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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
So, if those messages bother you, remove them...
Szo
Red Leader Standing By!
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).
.sig: File not found.
I kind of like it, it shows that reiserfs is getting commercial help.
ls:
ls:
(A)bort, (R)etry, (I)gnore?
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.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
Considering how many times you see the boot screen in NT, that's a big missed opportunity!
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?
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
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.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
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.
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
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.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
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...
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
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).
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
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.
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"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94