24 Apr
2012
24 Apr
'12
1:46 a.m.
On Mon, April 23, 2012 2:15 pm, Robin Gareus wrote:
And I have already put it to the board several times.
And you got answers - most recently by the director of the linuxaudio
Management Board himself just before you approached LAU on 04/21/2012
11:29 PM CEST Ico wrote:
"... based on the majority of the consortium members the current
linuxaudio.org site will remain ad-free." [1]
And I queried why it is his decision to make that call. There was not
official vote. Just a finger in the air based on a few negative answers
from a total of four people.
My suggestion was to move a couple of the subdomains specifically
lau.linuxaudio.org
quicktoots.linuxaudio.org
To a different server so that they would be able to host paid ads and
there would be no conflict with the requirements that vt.edu place on
content hosted on their own servers.
Given that Daniel maintains the dns for the domain and that is hosted on
an entirly different server again there is no conflict with the vt.edu
restrictions.
However it seems that some people feel that vt.edu now owns and controls
the linuxaudio.org domain and therefore anything to do with it is subject
to the vt.edu policy. Which I assume also includes this mailing list.
Which is strange as originally this mailing list was not setup to be at
the control of vt.edu policy and neither was the linuxaudio.org domain or
for the matter the Consortium.
IMO there is some confusion about what ICO's role as a member of VT is,
the restrictions that vt.edu place on linuxaudio.org and the role of the
consortium in regards to maintaining it's remit.
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?
Patrick,
another long reply. please bear with me..
On 04/22/2012 03:45 PM, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
Which in this case doesn't actually exist hence the reason I initiated the
discussion on the consortium mailing list in the first place.
I think you seriously underestimate the amount of
money that could be
earned by accepting advertising across the LAO channel. Let alone across
the entire Linux Audio community.
not really. I like the idea to support developers or musicians. It's
just that advertising and SEO on linuxaudio.org is not the right way to
do this. I was thinking of "business plans" in general not ads in
particular.
There were a couple of initiatives on the table a while back. e.g. merge
with and become part of the linux-foundation - similar to what
linux-printing/open-printing did. The linux-foundation has experience
with handling funding, supporting developers and properly taking care of
bureaucracy.
There's actually quite lot of linux-audio projects, devs and users that
accept donations or even make a living by selling services or products.
Yet, personally I don't have any clue how linuxaudio.org can directly
support those. IMHO the knowledge-exchange on LAD and LAU lists as well
as LA conferences, teaching newbies, etc is what linuxaudio.org does
best. It's not a business plan per se, though.
A linux-audio-record-label, sponsored music-contests, video-promos etc..
would be much more suitable for the latter. Yet someone needs to take
up that task -- I do prefer the avantgarde-like concerts featured at LAC
and that's where my time and efforts go. If someone has incentive to do
sth focused on musicians or other LA interest groups, the consortium is
usually very open to proposals and does support viable initiatives.
Keep in mind that a viable plan for the community must enable the
community to grow and not restrict them (and that includes granting
contributors the freedom to be not bothered with ads on the community
site itself - although compromises can be made as long as they're
according to LAO policy).
If you have a viable business plan, we're all
ear.
Well apparently this is a change of heart ;-) So a policy
that sets clear guidelines is completely out of the
question?
Dunno, that's a question for the management board, not me.
These items
have already been discussed and I provided options which
would
allow us to progress.
No, you did not. You simply suggested move to a different [paid by ads]
host, which is not a smart idea given the infrastructure we have (see
below).
Also your way of approaching the consortium is - at
best - questionable.
I think you owe Ico an apology for your offensive phrases and
questioning his authority in [2].
Also migrating content away from lau.linuxaudio.org - a domain intended
for linux-audio USERS (that you just happen to be curating) - to a .COM
domain without asking the community at large and completely deleting the
content from the linuxaudio.org server after the site has been migrated
speaks volumes.
Considering this is not the first time that I have been subject to
barriers being placed in my way in regards to the direction of lau guide
and the quicktoots whcih are both sites I founded prior to linuxaudio.org
even existing and which I clearly stated before moving them to the still
freshly brewed portal when there were only a couple of other things going
on there I decided in my infinite wisdom that it was better to move them
somewhere that was less restricting and not subject to the policy of an
institution that should not be able to put barriers in my way.
Ico had already stated quite clearly that he though t it was appropriate
for me to redirect to the new server so I did.
I can completely understand that the consortium does
want not continue
this discussion nor put this issue on the agenda (again).
[1]
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/consortium/2012-April/002089.html
[2]
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/consortium/2012-April/002092.html
So irrational prejudice is considered to be an acceptable method of
forming a consensus. Is this an Academic approach to business in general?
From my experience working in the academic system over
the years that does
actually make sense.
From what I've learned: official policies are best
avoided and replaced
with common-sense.
A policy is simply a way for everyone to know what the expectations are.
If we leave it up to each one of us to guess then we will never be able
to
agree on anything.
On 04/22/2012 03:27 PM, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
No one suggested that the entire domain be moved to a new host in order to
accept third party advertising. Ever. Definitely not me. It seems there
has been some confusion or perhaps it is due to the "fog of intense
discussion"
Considering that most server companies are
offering 500Gb to 1TB of
monthly bandwidth for less than $20/month it's hardly breaking the
bank for you to give them some space.
On average over the last year linuxaudio.org served 1.5 TBytes/month
(~35-40k unique visitors per month). The last weeks (with LAC videos)
we're currently around 4-5 TB and this month is not over, yet.
yet, bandwidth is the cheap part.
That being said, some of your initiatives (e.g label.linuxaudio.org and
awards.linuxaudio.org) are very interesting and were promising. I
suggest to focus on [reviving] those rather than pushing ads in general.
Well I would love to be in a financial position where that would be
possible...
--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd