Mandrake Linux 9.2, Adware Version

thedarb writes "Mandrake has decided to sell ads to be seen during installation, web browsing and in screen savers. This all comes in their upcoming 9.2 release. Seven G's and you could put your face in their installer." Update: 09/12 18:07 GMT by M : Mandrake has a page about the ads.

Comments

Moral compass?

[mao che minh]

The real question is: will Mandrake accept all advertisement requests? I hope not - I hope Mandrake excercies a certain degree of moral judgement in their decision making.

I would hate to have to relive those all of those "You can enlarge your penis!!" moments, or once again be haunted by "Britney XXX HOT and young CAUGHT J-Lo action action!!".

Now, that's not to say that I would be apprehensive towards "Jenna" advertisements. Those always bring a smile to my face.

Re:Moral compass?

[ultrabot]

or once again be haunted by "Britney XXX HOT and young CAUGHT J-Lo action action!!".

If they include free samples, I'm not complaining. How often do you get to watch pr0n legitimately at work, anyway?

Re:Moral compass?

[7759-60784-1-E]

> I would hate to have to relive those all of those "You can enlarge your penis!!" moments, or once again be haunted by "Britney XXX HOT and young CAUGHT J-Lo action action!!".

Fortunately, none of those will be accepted. This'll leave room for the REALLY good stuff, like offers from Nigerians that'll make us millionaires!

Re:Moral compass?

[fairly disappointing]

Or an SCO sponsored random press-release generating screen-saver, for that matter.

Re:Moral compass?

[JohnTheFisherman]

That pretty much leaves only one advertiser that might want to target Linux users. ;)

Re:Moral compass?

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

How often do you get to watch pr0n legitimately at work, anyway?

I guess that would depend on if your name is something like Ron Jeremy or not...

:-)

Re:Moral compass?

[smatt-man]

Or worse... Microsoft, where do you want to go today?

Or, I'm sure SCO has 7 large... Have you paid SCO $699 to run this?

Re:Moral compass?

[iceburn]

How often do you get to watch pr0n legitimately at work, anyway?

My guess would be once.

Re:Moral compass?

[Galvatron]

That's a good point (not that they couldn't put in text-based ads, but it seems less likely). Any word on whether the graphical installer still has problems with USB mice?

Re:Moral compass?

[joestar]

Do you mean they shouldn't accept all Microsoft ads like we see on Slashdot and Linux Today?

Re:Moral compass?

[tmark]

I would hate to have to relive those all of those "You can enlarge your penis!!" moments

Why not ? Talk about targeted marketing at its zenith...

Re:Moral compass?

[renehollan]

How often do you get to watch pr0n legitimately at work, anyway?

Often.

Legitimately.

And, more than "once".

It gets real old, real fast, actually.

See, I work for a three-letter company that makes system on chip components for set-top boxes (as well as more common PC graphics cards). The set-top boxes can include analog and digital television tuners, and we sometimes have to test integrated system functions, like channel changing. We thus have a local feed for this purpose, and one of the channels was, at one time, a soft-core porn channel. I don't know if it still is available. Frankly, I don't care.

Now, if it were my job to monitor this on a regular basis, I'd have the monitor turned away from the hallway along the cubicles, since some might find such content offensive or disturbing. But, the person who's regular job this was had it in full view from outside his cube, and, as far as I know, no one in the mixed-gender environment complained.

It was legitimate work: people watch TV, they channel surf, and some channels contain porn.

Re:Moral compass?

[sniggly]

Who is the "you guys", people who post on slashdot like eh yourself? Oh and are you someone who also uses the word "they" a lot?

Just read the article, it's during the installer, in the bookmarks and the default browser home pages. The latter two can be changed. Sounds like a pretty good idea for a free distribution.

Re:Moral compass?

[Thing 1]

How often do you get to watch pr0n legitimately at work, anyway?

Back in the day (mid-90s) there was no animated internet porn; we had to make do with still images. I worked at a software company and we were developing a compression technique for sending images from a server to a client.

To make sure that the images came across correctly, we tested it with what we termed the "nipple pallette."

Ah, the 90s...

Re:Moral compass?

[garvon]

All of the time.I am sysadmin / programmer
for an internet porn company. Used to joke that it was the only job where you would be reading a news site then quick popup a porn site when the boss was comming to look like you are working.

Re:Moral compass?

[rot26]

I used to work for a company that make kiosks. We had a potential client flying in for a demo one day, and I had set up some sample pages/ads/images for them. Before they arrived, some of the accounting type women from upstairs happened by my area and noticed on the demo system what Kurt Vonnegut referred to as "wide open beaver". Cackling gleefully they ran off to tell everybody who would listen how offended they were, and that I could kiss my ass goodbye. Unfortunately for them, the potential client was a chain of "gentlemen's clubs" in Las Vegas, and my demo was considered not only appropriate, but very well done. Ha. Eplilogue: I was the ultimately the last employee to be laid off, which I guess these days is about as close to success as you can usually expect.

Re:Moral compass?

[TigerTime]

What would be even funnier is if Bill Gates sent in $7Gs with a picture of his ass to be displayed.

Re:Moral compass?

[Guignol]

I order you to drink a beer !
right now

don't mention it...

Re:Moral compass?

[Cederic]

>> popup a porn site when the boss was comming

Working there you kinda need to be careful of your terminology.

~Cederic
ps: unless? eek!

Re:Moral compass?

[aastanna]

Definantly!

Do you really think anyone who would read "Linux Today" isn't fully aware of what Microsoft offers? It's not like there's going to be people installing Linux who suddenly see a Microsoft ad and think "Hmmm..Microsoft...never heard of them, maybe I should give them a try instead!"

Similarily, will an ad on Slashdot change the opinions of any of the pro-linux slashdot readers?

If you've even heard of Linux then 10:1 you've used and quite possibly own Microsoft products.

WTF!!

[Sp4c3 C4d3t]

One of the reasons I use Linux is to avoid ads and spyware. Now if I choose to use Mandrake, I can only avoid spyware... but for how long? I think I'll just stick to Slack, like I have for the past few years.

Re:WTF!!

[ultrabot]

One of the reasons I use Linux is to avoid ads and spyware.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to look elsewhere during installation.

Re:WTF!!

[aaribaud]

Ads will appear in three places:

• - install: do you install every day?
• - screensaver: install a non-mdk screensaver.
• - browser: reconfigure browser.

You don't even have to bother doing it yourself; just wait for someone to do it all and then rpm -ivh noads-1.0mdk.rpm. Unless it's a .deb, of course. :)

Re:WTF!!

[kmonsen]

This is only in the download version. You could (GASP) try to pay for a version and get it ad free. I am quite sure you are exposed to ads in your life anyway, a few more during installation is not going to hurt that much.

Re:WTF!!

[perly-king-69]

Really. How far does this 'avoiding ads' fetish affect your life?

Do you close your eyes and put your fingers in your ears when watching the TV, in case any ads get you?

Do you choose routes which avoid all billboards?

MDK are in financial trouble, and need to raise funds. This seems to be a perfectly sensible way of doing it/

Re:WTF!!

[alienw]

Come on. Advertising during the frigging install is one thing, spyware is a completely different thing. Don't group the two. I use Mandrake, I like it, I wouldn't mind if they got a few extra bucks. The install is pretty boring, so some ads there would not hurt at all. As for spyware and stuff like that: I know quite a few developers at Mandrake, and they would not tolerate that.

As for Slack: that's a pretty barren distro as compared to Mandrake. Clearly, it does not take as much resources to develop it, since it doesn't have its own graphical installer, nice config tools, etc. They are two different products intended for different audiences.

Re:WTF!!

[kmonsen]

You are missing the point, if you pay you will get it ad free anyway. And how often are you installing anyway?

Re:WTF!!

[drakaan]

Or, maybe donate money to Mandrake in the form of a purchase, and keep it free of ads...Mandrake is a company, and is in business to (hopefully) make money. I like that I can get a distro for no out-of-pocket cost, but I won't begrudge them charging money for putting it together *or* finding a way to make money from an otherwise profitless downloadable version.

Re:WTF!!

[tomhudson]

Ok, point by point:

1. the advertising during the install isn't a problem for me. Actually, I'd be interested in seeing which firms are willing to support Mandrake and/or Linux in general.
2. Links in the browser: Just change your home page (you were going to do that anyway, right :-)
3. Ads in the screensaver: uninstall the screen saver & install the screen saver from the previous edition, or just reconfigure the screen saver - it's not like it's hard to do "Configuration | KDE | Look and Feel | Screen Saver" :-)

So, overall, I see it as one way for them to continue to offer us a good distro w/o being overly offensive.

Re:WTF!!

[nocomment]

Regular screen savers will be replaced by advertising in the download version of Mandrake Linux.

I bet you posted that using the download version of Opera didn't you? ;-)
*sigh*
Some people really should actually read the articles before posting, but then, it just wouldn't be /. would it?

Re:WTF!!

[kpharmer]

Just because advertising is ubiquitious doesn't mean that it's mentally healthy to listen to messages telling you / manipulating you into believing that life would be better if you spent money on their widget.

Nor does the ubiquity mean that lies and exaggerations aren't deceptions. They are. It's ugly.

Life is *far* simpler without TV, without commercial radio, and away from billboard-infested roads. Try living that way for a while - you find yourself far less defined by what you own.

Needless to say, I won't consider use of an advertising-supported product.

Re:WTF!!

[m3djack]

Do you close your eyes and put your fingers in your ears when watching the TV, in case any ads get you?

One word: TiVo.

I haven't actually watched more than 2 seconds of an ad on TV in over a year. I like that.

Re:WTF!!

[panda]

I'm not the OP, and I agree with the mods that it is insightful to ask how far avoiding ads goes, because it seems we can't escape advertising these days. I'd just like to say that there is so much advertising today, do we really need more?

Over the past decade, my TV watching has slowly dwindled, mostly because of advertising and "product placement".--It's sad when you notice that most of the ads are actually more entertaining than the shows.--First, I didn't renew my cable subscription in 1996, and then, about two years ago, I pretty much stopped watching TV all together. Of course, you can't avoid the TVs that seem to be stuck everywhere these days, like in shop windows, on the sides of buildings, and at the gym. The gym I go to has TVs everywhere and on some of the equipment, too. I don't need those TVs to distract me from my workout. Besides, I'd much rather stare at the blonde wearing the spandex outfit and doing lat pull downs.

I haven't used Mandrake in the past because I never saw a compelling need to try it out when Debian, Red Hat, and Slackware have served my needs well. Someone gave me some Mandrake CDs once and at the time, I intended to try it, but never bothered to install it. Since they're adding adware, I may just skip them entirely in the future.

I know you can just "look away" and reconfigure your browser, but we're already bombarded with advertising every time we turn around. I look at my monitor, and it has the maker's logo on it, there are 2 empty soda cans and a bottle on my desk with the maker's logo on it, ditto for the printer on my desk, the diet notebook on my desk, and nearly everything else in my office. You can hardly walk down the street (or go to the gym) without being accosted by logos on T-shirts, shoes, and people's asses. Why people pay to be a billboard for a company selling cheap, sweat shop-made goods at an outrageous markup is beyond me, but I guess being somebody else's bitch is a fashion statement these days. Sure, you give me a contract like Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, and I'll get the swoosh tattooed on my forehead, but I'm not gonna pay money to wear a shirt with YOUR logo on it. The only logo shirts that I wear, I either got for free, or I bought to support a free software project or a non-profit cause.

No, I have enough advertising in my life without TV, without AdWare, and without Mandrake. If it's all the same to you, I'll stick with FreeBSD.

Re:WTF!!

[Malc]

"Do you close your eyes and put your fingers in your ears when watching the TV, in case any ads get you?"

I mute the TV, or change the channel (picture-in-picture is great), or get up and do something in another room. In reality though, I don't watch much TV these days as I've been completely put off be the advertising (and lack of quality). The only things I watched regularly are MI5 (en_GB: Spooks, IIRC), with my teeth gritted due to A&E's dreadful presentation style and the constant interruption by adverts, plus The National (CBC) and I dip in to CBC Newsworld during lunch and other short breaks. The rest of my weekly TV viewing is irregular and probably totals well under 2 hours. If I made more time, I would probably watch some of the British dramas on TVO (TV Ontario) as the ads come between the shows, not as constant barrage of interruptions during it. Anybody who sits and watches the adverts or doesn't try to avoid them either has a high threshold for putting up with crap, or is just plain dumb.

Re:WTF!!

[Delirium Tremens]

Well, if you keep buying Mandrake boxes, you don't have to worry: only the download version contains ads.

Re:WTF!!

[NialScorva]

I think your foil hat is wrapped a little too tightly.

Re:WTF!!

[stephens_domain]

Agreed.

The thing is, advertising is not bad by its nature. I want to know about products that I would want to know about. (bad logic, I know).

Rules for advertising:
1) Don't be overly intrusive. An ad during an install is fine, just don't make is a 30 second video that extends the install time.
2) Make a reasonable attempt to target your audience. Show me something that I will find interesting, informative, or amusing.
3) Make a reasonable attempt to not offend me. You don't know who will see this, keep it at a PG level.

Re:WTF!!

[MoneyT]

The doesn't mean people still can't bitch or wont bitch. After all, look at the people who bitch about the ads in AIM, all they have to do is go download DeadAIM or a similar product. Look at the people that bitch about pop-ups and pop-under ads, all they have to do is get a popup blocker.

It's the priniciple of the matter that has people pissed.

Re:WTF!!

[descentr]

Incorrect, pay attention. Screensaver advertising is the only thing taken out for the retail version. The retail version still has both installation and browser advertising.

Re:WTF!!

[brassman]

I keep hoping for better from Mandrake -- we need competition for RedHat. But the first box set I bought from them (at a computer show, but close enough to retail) had a dead disk.

So I contact them: "Oh, take it back to the store." Running score: -1.0

Ran into a mobo that wouldn't boot RedHat -- Mandrake to the rescue. Score: 0.0.

Tried to install bittorrent on RedHat -- no go. Mandrake to the rescue. Almost kewl; bt is not what it was cracked up to be. Score: +0.5

Seems RedHat's $60/year/box deal will soon be history. Downloaded Mandrake 9.0, crossed fingers... Nooooo, KDE on XFree 4 is Utterly B0rked. Score to date: -0.5.

Re:WTF!!

[jirka]

Have you noticed that you're posting this on a site that's advertising based? And you can pay to not have advertising? You should stop reading slashot! And stop posting here. Oh well, maybe my expectation that slashdot comments should be guided by logic is too much to ask.

Now you could say that you can use some software to avoid the slashdot ads. Well, you can also install a different screensaver and change the default page and bookmarks to avoid mandrake's ads. So if you do nothing you get ads on slashdot, and if you do nothing you get ads on mandrake. Now why exactly is it ok for slashdot and not for mandrake? Logic, logic, logic ... that damn logic again.

Re:WTF!!

[yuri benjamin]

Yeah but looking elsewhere while browsing the web kinda defeats the purpose.

RTFA! Mandrake stated that you can easily remove the ads.
They're just some default bookmarks and the default home page.
You do know how to change the defaults, don't you?

Anyway, it pays for the distro. I'd rather have some advertiser pay for my next upgrade than have to pay for it myself.

It seems like mandrake are aware of not overdoing it.

This is do-able...

[grub]

"Seven G's and you could put your face in their installer."

Collectively I'm sure we could scrape together $7K to have the goatse.cx guy in all his glory on this..

Re:This is do-able...

[TrekkieGod]

Collectively I'm sure we could scrape together $7K to have the goatse.cx guy in all his glory on this..

Ok, that's it! I'm going back to Windows.

Interesting

[Archangel Michael]

However, I can see the many of Slashdot crowd crying over this intrusion of commercialism, but this seems like a reasonable way to try and recoup the costs of developing and distributing Linux products.

This keeps Linux "Free as in Beer" and "Free as in speech" at the same time. And what is wrong with that?

Re:Interesting

[atomicdoggy]

Why can't they have it both ways?

Re:Interesting

[Jellybob]

The advertising is only applied to the free download version - if you buy it in the shops, you don't get advertising.

Re:Interesting

[The Old Burke]

And its kind of wrong to name this as "adware".
Adware has traditionally beeen used to describe intrusive and forced advertising that you did not ask for and did not want. Typically bundled with crappy P2P software, dialers, spyware and other malware.

The term "advertising" is better suited for describing this Mandrake distro commercials.

Re:Interesting

[Frymaster]

This keeps Linux "Free as in Beer" and "Free as in speech" at the same time

basically, there are only two revenue models in this world:

1. sell your product or service to end users
2. sell access to your end users to advertisers

all of the linux distros have been trying 1 for a while: charge for box sets, charge for enterprise support, charge for the added update stuff. a good plan, but redhat pretty much owns the enterprise market. and that's where the money is. so it was really only a matter of time until someone came along with model 2.

you should all remember that the reason for this switch is that plan 1 hasn't been working for mandrake. transaltion: you haven't been buynig box sets and tee shirts.

Re:Interesting

[Jellybob]

My guess is: absolutely nothing.

However most people who want to a buy a boxed copy of Linux are doing it for one of two reasons.

1. They want the support, or don't trust "something free".

2. They want to support the company, and get something in return for it.

Neither of those people are going to be interested in a (possibly trojaned) home-brew ISO.

Re:Interesting

[Rinikusu]

Maybe the reason people aren't buying boxed sets and TShirts is because there's not marketing/advertising. Seriously, how often have you seen a Debian or Mandrake ad anywhere? Sure, there are Mandrake T-Shirts (I think) and various other distro T-Shirts around, but the key is variety and to overhaul your line-up regularly.

Let's compare with the Independent music industry, shall we?
It's a well known fact that many people who like bands and see bands live tend to wear band-related T-Shirts. Through sales of T-Shirts (and CD's, incidentally), a lot of these bands can afford to tour the country without having to resort to sleeping on lice-infested punk houses. But, what convinces people to buy T-Shirts from the Band rather than from, say Hot Topic?
1) Price. You can usually get the TShirt at the show for $10-12, usually no tax (cash transaction). The mall will cost you $15-20.
2) Knowledge that the band will get most of the proceeds drives many of us to buy at the shows.
3) UNIQUENESS. If the band is selling the same TShirt you can buy at the store, then you won't get nearly as many sales as if you come out with "unique" Tour T-Shirts. Conventions (sci-fi and otherwise) have caught on to this, as well. By buying the "unique" T-Shirt, you now have "bragging" rights. When people say "Did you go see Hatebreed last year" you can point to your T-Shirt and say "You bet your ass I did." It's kinda a reminder of the experience, you know? After all, music sometimes isn't just about the music, live music is also about the experience. A $10 T-Shirt can go a long ways towards bringing back fond memories.

Now, how does this help with distros?
One thing I see is that Linux people like to give shit away. Sure, free shit is fun and bands give free shit away, too. Stickers, buttons, etc. But, generally, the free shit entices you to buy something later, be it a CD, T-Shirt, or other buttons and stickers. If you go out to live shows enough, you'll find "merch" tables where bands ply their wares. I think the computer world, they're called "Schwag" tables, and the stuff is generally free.
Linux distros (whether it be a company or a gang of guys doing it in their spare time) who represent themselves at trade-shows, conventions, meetings, or whatever, should be conscious of this. When you setup your table, make sure you have something for the person to take home with them. Have some stickers (make them unique!), TShirts, or whatever. Just because Linux is free doesn't mean your TShirts have to be, but be reasonable. You're cutting out the middlemen, so price accordingly. Have some "official" CD's for sale, stickers for a couple bucks, whatever. The idea is to come up with new designs and get your customers caught up in the "Do you have that cool Debian sticker in blue vinyl with a picture of Daryl McBride getting assfucked by Ron Jeremy?" cycle (take a look at Pokemon and Magic: TG). Sure, they're just trinkets, but they serve to help build a community (nothing warms my heart more than to see a big Debian sticker on the back of a car), gets advertising out there (and every "sale" to linux is a win for the entire linux community, regardless of the distro), and is a great way for developers to meet and greet their users at shows. See Apple when it comes to building fanatical fan-bases, it really works (TM).

I'm sure there's a lot of guys who already do this. I don't know because I've never been to any sort of Linux-Con, so please forgive me if I'm treading familiar ground for some of you. But, if you currently don't do this for your distribution or project, maybe it's time to take a step back and examine what you can do to get more support, users, or even money. :)

Re:Interesting

[Rinikusu]

Dammit, I missed some points..

The idea about TShirts with Linux continued:
Don't just give people the same TShirt they can buy at Thinkgeek or that comes with your distro. I've got a Progeny Linux T-Shirt and it's cool and all, but if I went to a tradeshow and (say they were still around, mkay?) they gave me the same T-Shirt, well, meh. You've got to keep cranking out new designs (a couple a year is fine, though), design new case badges, stickers, posters, hell, I'm sure CD artwork would go a long ways to providing a couple more bucks in the coffer. Just be creative and have fun with it and hell, I'm sure there's a few artistically inclined people out there who would love to have a more active role in the developer's community even though they can't code. This could be their way of "giving back".

Re:Interesting

[leviramsey]

Licenses.

The boxed sets and the download edition are already different, as the boxed sets include non-Free software (Acrobat Reader etc.), while the download edition is 100% Free Software.

