting businesses which seek to enjoy the benefits from working
within  and supporting the Linux Audio community.



--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd



On Fri, April 20, 2012 2:57 am, Ivica Ico Bukvic wrote:
> Please allow me to chime in here for a sec. The decision to advertise or
> not in this case is not Board's decision but Virginia Tech's decision, or
> rather Commonwealth of Virginia decision. This is because the server
> resides on the VT infrastructure which is in turn at least in part paid by
> the taxpayers' money. VT is also a Land Grant university which means we
> need to work towards bettering the community we service and who
> essentially at least in part provides funding for our everyday expenses.
> Therefore, we cannot advertise and collect funds when that will be in
> direct competition with external entities who essentially foot our bill
> through their taxes. In other words, we as non-profit Land Grant
> University cannot be in competition with external for- or non-profit
> entities. This is why we cannot advertise unless we move said sites off
> the University servers. Personally, I have little interest in advertising
> as the benefit of practically unlimited bandwidth, free backup, and
> hosting space far outweighs amounts one could get through ads such as the
> one being discussed here. For this reason, I would simply suggest that we
> move your sites off VT servers if you wish to pursue the ad revenue and
> leave it at that.
>
> Another thought is to finally go ahead and do 501c3 for the linuxaudio.org
> and seek ways for us to fund our own hosting space in which case we'll be
> able to put as many ads as we like. I am simply reluctant (apart from the
> fundamental questions such as where to find funding to do this, who will
> do this, and just how much money we could earn through ads) to do this
> since LAO efforts have been by and large based on copious amounts of
> volunteer work by Robin and I. The community has expressed little to no
> interest in helping in the process or providing resources to do this on a
> larger scale and as such the current situation seems to be by far the best
> under given circumstances. I'll gladly entertain thoughts of those who
> would like to prove me wrong as far as the 501c3 matter is concerned,
> particularly those who are interested and willing to join our rather thin
> pool of volunteers.
>
> HTH
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Ico
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Patrick Shirkey [mailto:pshirkey at boosthardware.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 7:41 PM
>> To: Robin Gareus
>> Cc: Ivica Ico Bukvic; consortium at lists.linuxaudio.org; Daniel James
>> Subject: Re: [Consortium] Advertising Policy - linuxaudio.org
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I appreciate your point of view but I feel it is more of a board
>> decision
>> about how we handle sponsorship opportunities rather than a single
>> persons
>> call.
>>
>> - Being a "not for profit" organisation does not mean that we are not
>> able
>> to take any cash contributions. Instead it means that we are obligated
>> to
>> spend all the funding that we receive in support of our charter/mission.
>> Anyway at the moment we are not officially registered as not for profit
>> so
>> that means we have no obligations under the "Not for Profit" laws for
>> funding.
>>
>> Of course we don't have to take payments directly to Linuxaudio.org or
>> the
>> Consortium. Both Daniel and myself have registered companies that can
>> legally act as proxies and deal with the accounting issues with no
>> impact
>> on Linuxaudio.org. After all it is simply a website with a .org suffix
>> from a legal point of view. The Linux Audio Consortium is a completely
>> seperate entity again. There is no legal requirement for the consortium
>> to
>> have any financial duties for the Linuxaudio.org domain name and/or
>> any
>> content hosted under that url.
>>
>> - As we already have sponsored advertising I don't see why it is a
>> problem
>> to allow *some* of the subdomains to host paid advertisements. As long
>> as
>> they meet the requirements of whatever policy we come up with.
>>
>> I have suggested that lau.linuxaudio.org and quicktoots.linuxaudio.org
>> be
>> hosted on my private server. These domains have always been about
>> providing a "fun" entry into the Linux Audio Community so it seems to me
>> they are prime places for *appropriate* paid advertising.
>>
>> - I have no problem with taking payments, handling the accounting
>> process
>> and distributing the cash in whichever way we determine to be the most
>> appropriate. Daniel and I have already established a working
>> relationship
>> between Boost Hardware Ltd and 64 Studio Ltd.
>>
>> - In a perfect world I would love to be able to earn enough money from
>> the
>> "Linux Audio" digital channel to pay for content contributions,
>> development and design in addition to hosting and maintenance costs. I
>> think it is entirely within our charter to operate a professionally run
>> digital media channel for the purpose of promoting the Linux Audio
>> platform and open source multimedia software/hardware and
>> businesses.
>>
>> I have already established http://linuxmusicvideos.com. I am currently
>> looking into the costs for purchasing the linuxaudio.com domain name.
>> The
>> whois for that domain is mysterious. I suspect it is already owned by
>> one
>> of our members.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> --
>> Patrick Shirkey
>> Boost Hardware Ltd
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, April 19, 2012 9:56 pm, Robin Gareus wrote:
>> > Hi *,
>> >
>> > Personally, I am against any commercial for-profit advertising on
>> > *.linuxaudio.org domain and sub-domains. I suggest to use your own
>> > domain-name for doing so.
>> >
>> > As Ico already pointed out: "we cannot make money off the site unless
>> we
