Advertising in Your Boot Sequence?

negaPLuCK writes: "i just mounted my first reiserfs partition. When the reiserfs.o module loaded into the kernel what popped out but ads for SuSE, MP3.com and Ecila.com." I've attached the exact text in the read more: it's more like sponsorship than ads, which on one hand is a cool way to finance development, but where is this gonna end?

May 3 00:59:34 nega-0 kernel: Checking ReiserFS transaction log (device 16:02) ...
May 3 00:59:54 nega-0 kernel: Replayed 0 transactions in 20 seconds
May 3 00:59:54 nega-0 kernel: ReiserFS core development sponsored by SuSE Labs (suse.com)
May 3 00:59:54 nega-0 kernel: Journaling sponsored by MP3.com
May 3 00:59:54 nega-0 kernel: Item handlers sponsored by Ecila.com
May 3 00:59:54 nega-0 kernel: ReiserFS version 3.5.18

Comments

It's open source

[szo]

So, if those messages bother you, remove them...

Szo

Re:It's open source

[ishpeck]

Yeah! And if not having them bothers you, you can add them! :)

• I love to sit and write code
• 
  When I get in a programming mode
  Compile and run
  It is so much fun

Re:It's open source

[bero-rh]

I agree with the basics of this, but we'd soon end up with a kernel that doesn't display any useful information...


Ok, booting the kernel...
Linux 3.0.0
Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Kernel development sponsored by Red Hat
Kernel development sponsored by MandrakeSoft
Kernel development sponsored by VA Linux Systems
Kernel development sponsored by Linuxcare
Kernel development sponsored by SuSE
Kernel development sponsored by Caldera
Kernel patches contributed by Debian
Individual contributors:
Alan Cox
[add 1000 more lines]
Bringing up network
Module 3c509.o loaded.
Parts developed by Donald Becker.
Parts developed by Alan Cox
This kernel module contains code from Red Hat.
This kernel module contains code from SuSE.
Trivial typo corrected by Bero
[Add 1000 more lines]


Everything can be taken too far...
Yes, everyone should get credited - but at bootup? Not that sure...

Re:It's open source

[hansreiser]

I just want to make clear that it is just fine with us for anyone who wants to remove them to remove them. Don't have any moral qualms about it, if it irritates, cut it out and accept our apology.

In a later version we make them less annoying by having them appear only once, and not at every mount. The messages aren't in our 2.3 version, we want to make sure that people don't hate them first. Thanks to those who express their opinions here. Your opinions matter to and influence me on this issue.

Since many of you are worried about it going from sponsored by X to "Buy Y, it is $50, click here!", let me say that I share your concern. Keeping it the way PBS used to be is very important to me personally. It is especially important to me to never allow an annoying ad even on our web page. I understand the temptation of the networks. When a big sponsor says that they want something that looks a certain way, it is really hard to say no and offend them. I will say no. You will never get an energizer bunny running across a Namesys product.

Putting the credits there was my idea, not the sponsors. I thought they deserved the credit. They never asked for it. I'm not sure they care much for it though, which is another reason it is not in the 2.3 version. It is strange, but being on our web page is really valuable to sponsors, but mount time credit just isn't as valued. This year.

Sponsored by, not ads

[jezzball]

They're sponsored by. I don't see what's wrong with that. There are tons of mentions of other companies/places in my boot up sequence (NET4, etc).

I kind of like it, it shows that reiserfs is getting commercial help.
ls: .sig: File not found.

I don't see anything wrong

[mind21_98]

I don't see anything wrong with the sponsorship information above. The sponsors who sponsored ReiserFS are just saying in bootup messages that they actually sponsored development of it. Now if they came up with big 468x60 banner ads while using framebuffer mode, then I would be concerned.

Since new sponsorship information isn't retrieved from the Internet, this shouldn't be a problem.

Windows Sponsorship

[spazimodo]

New BSOD message:

This Blue Screen of Death has been brought to you by Colt Handguns. Colt, because you'll never be getting those PowerPoint presentations back!

-Spazimodo

Fsck the millennium, we want it now.

Re:kinda cool

[djweis]

Considering how many times you see the boot screen in NT, that's a big missed opportunity!

It bothers you?

[bjb]

This is in the /boot sequence/ .. those words which you can happily ignore while they zip past your screen while loading the system. It's not like a banner ad which gets in the way, and quite frankly, if someone made a driver and put "© 2000 Driversoft" in it, is that so bad?

Now if it opened up a splash screen, that's a story. This is whining.

--

Re:It bothers you?

[Ed Avis]

Yeah, but it gets in the way of other more useful and informative messages.

Also, if more and more bits of kernel start displaying sponsorship messages, you'll get the problem that the messages displayed early on are scrolled off the screen within a few milliseconds. Already, even on a fairly slow machine, there are plenty of kernel messages which you never get the chance to read, because they scroll away so quickly.

It could become like MS-DOS, where every TSR or program run from autoexec.bat felt it necessary to display some sort of message. Then to make your message stand out from the rest, you had to put several blank lines above and below (Microsoft does this). Or display it in eye-catching colours, a big blue rectangle perhaps (eg Logitech's mouse driver). Finally it got to the stage where programs would clear the screen just to make sure that their useless copyright messages got noticed.

Unix was designed on the basis of not printing spurious chatty messages, so it's easy to tell when something really does require your attention. Let's keep it that way.

Subliminal Advertising

[the_other_one]

Most boot messages fly past so fast Coke that nobody notices them. Would embeded messages You need Caffine be as effective as Coke subliminal advertising was?

Polluting the output stream

[handorf]

My biggest problem with this is that it pollutes the stream I try to parse as it goes buy.

Somebody said that they ignore all those messages as they scroll by, but I don't. I almost ALWAYS wind up checking dmesg or the logs to be sure everything started OK. I make a LOT of changes to my system and I want to know when I break something.

"Oops, sound drivers didn't load, what did I just change?" instead of "CRAP! My MP3s won't play! What have I changed this week?"

Admittedly, it's a minor annoyance, but dmesg has a relatively small buffer. I'd hate for the whole boot sequence not to fit because everyone feels the need to thank their sponsors.

This is new?!

[drix]

Name-dropping like this has been in the kernel for years and no one saw fit to complain. Mebbe because it's high up on the dmesg and not being loaded as a module (with user interaction), but does this little line look familiar?

Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0 for Linux NET4.0.
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0

I've been using Linux since 1.2 and IIRC it's been there since at least then. There's also ads for some Apple stuff in one of the appletalk modules I think but I don't have that one compiled ATM.


--

I'm sick of...

[Haven]

I'm really getting sick of that Nasa guy spamming me with his e-mail address every time I bring up my 3c509 3com NIC card. Where will we draw the line?

This is a slippery slope; look at PBS...

[Deven]

Sure, it starts out as simple "sponsorship" messages. Right now it's only a minor nuisance. Later (as another poster mentioned), the output could start getting more and more gaudy and intrusive as in the world of DOS TSR's.

Eventually, it could degenerate as much as PBS has. PBS claims to be "commercial-free" public television, yet more and more of their programs have a professionally-produced 10-20 second piece from the sponsoring company, indistinguishable from any other commercial on television, except in that it's more likely to be a soft sell. What happened to simply announcing a list of names of companies and individuals? When did it become necessary to show company logos and finally full-motion professional video clips?

I'm not as concerned with the current messages so much as what this could become...

rm -f CREDITS

[Rozzin]

"Don't delete the sponsorship messages! Yes, it's open source which gives you the ability to remove the tags just like you have the ability to run `rm -f CREDITS' on every tarball you extract."

And what's wrong with me removing CREDITS files from my own system?

"I know I'd be pissed off if someone used my code without giving me credit, or if there was a renegade patch running around that REMOVED my line in the credits."

There's a difference between removing the CREDITS file from my disk and distributing something with a modified credits-list.

Personally, I really dislike having to look at a credits-list or a splash-screen or other such things every time I load a piece of software, which is why I don't inflict such things upon my own users.

Having an accurate list of credits that people can view is different than having a list of credits that people must view.

Hm. I suppose that the CREDITS file and a list of credits in the software's init routine aren't the same, after all.
Hm. Why not put a list of all of the sponsors in a `SPONSORS' file?

Re:rm -f CREDITS

[AME]

I think that's a legitimate price to pay for FREE software.

How much is the maximum legitimate price for free software?

The problem is that you have to draw a line someplace. How much is too much? 3 lines? 5 lines? 10 lines? 100?... After all, it's free software, so what's the harm in popping up a nag screen when the user starts his mail client to remind him of important free software projects? The user's not paying for it, after all.

As far as I'm concerned, bootup progs should get one line, unless they have legitimate (as in, "important for debugging purposes") information which requires more to convey.

When I go to dmesg, it's because I want to figure out why something or another is happening. In short, I'm looking for information about my system, not ads. If every boot prog had a single line of useful information and an additional three lines of sponsorship ads, then the usefulness of dmesg would be diminished considerably, as I would be forced to wade through all the crap just to find the debugging info.

--

Same with NPR, here's why:

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

NPR is getting the same way. About 6-9 months ago I heard a story on NPR about this very problem. The reason they had to do this was that the gov't cut spending for public broadcasting drastically (like, 50%, although I don't remember the actual numbers). What's really dumb is that it was only a few million dollars--less than the DoD spends on facial tissue.

However, there are two mitigating factors:

1) Ads on public broadcasting (TV or radio) still can't promote a product, just an entity (like the company, corporation, foundation, etc). So you might see ads like "WalMart--Promoting Consumerism Through Shoddy Products" but you won't see "WalMart--We've Put TeleTubby Action Figures On Sale". They have other guidelines about content, format, etc. That's why you got the "soft sell" impression.

2) The fact that I heard a story on NPR critical of NPR and its advertisers says that the public broadcasting system, whatever its faults, works way better than the private sector.
--
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New Reiserfs messages

[lar3ry]

May 03 00:59:34 testsys kernel: Checking ReiserFS transaction log (device 16:02)
May 03 00:59:34 testsys kernel: COKE - It's the Real Thing! (tm)
May 03 00:59:34 testsys kernel: MAKE MONEY FAST! Surf on over to http://ima.realdumbschmuck.com for details!
May 03 00:59:34 testsys kernel: Dow Chemical -- Without chemicals, life itself would be uninteresting. http://www.dow.com
May 03 00:59:34 testsys kernel: Pepsi -- The choice of the GNU generation. Ignore that COKE message a few lines back.
May 03 00:59:34 testsys kernel: Hiya, Sailor! Looking for a good time? Try: http://real-teens-nude-and-lewd.com
May 03 00:59:34 testsys kernel: Is it painful sitting around looking at console messages? Try Preporation H -- Best for hemmorhoid sufferers.
May 03 00:59:35 testsys kernel: Resierfs -- internal buffer overflow. Deleting code but retaining advertisements.
May 03 00:59:35 testsys kernel: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? http://www.abc.com
May 03 00:59:35 testsys kernel: Who Wants To Be A Billionaire? http://www.oracle.com/~ellison
May 03 00:59:35 testsys kernel: Allocating 200 Mb virtual space for more adverts; loading special VGA driver
May 03 00:59:36 testsys kernel: Jolt -- The REAL Choice of a GNU Generation. Ignore that Pepsi ad (and the COKE one while you are at it).

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