Patrick,
We talk at cross-purposes.
This sort discussion style on the mailing list is not fruitful. Since
you are a member of the Mgmt board, please bring it up on the next
Consortium meeting. A common table and discussion over some beverage
seems a more appropriate way.
Since you addressed it to me, I'll answer your last question:
On 04/24/2012 01:46 AM, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
On Mon, April 23, 2012 2:15 pm, Robin Gareus wrote:
[..]
http://linuxaudio.org/policy :)
Let me interpret it like this: If a sponsor support our cause:
"promote and enable the use of Linux kernel based systems for
professional audio use" - we can link to and /advertise/ for them.
A good example is your previous endeavor:
http://awards.linuxaudio.org/
Commercial companies sponsor a prize for Linux-Musicians; the companies
in question also directly promote audio and/or GNU/Linux. We add a link
to and logo of those companies and the prize-money goes directly to the
musician(s). Great.
If an unrelated 3rd party wants to pay
linuxaudio.org for SEO, ads or
whatever - even if we could use the money to do great things for LAO -
it's more or less a no go. -- At least for the time being.
For that to happen,
linuxaudio.org would need to become a much larger
organization in order to balance commercial interest, retain its
independence and handle bureaucratic issues. It'd also require revising
the policy which can be only done by a majority decision of the
Linuxaudio.org Management Board.
And you are opposed to that?
No, not in general.
However, given the available wo/manpower and state of LAO at the moment:
Yes, I am.
The long version:
There are zero full-time persons involved in
linuxaudio.org. There's
maybe 0.2 persons taking care of the LAO online infrastructure (we're
less than a handful and we've all got day-time-jobs, family, a life and
other projects..). Going [semi-]commercial with no team will be disastrous.
The most active parts of LAO are the email-lists, followed by a group of
dedicated individuals who volunteer to be wiki editors and LAC
organizers - the motivation of LAO contributors and users is quite
diverse and it'd be too easy to forget where we came from.
2c,
robin