As a result, since there's material on the boxed set that is not legally redistributable, you can't simply make an ISO and post it (at least not legally). You could however, create your own CD images that remove all non-Free packages and edit/regenerate the various media description files to reflect this change.

wasn't it proven?

[Comsn]

that advertisements cant run a website buisness? the whole dot com thing didnt teach any lessons, huh?

it would be funny to see ads for microsoft software on there tho...

Re:wasn't it proven?

[Channard]

it would be funny to see ads for microsoft software on there tho...

Don't be daft. You'd never get Microsoft ads with a company that is so clearly Linux-biased. *Looks up at ad banner.* Oh, hang on a second.

Re:wasn't it proven?

[ajs]

Wasn't it proven that you can't post an absolute statement on a web site whose very existance refutes your statement? Hmmm... I guess not. Oh well. ;-)

Re:wasn't it proven?

[killmenow]

No.

Re:wasn't it proven?

[Galvatron]

You're right, that's why Google went bust when the dot com boom ended. Wait, no they didn't. Ad revenues aren't anywhere near where they were at the height of the dot com boom, but that doesn't mean you can't make a few bucks off of adverstising.

I suspect that this is probably mainly to cover bandwidth costs and the like. I think Mandrake knows that they'll never make much money off of downloaders, but they can at least stop them from being a net drain.

So long as I can change it it's OK

[farnz]

I'm not bothered about this decision at all, so long as there's no effort to prevent me stripping out the adverts; ideally Mandrake will offer a purchased version without them, but I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to cover their costs with advertising.

Now, if I can't modify it to remove the adverts, and re-upload this version under a new name, that's a different issue.

Re:So long as I can change it it's OK

[alienw]

RTFA. The advertisements are only in the download edition. Sounds very reasonable.

I can't help but think...

[AppyPappy]

This is bad news for Mandrake. Ad revenues are spotty at best according to people that I know who rely on them for their websites. What next? Back doors so advertizers can see where we surf?

It's a great dist but I'd hate to see it become the Juno/Netzero of dists.

Re:I can't help but think...

[zorander]

duh...this isn't like website advertising. I'm not saying it's terribly effective, but if Mandrake can convince people that these will/could work then it's $$$ for them...and they need it badly.

The only ones that conceivably would be difficult to remove later would be the install ones. It's trivial to redo your bookmarks (I import a file anyways whenever i set up a system, so that becomes a nonissue) and it will probably take about fifteen minutes for some kindly mandrake user to put togehter an rpm that replaces the screensaver (uninstall screensaver, install new rpm). If Mandrake was really diabolical I suppose they could make efforts to detect this sort of behavior and disable things, but i think that would be too much trouble...

They just want people to pay for their product and there's nothing wrong with that. If you go to the store and spend a little money, voila...mandrake without ads...

Esp. since it's hard to put unremovable ads in an open source program, i see no problem with this.

Brian

Re:I can't help but think...

[digidave]

Web site ad revenues aren't spotty, they're quite good. Do you think Google is having problems finding advertisers?

The trouble is that any doofus who runs a web site expects that clickthrough banner ads should generate some revenue. Webmasters try to generate revenue from mediocre traffic. You can't do that in any other form of advertising, so I don't see why you should be able to on the web.

The web site I run at work generates about $350,000/year in legitimate ads (Ford, TD Bank, Esso, McDonalds, Government of Canada, etc) and none of that money comes from clickthroughs. We charge appropriately for the size of the audience and because we have good audience demographic information it makes it really easy to sell ads. And no popups!

recompile

[inepom01]

Won't this only work until someone recompiles any and all apps that have the ads in them? How long before packages appear with advertisement-less binaries?

as supported free software

[fowlerserpent]

I worry that opensource software will become advertiser supported. I don't think its likely though. It is however an excellent revenue stream. It is advertising that keeps media of virtually all types so inexpensive to consume. The best thing is, the software is opensource. We can just remove the ads.

I was a bit worried about this...

[Future Man 3000]

Until I read in the article that it's just the download version. Hey, it's a better form of revenue generation from free products than spyware, I guess.

There might be other slow-loading free software projects that could benefit from this, too, such as KDE or Mozilla. As long as the ads are for techie/computer stuff that's interesting I'm cool with it.

Re:I was a bit worried about this...

[ShadeARG]

From http://www.mandrakesoft.com/partners/advertising:

Advertising:

- Installation advertising (for every Mandrake Linux 9.2 version) + bookmarks (for every Mandrake Linux 9.2 version): $ 7,000

- Screen saver advertising (only for the 9.2 download version): $ 10,000

- Installation advertising + bookmarks + screen saver advertising: $ 15,000

(Bold emphasis mine)

Re:I was a bit worried about this...

[leviramsey]

There's no special code in the installer. It's exactly the same program on the download and free editions (and on any ad-free versions that might be hacked up).

Basically, DrakX (the MDK installer's X11 (default) version [it seems that text installs will not have ads]), while doing the package installation from CD or the LAN or whatever, displays, above the progress indicator, a sequence of PNGs. In past versions, they have been ads for MandrakeSoft (join the MandrakeClub, MandrakeSoft offers consulting services to businesses looking to deploy Linux, thank you for choosing Mandrake, etc.). The only difference is that some PNGs (with the same name, of course) now hold different data.

As for the screensaver, that will be trivial to disable, as it will be the GDadou screensaver (which has been included with the distribution for several versions) which just cycles through PNG files located in /usr/share/mdk/xscreensaver. Replace or delete those files and the ads change/disappear.

And freshrpms...

[pr0ntab]

will have "updates" available I'm sure.

Ads in the installer, I'll abide that. But the webbrowser? :-P

that being said, I don't run Mandrake anymore. Maybe with version 10, who knows.

Unfortunate

[Chuck Bucket]

It's unfortunate it's coming to this, I wonder if they could have done something different in the beginning; not grown too fast or something. They started very strong, I even used Mdk for some time back in the early days, but grew tired of the constant "why aren't you a member?" attitude of Deno. Now it looks like they want to take over your screensaver, browser homepage, etc in the name of revenue. This feels much like Opera, which always struck me as some strange marriage of freedom and commercialism. Of course the irony is when I left Mdk for Slackware, I actually started buying Slack distro cds, not because I was shamed into it, but just because it felt 'right'.

CB

Real?

[MindStalker]

Why are we all assuming this announcement is real. This was simply a posting by an anonymous coward in a discussion group.

Linux sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

So now I can watch ads while never being able to get my sound card to work.

Linux has always been ad free

[L-s-L69]

and thats the way it should be. I feel that if mandrake goes down this route, not only will it lose many linux users who will chose other distros, it may also effect public perception of linux and open source software.

How will it look to the average customer if free software has to resort to ads to make it profitable?
I worry that this will make free software seem like a less viable alternative to more expensive products.

Re:Linux has always been ad free

[stratjakt]

I feel that if mandrake goes down this route, not only will it lose many linux users who will chose other distros, it may also effect public perception of linux and open source software.

Nah, don't be shocked when eventually all of the popular distros are forced to go this route. You can "buy" the distro, sure, but it's like a suggested donation - it's almost like panhandling as a business model. So buy the version with no ads in the installer, or download the free version and put up with the ads.

As for public perception, the public is used to this with free software. There's tons of ad-supported software out there. People are used to it.

As for Open Source? Linux is Open Source, you don't need to use a distro at all. Be a real man, compile everything from the source code. It's a huge PITA, Mandrake et al provide you a useful service in avoiding that PITA - it's only fair they be compensated for it.

Re:Linux has always been ad free

[digitalhermit]

I see. Mandrake is one of the most "free" distributions available. THey allow their full distribution to be downloaded and their update system doesn't require any subscriptions. They maintian free support lists with Mandrake employees taking part. They look for innovative ways of raising money to continue this distribution -- ways that minimally affect the users -- and suddenly they're contributing to the downfall of Linux?

Now I love Debian because it's completely free and apt-get rocks, and I get irritated when some late-comer, money grubbing corporation jumps on the Linux bandwagon to try to swing the not-insiginificant number of geek dollars, but Mandrake is one of the good guys. Their philosophy (not corporate philosophy or business model) seems genuinely to be to provide free-speech software. If they can make a little money doing so, then that's even better. And their distribution is one of the easiest to use for non-Linux gurus (I know -- I've installed it for parents and grandparents already).

Re:Linux has always been ad free

[Croaker]

Linux has always been ad free

Really? Go to a shell prompt and type dmesg. Do you see what I see?

ReiserFS core development sponsored by SuSE Labs (suse.com). Journaling sponsored by MP3.com

"sponsered by"!? OMFG! An ad! OMFG! An ad in teh kernel! It's not like Mandrake is going to have popup ads showing up on your desktop, or have permenant banner ads, like ala Opera. It'll take a grand total of 1 minute to eliminate the ads. No big deal.

Re:Where does this end?

[kaltkalt]

Yep, and the cost of advertising on the uniforms will be a function of the company's stock price. I fucking hate what this country is becoming. There need to be limits on advertising. It's ruining the country and the world.

Anyone see this coming?

[Rinikusu]

Struggling company
Needs revenue badly
Sells out to the man

More seriously, while I might have issues with ads in my screensaver, I don't see any problems with seeing ads upon installation. The way I look at it is the way I look at not blocking ads on my favorite websites (like /. and arstechnica): If me looking at an ad for a moment (actually, I ignore them, but they count ad-load, right?) helps them pay for the sites that I use, then I don't mind at all unless they're purveyors of the evil popup(). If seeing a few ads upon installation allows them to pay for full-time Linux developers who are releasing their software to the community, then it's a small "inconvenience" to pay for so-called greater good.

I know, there's a giant anti-market bunch out there that are going to jump up and down and scream about how Linux isn't about making money or whatnot, but frankly, I like the idea of someone getting paid to do something they love (work developing Linux and Linux applications) with a somewhat benign method of securing funding. Now, the day they start installing spyware...

As long as it's just during the install.

[JoeD]

I don't see a problem with this as long as the ads only pop up during the install, and don't wait for you to hit enter before proceeding.

I don't see it as any more annoying than the "Windows will make everything you do more fun" message that they used to put on the Windows install. Actually, that message always cracked me up, so I can't really count it as annoying.

If they start taking money to install a folder on the desktop full of "special offers from our partners" then it might cross a line.

I can see the Advertising now

[Anonymous Coward]

Please pay SCO $699 before using this Operating System.

How difficult is removal

[$exyNerdie]

Pricing

Advertising:
- Installation advertising (for every Mandrake Linux 9.2 version) + bookmarks (for every Mandrake Linux 9.2 version): $ 7,000

- Screen saver advertising (only for the 9.2 download version): $ 10,000

- Installation advertising + bookmarks + screen saver advertising: $ 15,000

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


Makes me wonder how difficult it would be to remove all the adware for a Linux expert ??

Re:How difficult is removal

[nitehawk214]

Makes me wonder how difficult it would be to remove all the adware for a Linux expert ??

I believe the answer you are looking for is "priceless".

Why the hell not?

[somethingwicked]

While I feel this is the wrong move, why can't they have it both ways?

Dell/HP/Everyoneelseitseems sells you a PC that includes preloaded "sales" material such as AOL/MSN.

Will it cut back on their "boxed" sales? Prob so, but thats their call

Relax all

[Anonymous Coward]

Ads, if that can bring them revenu thats good with me, remember the code is still open if you want to remove the ads and all this stuff just do it and stop complain about it!

Re:Touching...

[airyk]

Stay out of his way, folks. He don't give a shit. He's so bad ass to stand up to the mods like that. I only hope his act of bravery and courage will encourage others to not give a shit as well.

Ads:

[Rumagent]

"It is not too late! Call your local MS dealer now, and get windows today"

... and I am not even going to touch the sco-stuff:)

Re:Where does this end?

[stratjakt]

Subsidized? Why bother? People pay top dollar for the priviledge of becoming a walking billboard for Abercrombie & Fitch and the like.

People plaster their cars with those same NASCAR stickers. Geeks plaster their computers with "Powered by AMD!" or "Intel Inside".

Re:Aargh!

[kmonsen]

Read the article, it is only during installation if you bother to use your own startpage for the browser and configure a new screensaver. It is not adware like you are used to.

Oblig SCO comment

[dcocos]

I wonder if SCO will buy an ad to remind people to send in their $699

Re:Where does this end?

[Moeses]

I am reminded of an old poem, I don't know the author:

I think I shall never see
A billboard as beautiful as a tree
Indeed unless the billboards fall
I'll never see a tree at all

Re:This is do-able...Akkk! Thrrrp!

[hplasm]

The phrases "This is do-able" and "..the goatse.cx guy in all his glory.." sit uneasily together in my mind...

Adware Mandrake? Why not?

[acidvoid]

Of course this will be unpopular, but it's not exactly a bad idea.

How many Mandrake installations are the free download? They make no money of those, this way they can make some money on the free download installations also. This is, imho, better than only offering the older version for free download, this way you can have the latest always!

It's just a few ads to ensure you can still get it all for free.

Let's just hope they don't just allow any idiot to advertise.

Good!

[DroopyStonx]

As much as we like Open Source and our Linux distros, they need to get their money from somewhere.

Let's face it, of all people actually using these distros only a FRACTION of them have actually purchased the packaged software/support or have donated money to them.

Not about advertising revenue

[ShieldW0lf]

I'd suspect that this is less about advertising revenue and more about keeping ppl who don't subscribe from downloading Mandrake from their servers.

Re:Not about advertising revenue

[mickwd]

Eh ?

Mandrake only employ a few dozen people at most.

At $15,000 per advert for the full monty (install, screensaver and bookmark), and a six-monthly release cycle, one advertiser is going to be paying $30,000 per annum (to reach millions of people in a very targetted field).

$30,000 - $50,000 is about what it's going to cost to employ another full-time programmer in a developed country (anyone who says that's way too low should consider why their country is losing work to lower-cost countries).

If Mandrake get even a dozen advertisers with this scheme, then they can increase the size of their development team significantly. Or maybe beef up their QA department instead - and get rid of a few more bugs before every release.

Sounds good to me.

Re:Not about advertising revenue

[Durrik]

$30,000 - $50,000 is about what it's going to cost to employ another full-time programmer in a developed country.

Salary counts for less than half of the total costs of having a salaried employee. There are taxes, benefits, building costs, equipment costs, training, etc.

Do you really think that they can get good technical employees who are willing to work for US minimum wage (and probably less than minimum wage in France)?


To give a good example of this. Back when I was well paid, and I use to deal with engineering burden rates for figuring out the cost of my time in dollars for upper management, I had a set figure, that was $625 US a man day. This was for the canadian office.

If you took the average salary at the canadian office you'd see it work out to something like this:

Engineering Cost per year $162,500
Engineering Salary per year 45,360
All the rest: 117,410 (72%)

A dozen engineers would cost: $1,950,000

By the grand parents numbers of advertising (which I don't have on my screen so I can't see them exactly Damn I think its 30k per year per advertizer) Mandrake needs 65 advertisers just to handle the 12 engineers.

Of course part of the burden (appart from the engineer's salary) is the salary for 'non-production' personal, or non-billing personal. This is all your C*Os, secretaries, and marketing. It does not include production costs, those are usually covered under a different system.

But welcome to the world of 'too much information, more then I wanted to know' world of project management and budgeting.

We Really Should ...

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Put some money together and put an Slackware Banner on their installer ... that would be nice ...

Another Good Think would be to put a fake error messge:

"oops. This distro is Really *Broken* and it just Hang Up During Install, If you reboot ASAP you may still have a chance to recover your partition table."

jejej, what people do for some money ...

Mandrake 100% free Software

[phoxix]

In case you didn't know, the 3 disc downloadable edition of mandrake is 100% free software. The guys at mandrake worked very hard to make it so.

I suspect that 9.2 will be 100% free as well. In such an event, "spyware" is simply *NOT* possible on the distro.

As for the ads .... lets just hope MDK comes to its senses :^)

Sunny Dubey

Re:Mandrake 100% free Software

[edwdig]

I suspect that 9.2 will be 100% free as well. In such an event, "spyware" is simply *NOT* possible on the distro.

Sure it is. For example, they could make their software update tool send your Mozilla history file when it checks for updates. Or they could just modify Mozilla to send them information. Like how the search feature in Netscape goes thru Netscape's servers before going to your configured search engine.

You've got 3 cds worth of compiled code. How long will it take you to go through their code and verify that they didn't include spyware somewhere.

Or even worse, how do you know that the binaries that gave you *really* were made with the source they claim it is? They could be giving you a version of Mozilla that includes spyware, but have removed the spyware from the source they distribute. Yes, that would violate the GPL, but hey, if they don't get caught it's all good right?

That said, I'm currently using Mandrake 9.1 and don't think that they would do anything like I just mentioned. Just saying that it's possible.

Re:Disgusting precendent...

[alienw]

First, SuSE is commercial. YaST is NOT open-source or free. You can't download SuSE for free (except for some castrated version). Second, YaST blows. If you actually like it, you haven't worked with it enough. The thing is incredibly buggy. It works great -- 70% of the time.

Also, note that if you actually _buy_ the distro, you won't get advertising.

Obligatory MS comment

[Andrewkov]

I can just imagine the Microsoft sponsored splash screen on the Mandrake installer: "Welcome to Mandrake Linux installer! Your life would be much easier if you were currently installing Windows XP Professional!"

Re:Aargh!

[perly-king-69]

Jesus H. Christ. Get a life

The installer will have ads. Big deal. Don't look at the screen, go and get a coffee. Or just ignore the ads.

The browser's start page will have an ad. You know how to change the start page don't you?

Why this won't work

[IGnatius T Foobar]

I'm going to go out on a limb and be the nay-sayer here.

Since it's a distribution nobody wants, they have to resort to displaying advertisements in order to generate revenue. So that must mean there aren't a lot of people installing Mandrake, and therefore a very small number of eyeballs affixed to those advertisements. So why would anyone want to spend $7000 on one?

This is not a troll, but I'm sure some random Mandrake fan with mod points is going to treat it as one. Mandrake simply doesn't have any significant way to differentiate their distribution anymore, and unlike RH & SusE they don't have a support business to generate the real bucks. The realities of the marketplace are dictating that this company doesn't have what it takes to continue to exist. Perhaps the advertising scheme is a little bit more noble than their previous "give us money as if we were a charity" game, but both seem like desparation moves when you look at them from a business perspective.

Re:Why this won't work

[BoneFlower]

Mandrake is fairly popular, its close up there with Red Hat for people using it as a home desktop- at least among those I talk with on IRC. Mandrake has a large following of people using Linux at home, most of whom do not pay for it.

These ads are a fairly easy way to get some money out of the download edition, and they are fairly easy to avoid if you find them annoying.

Install time ads? You'd be watching mandrake propoganda anyways.

Bookmark ads? Clean out the bookmark folders.

Screen saver ads? HA! don't use screen savers, or install some from another source.

Default home page ads? Change the home page.

Its a very minor thing they are doing in reality, which gives them a chance to increase revenue without significant outlays of money on their part, and without screwing over their customers. Personally, I think its brilliant.

Reminds me of Howrad Stern.

[spineboy]

He wanted to get enough money to buy the box seat right in back of home plate, and fill it with all sorts of freaks, transvestites, dwarfs, Beetlejuice, and hideously ugly people. That way you would see these people everytime they showed a guy at bat. I still laugh everytime I think of it.

Re:Reminds me of Howrad Stern.

[drooling-dog]

Oh... So I guess I'd better stop braaging about that invitation I got...

Aren't there ads in Linux software already?

[fuqqer]

Jeez, when I compiled something on my former Redhat or Mandrake boxes, I got these advertisements saying I needed this or that by some company called RPM? Now I get all these crazy micro advertisements when I try and install stuff on my Slackware box...some products called gcc automake and "checking for"? I have to go out and buy this stuff.

Granted it's better than the zip company ads or buy this MS product commercials I saw back when I was installing Windows software.

Now back to the reality ans seriousness. Advertisements are all right. I think it's not necessarily in following with the spirit of the Linux community. But it is a valid business practice. I mean, we all had the choice not to use windows, we have the choice not to use Mandrake too. Just like Kazaa vs. Kazaalite.

non sig o' the day - Man with hole in pocket feel cocky all day.

I wonder if...

[xaoslaad]

Darl McBride will buy a spot so he can point at you all Uncle Sam-esque with the words "Say no to Linux" over his head

Customer Relationship

[wmb]

This is a bad example of how to treat your paying customers. As a Mandrake club member I find it quite strange to hear about theses changes from their partner program area of their web page. A little announcement and explanation to their customers would have helped, but it's too late for that, now. The damage is done.

Stopping my anger for a moment, I have to admit that non-club download versions stuffed with advertisement is definitely not unfair.

Back to the previous blood preasure level though, I wonder why I have to deal with advertising as a paying user. Can somebody explain that? That is a hidden increase in the price tag to me.

Linux users won't put up with it

[BenjyD]

Windows users seem more prepared to accept this kind of thing (witness the adverts in Messenger, invasive programs like RealOne, lack of pop-up blocking in IE).
I doubt your average Linux distro user (even a Mandrake user) is going to put up with this. Adverts during the install process I could just about stomach; after all, Mandrake has to make money somehow. But a major advantage of using Linux is that no one but you owns your desktop - this removes that advantage.

Re:Linux users won't put up with it

[Ice_Balrog]

OK, this is a major troll, but I don't have any mod points left. And maybe ill get a couple of karma points. OK, probably not... but anyway... 1) It's during the installation process. Tell me, how often do you do that? Anyway, instllations are so boring, I really wouldn't mind some good ads. 2) Nobody keeps their homepage. Thats hardly something hard to change or ignore. 3) Ads in bookmarks are even easier to ignore. Or delete. 4) Only the downloadable version has ads. The others do not. Maybe you should consider buying Mandrake to support them. 5) Contrary to another comment of yours, there are no ads in screensavers. RTFA and you will see that. 6) No one is even close to owning your desktop. There are only ads in the installation, bookmarks, and homepage. Thats nowhere close to someone owning your desktop.

Re:Where does this end?

[gordie]

It's by Ogden Nash: "Song of the Open Road"

what about mandrake club?

[austad]

Since I just signed up for Mandrake Club, I damn well better be able to get a non-ad version. I already gave them way more money than they would get out of advertising to me.

If there'e no ad free version for Club members, I'll probably take a look at LibraNet, I've heard it's pretty incredible.

Doesn't sound right.

[CFBMoo1]

I don't think this sounds right, I'm not against them making money. However I do feel that if they want to make money off the software perhaps they should concider a comercial only version with their extra features or something along the lines of Red Hat since they are based off that distro really.

I don't mind paying for Mandrake. I've got boxed sets since 6.0. The download version was a great way to show it off and give it out to people. Now I'm a little aprehensive in doing that since it will have advertisements in it come version 9.2.

I feel that company that does Mandrake might be living beyond their means in some regards. Seeing the club and now this really makes me wonder. That really doesn't make me feel good cause it's a good distro and I've enjoyed it. I just feel this is a wrong turn.

I'll also admit my hate for online advertising is playing a major role in my feelings on this. Spam, popups, etc have seriously soured my opinion of ads these days and I know this won't effect me if I buy a copy, but I won't have the same appreciation for Mandrake as did before I heard this.

Re:Where does this end?

[stratjakt]

Well, that's you. Plenty love their giant Nike swoosh on their hat and A&C shirt and pants.

OT, the Intel Inside P4 stickers are a "steal me" sign for burglars. The last company I worked for had me put together a handful of higher-end PC's for the engineering folks - not major tech but top-of-the-line consumer stuff. They were P3's if I recall correctly.

Anyways, since I'm a little goofy I took all the "P3 Inside!" stickers, and stuck them on a bunch of 286's and dumb terminals for the Sys/36 they had. I stuck them on my phone and whatnot.

One night, the company was burglarized (by the cleaning service, it turned out, but thats neither here nor there). The high end PC's I built were untouched, but the 286s and dumb terminals were taken. Figure a burglar doesnt want to spend more than 5 or 10 minutes in the building, he's got to be selective.

MandrakeSoft's comments at Newsforge...

[joestar]

"Following up on a story appearing this morning at DesktopLinux.com about MandrakeSoft selling ads in their free download version of Mandrake Linux, I contacted Gael Duval at MandrakeSoft for more detail on the new advertising/revenue source.

Duval pointed out that advertising in Mandrake Linux is not really a new thing. There have been ads for Mandrake Linux, MandrakeSoft products, and for free software projects in the installation all along. They introduced paid advertising in the Safari Service in Mandrake Linux 9.l. Duval says that in version 9.2 they are just advancing that concept a little further.

Duval said the boxed versions of Mandrake 9.2 will not include any paid ads, but that the free download edition (the choice of 90% of Mandrake users) "will now include several additional ads, in the bookmarks and in the screensavers." He noted there will be no annoying pop-up ads.

He added that most Mandrake users want to see them continue to operate in the spirit of free software while at the same time being successful as a business. These new ads, Duval said, are one way that MandrakeSoft tries "to solve this equation."

More details on the advertising, including pricing, is available on the MandrakeSoft web site.

See Joe Barr's article.

This is cool

[Azureflare]

This is good for mandrake. They are simply adding bookmarks to websites of the people who paid to advertise. Bookmarks are quite a bit different than the tone generated by the post and responses; it's not like the link is "embedded" permanently in the browser. You just go to edit bookmarks, delete, if you don't like the link. Mandrake is not forcing you to keep the link in your bookmarks.

I think it's cool. Mandrake needs the money, and this is the sanest and cleanest way of doing it. I'm a silver member of Mandrake, and even though I download mandrake from the 'net, I'm perfectly fine with this development. BTW RC2 is out, and it rocks!

Re:Where does this end?

[16K Ram Pack]

So, you and all the people who don't like it, stump up the $7,000 and get a white screen put on it. Mandrake aren't Microsoft.

Someone's gotta pay for the hosting and bandwidth costs of that software. Personally, I'd rather everyone who installed and liked Linux gave $20 to the distro maker and/or the Open Source Foundation as a contribution. As it seems many (or most) people just leech it, this is the only (and sad) alternative.

rtfa and follow the links

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.mandrakesoft.com/partners/advertising

this is nothing to worry about and could be a great source of revenue for Mandrakesoft.

I would get upset and angry, except...

[drywater]

I use SuSE.

This isn't adware. It's not a big deal either.

[jensend]

1. Non-obtrusive ads during the installation process are nothing new. While it's installing all your thousands of packages, RedHat's installer (since the 7.x series, I think) displays ads for RedHat products and services as well as RedHat and Linux trivia. This is just the first time somebody's displayed third-party ads during installation.

2. Don't like their default screensaver? It's easy to change, it's not like you'll have to hack xscreensaver source or anything. Don't like their default homepage because it says "Welcome to Mandrake Linux, here are some products you may be interested in" instead of "Welcome to Mandrake Linux"? Change it. No big deal.

It's not like there is any software here which has been hacked so it needs to be displaying ads in order to work, which is what adware is. Furthermore, I'm sure Mandrake will be judicious in their selection of ads to display (you won't see X10 ads in Mandrake anytime soon, probably will see ads for co-lo's, linux training and certification programs, Oracle, etc).

Disclaimer: I am not generally a Mandrake user or fan (I've actually only used Redhat and Slack for any major amount of time), I'm just sick of the childish knee-jerk responses here.

I don't have a problem with it

[PotatoHead]

Basically the Mandrake distro rocks. (Well at least 8.2 does --hope 9.2 continues that.) People are not paying for Mandrake even though they are getting good value.

If the ads keep Mandrake healthy enough to continue their distribution, but can be changed, who really cares?

If this really bothers you, why not go and buy the boxed set and really help them out.

Mandrake is 100 percent free software. Its a nice mix that is worth something. The way I see it, you can either build your own distro, or support one that you like.

The software may be free, but the work packaging and intergrating it into a distribution is not. We need to pay Mandrake something, or lose Mandrake. Since they are doing fine work, I plan on paying them this time around instead of downloading. --They clearly need more support than they are getting and I get the message.

Keep up the good work guys!

You go, boy!

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO & MS (note no hyperlinx, heh heh)

Yeah! Way to stick it to the man. Mentioning their name & not providing a link. That'll teach 'em!

Douchebag.

SCO
MS

Remain calm, all is well...

[NLG]

Really, this is not a Bad Thing(TM) IMHO. I am using a free downloaded Mandrake 9.1 at this moment, and I wouldn't mind what they are proposing. I am sure I could turn the ads off eventually anyway. Bookmarks are easily deleted, so BFD to that.

I am also using the free download version of Opera to post this. It contains ads in a portion of the browser. To stop them from being shown I would have to shell out $. I love Opera, but I am a tight-a$$, so I can live with the ads. If not, I could always pay or switch to another browser. Just like I could always switch to another distro of Linux if I wanted.

Personally, I think this method of trying to recoup the expenses for free download versions is long overdue in the Linux business model. People like me who want to continue to use Mandrake may now have the incentive to drop the paltry(compared to Windows) sum for a CD or DVD version with no ads.

I also think that if you are the type to roll-your-own Mandrake from the sources, you probably know enough to kill the ads features and still use your fave distro. Once again, no problem. Hell, I know a guy here at work who LIVES for any excuse to recompile/update/tweak. I will ask him for help with this when the final 9.2 sources are available. He uses Slack and Gentoo mostly, but if I offer him caffeine and snack-foods I am sure he would do it. :)

RTFA...Changes are minor

[Kircle]

1) Mandrake always displayed advertising during installation. The only difference now is that instead of Mandrake ads, it'll have other ads.

2) The screensaver use to show slides of Mandrake clipart. Now it'll show slides of ads.

3) They'll add one link to the advertiser's homepage (seen in browser's toolbar and bookmarks).

4) They'll include ads on the browser's default start page.

These changes appear minor and reasonable. If you don't like it: 1) go read a book when installing mandrake, 2) select your favorite screensaver, 3) delete any and all bookmarks to your heart's content, and 4) change the browser's start page.

I'm guessing a lot of users aren't going to go through the trouble of doing even that. It just doesn't seem that instrusive. And if this is adware, then what does that make Netscape? Netscape IMO is far, far more instrusive.

SAVE YOURSELF! ITS TOO LATE FOR ME!

[stfvon007]

AAAAA! THERE AFTER ME! THERE GONNA GET ME!!!!! ****WHAM!**** (monitone voice) Must... buy... penis... enlargement.. and... microsoft... products.... Must... send... SCO... $699...

Re:This is do-able...Akkk! Thrrrp!

[Mr.Sharpy]

The phrases "This is do-able" and "..the goatse.cx guy in all his glory.." sit uneasily together in my mind...

I would imagine that the goatse.cx guy sits uneasily anywhere.

Distro 'ADs' are bad enough

[nurb432]

Like the ones red hat pushes out to you ' try our certification program'.... or ' red hat advanced server' bla bla bla...

They are offensive enough .. there isn't an need to add outside companies crap on my screen too..

I'm so sick of being bombarded by ads 24/7 from every source, be it the road sign every 10 feet, or the 40 mins of commercials for a 60 min tv/radio program, or 80% ad content in my magazine, that I make it a point to NOT purchase a product if see an advertisement for it.

The entire commercialization of the world has gone too far.. you can even rent space on a police car.. or a school bus..

I Have Seen the Enemy...

[Sounder40]

I have seen the enemy, and he is us. -Pogo

And I thought M$ was the enemy... I see now that the Linux community is going to kill itself: Mandrake puts advertising in its product, Red Hat and their infamous BlueCurve theme and short support cycles, etc.

Sad to hear it.

They're supposed to work for free?

[Da VinMan]

I share your distaste for advertising.

However: what do you recommend instead of advertising for them? We're talking about the free version of Mandrake here. You don't have to buy the product with your $$$. Instead you 'buy' it with your eyeballs. But if you don't like it, just buy the retail version.

Everyone working on Mandrake deserves to be paid too. They have families to feed, hobbies to support, and children to send to college too. Expecting them to work for free is just plain wrong.

Maybe you don't intend for them to work for free, but that's where complaints like this lead.

As for the advertising on police cars, etc., this is the same issue; just a different flavor. Every time a local referendum in a community for additional taxes to support elevated services fails, they get that much closer to pimping themselves for advertisers in order to pay for services. The alternative is to shut down the service in question or reduce it to an unacceptable (to most people) level..

The commercialization of the world can be crass and annoying, I agree. But the marks or commercialization are the by-product of a world-wide market economy, one that hasn't even matured and reached sustainability yet. Until sustainability is reached, or something better comes along, get used to it.

Mandrake has released a statement its web-site

[VUSE g-EE-k]

Here is the statement that Madrake released to clarify the situation: 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.

and next thing you know..

[joeldg]

slashdot will be selling ads...
oh.
wait a minute..

hrm..

Mandrake Innovation

[Idou]

I am constantly impressed by the amount of true innovation that has come from one company:

1. urpmi
2. Mandrakeclub
3. rpm voting (yeah, I know Deb was here before, but this is the first time for a Commercial Company to do this)
4. Open Source Sponsor Ads

I am proud to be a Silver member and will gladly give products of Mandrake sponsors priority when I consume (and will look forward to see who is sponsoring my software next time I update my computers. I though the point of Open Source is great code is great, regardless of who coded it or paid for it to be coded under the GPL).

btw, if you are mad about these ads because now you really wont be getting a 100% free lunch when you download MDK 9.2, it is time to move out of your parent's basement and get a job. Good intentions don't pay for dinner (though, Mandrake is getting damn close to that scenario!)

Fine (kinda)

[gone.fishing]

Mandrake has every right to sell advertisments. If it bothers you then you have every right to choose another distro (or "fix" the Mandrake distro).

Frankly, this may be one way to make open source projects actually profitable. Of course, ads are like seasoning, you want to serve up something that isn't too sweet, too salty, too hot... I suspect that Mandrake is well aware that too much will hurt more then help and that this will not be a problem. I also suspect that they are aware of what will be appropriate for their product so you won't get hit with ads for penis enlargment or Microsoft Office.

If this is a success, and part of me hopes it will be, there is a real chance that other projects floundering for lack of financing will do the same thing. This could be a real boost in the arm for open source. I can see games sponsored by McDonalds or an office suite sponsored by Staples but I can't see an MP3 player supported by the RIAA (or at least I wouldn't trust it).

We all know Linux is robust enough to go head to head against Microsoft but Linux lacks a sizeable war chest. Advertising inside of a free operating system could help this in two ways. First is the income. Second is the advertisers desire to see the product successful. This influence could be a great advantage because the sponsor can push the product too!

Imagine Best Buy advertising on a special distro and then making it available free or next to free in all of their stores. The user gets a free O/S and Best Buy has a desktop filled with the latest weekly specials! I suppose Best Buy sells too much MS software for that to happen but you get the picture.

Mandrake Ads

[p0rnking]

For those of you who are too lazy to go to the Mandrake link ...

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.

This doesn't seem as bad as you people are making it seem ...

Location, location, location

[mdavids]

Meanwhile, Debian will be announcing that it will be charging $5 a pop for advertising in it's installer.

The price difference is only fair; a Mandrake user will see the ads a couple of times a year, while a Debian user will only see the ads once during the lifetime of the machine.

Stay tuned for the announcement when or if the new Debian installer is ready.