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Dumb Adds Coming to Mdk 9.2


pmpatrick
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Guys, personally, I dont see this being such a bad thing. MDK is an open source product and you will be able to get rid of the ads. No if, ands, or buts. Seriously, MDK is still recovering from a bankrupcy. Chill. Mkk. Oh God an ad.... geez, it's no differnt than HP/Dell/Gateway/other computer distrobuter having ads in their OS image (since they dont give you a real back up). Many other Win9X/XP programs do the samething. Releax, it's not going to be that bad, I dont think MDK would do anything ....that.... terrible. Also, stop complaining, because your DL MDK distro has ads. Dont want them, go buy the thing. I tend to buy one point release ( I own MDK 7.2, 8.1, 9.1 and Red Hat 7.3). Support them or lose them, thats your choice.

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For those of you who don't know or haven't read about the past, many of the critics here, including myself, have made purchases from mandrake and even joined the club. I support mandrake, which is why I will continue to criticise their absolutely childish marketing, when there is any marketing. Mandrake has an excellent product; they have excellent developers; they have a large population who wants to support their product. But they insist on ignoring their customers, refusing to utilize a viable distribution method, ignoring retail, and, in short, utterly failing at success. I am tired of hearing this mantra of "what do you expect for free" or "give 'em money and they'll get better!" I expect the people who were clever enough to come up with the mandrake package to act like professionals. Mandrake's failure will be mandrake's fault, and not the fault of this or any linux community. And this ad idea is poor thinking, ameturish, and will not increase mandrake's market share, something that marketers should be concerned with.

 

Oh, and have a nice day! :twisted:

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First I'm a Mandrake Club member and I paid for the boxed version of 9.1 so I can't be accused of being a freeloader. Second we don't know how easy or hard it will be to disable the adware; it may well be imbedded in the init scripts to reload every time you boot and getting rid of this kind of junk might be a pain. Third, Dell, HP and whoever might have similar add stuff in their products but none of these companies rely on the free labor of the open source community; none of them refuse to give any meaningful tech support for their products, relying instead on the volunteer efforts of their user base; and none of them solicit voluntary contributions from their users and turn around and bombard them with adds.

This cheapens their product and makes it look like Kazza or a porno site and for what? How much revenue will they be able to generate from this activity? I suspect not all that much and in return they alienate a significant portion of their user base making them even more disinclined to join the mandrake club, buy boxed sets or assist with tech support. This is a bad, shortsighted decision which mandrake will come to regret.

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I wouldn't mind if it was just the download version (besides the fact it seems tacky) but it seems like the bookmark thing is even for those who've paid.

 

Place a link to your website in every Mandrake Linux 9.2 version: in every browser, a link to your website will be visible on the taskbar and in the bookmark section.

 

Yeah it's easy enough to change and i doubt they'll use init scripts to do it but it's the fact you have to do it.

 

There's also a slashdot article on this here.

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Browser Default Page :

A single message appears for two months (from October 10th to December 10th): $ 7,500

 

 

 

Three different messages (or a single one) appear for 6 months and change every two months (from October 10th to December 10th, December 10th to February 10th and February 10th to April 10th): $ 15,000

 

Installation advertising + bookmarks + screen saver advertising (download version only) + 6 months visibility on default page: $ 24,000

 

How can they guarantee this? Will mandrake be phoning home for new adds? Will it automatically be resetting your home page? Why would any advertiser pay for this if it can be easily circumvented?

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All good quiestions!

ow can they guarantee this? Will mandrake be phoning home for new adds? Will it automatically be resetting your home page? Why would any advertiser pay for this if it can be easily circumvented?

 

Yeah, maybe the ones they should have been asking....

Like I said 'business plan missing'

 

Or they will have to devote inordinate developer time to making it hard to get rid of instead of bug fixes!!!! then: :evil:

 

Next all the boards will feature hacks on how to turn em off....

Complete madness!!!!

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Browser Default Page :

A single message appears for two months (from October 10th to December 10th): $ 7,500

Three different messages (or a single one) appear for 6 months and change every two months (from October 10th to December 10th, December 10th to February 10th and February 10th to April 10th): $ 15,000

 

How can they guarantee this? Will mandrake be phoning home for new adds? Will it automatically be resetting your home page? Why would any advertiser pay for this if it can be easily circumvented?

 

Simply by making the default homepage http://mandrake/advertpage, then updating that page i'd assume

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I don't know. It really depends on what kind of ads they put on the the installer progress or screensaver.

 

If Mandrake puts an Oracle/IBM ad on it I find it okay as they work with open source folks, but if Mandrake starts putting Microsoft advertising or anything controversial, it may do more bad than good in the long run.

 

The background screensaver can be switched or disabled, but I wonder what ads will be put on the Installer progress - which you probably can't avoid at all. $7500 (cost of a single ad) worths 150 copy of retail sale/125 basic MandrakeClub membership; so it's hard to say if the benefit outweighs the potential risk of turning off *some* Linux users.

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I just want to comment on the "install debian" comment. Unfortunately, debian is not for the faint-hearted or the people without broadband. According to the membership statistic from KPLI Bandung (a city without broadband access), there are only 17 debian users, compared to 769 RedHat (not surprising) and 283 for Mandrake (also not surprising). While debian packages may be the most complete in the world and the easiest to update, downloading them via 56k is a pain. Mandrake on the other hand is the easiest to install and all updates can fit one one blank cd, make it easier to buy just the cd update from a vendor. Add a plf cd and you can have a very usable and up-to-date mandrake for only 5 cds which cost around 15 dollars US. With exception of knoppix (which is pretty much a debian desktop edition), debian cannot touch the ease of mandrake installation in terms of number of cds used (8 for debian not including updates).

 

Now buying an official product is not an option in Indonesia since it can cost 1 month salary for a typical Indonesian office worker. (Now you know why piracy so rampant over here). I think the ease of download & burn to cd of mandrake is the reason why mandrake is the 2nd most popular distro in Indonesia.

 

Now going back to the ad in mandrake DOWNLOAD edition, I think if the ad is limited to installation, default home page, and screensaver, it is not that annoying. Most people don't even wait to see the advertisement, they just choose packages, press go, then go away to do something else until all the files are copied to hd. Default home page can always be changed, what is the difference between what is proposed and microsoft choosing msn.com as the default homepage for every IE install. Screensaver can also be changed, hey.. I use keuphoria as my default screensaver, not mandrake slideshow.

 

Regarding the business model, mandrake's niche seems to be beginner linux users or experimenters. They don't have the partners RedHat and SuSE does, so that could be the problem. I think most of the money those two companies comes from their partnership with other companies such as IBM, HP, or Dell. Since the upper level niche (where most of the money is) are pretty much taken over by those two companies, what can mandrake do to get some money?

 

Hmm.. thinking about that, could mandrake be the official distro for 3rd world countries with some internet access? :)

 

Anyway, those are my thoughts regarding this.

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Adds are OK for a free download, but if you pay for

the distro it stinks. I am bailing out of fnWindows

completely because they do this sort of crap, trying

to take over my computer in order to SPAM

me with their adds.

 

I bought the PowerPack for 9.1. I am very very

happy that I made the move. Mandrake is the best,

but if this stuff goes into the PowerPack for 9.2,

I will not be making that purchase.

 

So, how do we find out whether or not this junk is

going into the purchased distro?

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

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If the ads are easy to remove, its not a so a big deal IMO.

You are a little hard with Mandrake. They had a very bad management past, and now they have to start from zero with there only valuable asset: there community (you/us :-) )and a good product.

No Marketing plan ? how can you know ? It is long and expensive to set.. before it earns money.

And they need money _now_. ads is easy and fast.

And it can be fun too: imagine how an ad for a surf or ski companie while Mandrake is installing can be ?

A nice little film of extrem surf in hawai or extrem skying on the alps with rock'n roll music ? ok i'm dreaming but you see what I mean.

On some point you are right:

- boxs or paid downloaded must _NOT_ have ads,

- NO SPYWARE :evil:

- NO SPYWARE :evil:

- NO SPYWARE :evil:

 

roland

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Here is the scary part:

 

The ads are pretty worthless to the buyers if

they are easy to defeat..... which they are now.

Who is going to pay for an add that is just

going to be deleted as the first step of every

install?

 

So, what is Mandrake doing to the distro to make

it more difficult to defeat the adds? If they are

mucking with the software to enforce these adds

and bookmarks, then color me gone.

 

I joined the Linux community so that I will own

my own system and not be dragged about by

clandestine software that directs my attention

where the vendor wants it to be. The fnWindows

community seems to think that fnGates still owns

my computer even after I have paid for it. That

is not the case with Linux...... or at least it

wasn't the case..

 

So, how do we know that they have not modified

the software in the distro to enforce these adds?

 

If I have to go into a Mandrake distro and recompile

everything in order to get control back, then I will

go find a cheaper distro or a free download

and go from there.

 

As I said, for the free downloads, be my guest.

But if I pay for a distro, it should be add-free.

 

Just a rant. I am still very very happy with my

Mandrake 9.1, and I have no intention of bailing out

now. I just hate to see this thing going in the wrong

direction.

 

Banjo

(_)=='=~

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The thing that's got me so steamed is that I recently renewed my mandrake club membership last week against my better judgment. Mandrake actively solicited those club memberships to keep the free open model going and many, many people responded with their financial support. I believe the implicit promise in soliciting the funds was that free(read add free) dowloads would continue to be available. I can see how those club members now feel used and exploited; I know I do. It now appears that after parting with my money I will only have access to the add ridden downloads.

I also agree with banjo's concerns. The whole add selling program seems to imply a loss of end user control in favor of mandrake. Who is going to pay $10k for an add that can be easily disabled? i guess we'll have to wait and see, but the whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth and I will definitely not be renewing my club membership.

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Mandrake's response on this controversy about the upcoming Mandrake Linux 9.2 and advertising:

 

http://www1.mandrakelinux.com/en/mdkads.php3

 

Mandrake Linux & Ads

A controversy has erupted today in the Linux community about the upcoming Mandrake Linux 9.2 and advertizing. Although the overall reaction from the community is mostly positive, a few people don't seem to be happy about having advertizing in Mandrake 9.2.  

 

We'd like to explain briefly why we have done this and why you shouldn't worry.  

 

0) There won't be any ad in the screensavers in Mandrake 9.2  

 

There will be one paid-ad in the installation procedure, and a few paid-links in bookmarks.  

 

1) Ads are selected and won't be intrusive.  

 

Our advertizing plan is only offered to MandrakeSoft partners - we select only ads that make sense as complementary Linux solutions. Additionally, ads won't be intrusive (no pop-up windows) and can be removed easily.  

 

2) There have been ads in Mandrake Linux for years.  

 

Maybe you didn't notice it, but in the installation procedure and in browser's bookmarks, there have been many links to Mandrake products, the GNU project, many Open Source projects and so on. In Mandrake 9.1 there was the first "commercial" link to a technical book content provider. Nobody was annoyed, we didn't get any feedback about that.  

 

3) Free Software and business model.  

 

As we are firmly committed to Open Source/Free Software, we want to keep on exploring business models that are compatible with this spirit.

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