Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 10:25:08 -0500 (CDT)
From: Uttiya Chowdhury <ucy@ece.utexas.edu>
To: Michael McLagan <Michael.McLagan@linux.org>
Cc: Webmaster <webmaster@linux.org>, pmitros@MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Controversy about this site...
In-Reply-To: <199808251504.LAA18540@central.linux.org>
Message-Id: <Pine.SOL.3.93.980825100840.22687A-100000@tick.ece.utexas.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


> On Mon, 24 Aug 1998 11:05:06 -0500 (CDT), ucy@ece.utexas.edu wrote:
> 
> >I have come to learn that this site 
> >is being used for achieving personal
> >gains as opposed to serving the linux
> >community. 
> 
> Would you care to specify where you came to the conclusion that there
> was personal gain out of running the site?

I see the ads which, to my knowledge earns money.
I also see the materials the site presents, it
is (according to me) of low quality and (I think)
would require very little man and computing power.
(According to me) the income generated from the
site should be far more than the amount spent to
maintain it. I always found the content of the
site to be of low quality, giving me the impression 
that the site is almost unmaintained.
This means (to me) that the site is being used personal
monetary gains. Also, I have seen you claim that you
are famous (this is not the exact copy of your statement,
and only my conclusion of what you inferred) because
you own this site. I consider that to be personal gain too.

>  The site provides generic
> information about Linux.  No slant is put on distributions, vendors,
> or projects listed on the site.  In fact, links are provided to these
> resources free of charge for life.

There are banner ads though.

> >This knowledge has made
> >me decide that this is the last time
> >I am visiting this site. 
> 
> I am truely sorry you feel the need to make this decision.  I think
> we make a valuable contribution to the Linux community, and for you
> to reject our work based on uncertain knowledge seems rather unfair.

I am confident about my knowledge. In fact I am more confident
on my knowledge than you seem to be about the importance
of your contribution to the linux community.

> >I also have 
> >learnt that the site owner earns money
> >from the advertisers every time someone
> >browses the site. I have decided to
> >ask people not to visit this site
> >and I'll consider companies that
> >advertise in this site as evil ones.
> 
> Do you recognise that running a website is a cost driven endeavour?
> We currently have a T1 here to serve Linux users.  That is $1650/month
> alone.  The physical computer providing the site is reaching it's 
> capacity to respond to requests from the traffic we receive now and 
> needs to be replaced soon.  The replacement machine will likely cost
> over $5000.  The FTP server is woefully out of space and requires that
> an additional 3 23G hard drives be purchased to meet current needs at
> a cost of something like $2000/drive.  

Some people are doing it free. Also, I have elaborated already
the point about earnings and expenditure.

> Do companies with products for Linux not have a right to promote them
> to Linux users?  Did you see a single NON-LINUX related advertisement
> on the site?  We have strict rules about what ads will be displayed.  We
> also use the banner advertising to promote Linux to MIS/IT managers as
> we are doing with Star Dust, who are running a conference in September.
> By leveraging the space, they will place our logo on their pages, pamphlets
> and promotional material for us.  This gets Linux out before more people.
> Is this a bad thing?  Would you rather Microsoft took that spot than Linux?

People browsing the site www.linux.org are interested in linux
products. If they would be interested in microsoft products, they
would go to sites like www.microsoft.com. It is entirely clear
to me why the only ads elligible to be put in www.linux.org
will be linux related. It is sincerity to linux on behalf of the
maintainers, but a simple question of pertinence.

> >I hope you will be more honest in
> >future.
> 
> At what point were we dishonest?  I would like you to quote for me from my
> own comments somewhere that I said anything other than what I outlined above
> in my statements.
> 
>    Michael McLagan
>    Linux Online
> 

See, the above claim (I think) you came out with that 
displaying linux related ads in the site represents the
maintainers' sincerity to linux seems dishonest to me.

       UC
(De-Tailed Monkey)