>> > move to private hosting" -- private hosting equivalent to what vt.edu
>> > offers us incl. unlimited traffic, 3 hourly, 7 nightly and 4 weekly
>> full
>> > backups of our 300GByte volume plus 24h support is probably >= $300
>> per
>> > month. I guess Ico could find out the exact numbers, though i suppose
>> > it's better not to ask :)
>> >
>> > Besides, linuxaudio.org is a not-for-profit organization. As soon as
>> we
>> > receive money - for any subdomain -, someone would need to spend
>> the
>> > money and take care of accounting.  Daniel who pays the DNS
>> registration
>> > for linuxaudio.org every year would be on top of the list to receive a
>> > few beers from our first revenue.
>> >
>> > best,
>> > robin
>> >
>> >
>> > PS. some lac.linuxaudio.org pages do indeed feature links to sponsors
>> > which and may fall under the category "advertising". However, none of
>> > those is for-profit. The "sponsors" are institutions or companies who
>> > directly support the Linux Audio Conference - mostly with
>> non-financial
>> > contributions: e.g. this year: LWN ran an ad-campaign for us; Stanford
>> > sponsored location, coffee, Nando & Bruno's time, etc; CiTu.fr allowed
>> > me to co-organize LAC while being employed there,..
>> >
>> > For the record, the LAC is under the auspices of the institution that
>> > hosts the conference, linuxaudio.org is providing free hosting for the
>> > conference site to the benefit the LA community.
>> >
>> > Besides, all external links on lac.linuxaudio.org and
>> > wiki.linuxaudio.org are marked as rel="external" which defeats SEO to
>> > some extent. If you find some links on *.linuxaudio.org to commercial
>> > sites that are not rel="external", please let us know and I'll see to
>> > remove them.
>> >
>> >
>> > On 04/15/2012 02:36 AM, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
>> >> Ok,
>> >>
>> >> I'll coordinate with Daniel to get the dns for those subdomains
>> pointing
>> >> at my server.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Patrick Shirkey
>> >> Boost Hardware Ltd
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Wed, April 11, 2012 5:23 pm, Ivica Ico Bukvic wrote:
>> >>> Redirecting paid things to your own server will be the easiest and
>> >>> fastest
>> >>> solution to this if you are interested in having this done quickly.
>> >>>
>> >>> HTH
>> >>>
>> >>>> -----Original Message-----
>> >>>> From: consortium-bounces at lists.linuxaudio.org [mailto:consortium-
>> >>>> bounces at lists.linuxaudio.org] On Behalf Of Patrick Shirkey
>> >>>> Sent: Monday, April 09, 2012 6:16 AM
>> >>>> To: consortium at lists.linuxaudio.org
>> >>>> Subject: Re: [Consortium] Advertising Policy - linuxaudio.org
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> On Sun, April 8, 2012 3:29 am, Ivica Ico Bukvic wrote:
>> >>>>> On 04/07/2012 09:16 PM, Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote:
>> >>>>>> On 04/08/2012 01:38 AM, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
>> >>>>>>> Easter Greetings to the list.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> I have been contacted by a reputable audio company who
>> would
>> >>>> like to
>> >>>>>>> sponsor the "audio quality howto" by placing an advertisement
>> on
>> >>>> the
>> >>>>>>> page
>> >>>>>>> for a one year period.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> http://lau.linuxaudio.org/audio_quality_howto.htm
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> Do we have an advertising policy for Linuxaudio.org?
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> why would anyone want to advertise on a page that has been
>> >>>> bitrotting
>> >>>>>> for 12 years?!
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>> Bitrotting or not, the site is hosted by a land grant university
>> for
>> >>>>> free which I believe (translation: I am 99.99% sure) means we
>> cannot
>> >>>>> make money off the site unless we move to private hosting. I can
>> >>>>> double-check with the powers that be if anyone needs a 100%
>> >>>> confirmation
>> >>>>> on this one.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> They have offered $50 for a one year placement. I'm still deciding
>> if
>> >>>> that
>> >>>> is a fair amount.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I am happy to host paid content on my own server if we can
>> redirect
>> >>>> the
>> >>>> DNS to that location. I suggest that all content under the "lau"
>> and
>> >>>> "quicktoots" subdomains are hosted on my server.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> That way we are able to have paid content and free (as in beer)
>> >>>> content so
>> >>>> we are Libre in the true sense of the word.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> The next step will be to figure out a policy for advertising
>> >>>> placements,
>> >>>> how to deal with any income that is generated and how far we are
>> >>>> prepared
>> >>>> to go down that path.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Personally I would love to be able to pay people to contribute to
>> LAO
>> >>>> and
>> >>>> if advertising in a respectful and tasteful way helps make that
>> >>>> possible
>> >>>> then I think it is a reasonable topic for discussion.
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Cheers
>> >>>>
>> >>>> --
>> >>>> Patrick Shirkey
>> >>>> Boost Hardware Ltd
>> >>>> _______________________________________________
>> >>>> Consortium mailing list
>> >>>> Consortium at lists.linuxaudio.org
>> >>>> http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/consortium
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Patrick Shirkey
>> >> Boost Hardware Ltd
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Consortium mailing list
>> >> Consortium at lists.linuxaudio.org
>> >> http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/consortium
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>> --
>> Patrick Shirkey
>> Boost Hardware Ltd
>
>


--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd