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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.
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.
"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..
Trolling is a art,
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?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
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.
I appear to have a blog. Odd.
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.
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.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
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.
I never vote for anyone. I always vote against.
-- W.C. Fields
- - 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 aThis 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.
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/
--
This sig is inoffensive.
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.
I wonder if SCO will buy an ad to remind people to send in their $699
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
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.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
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
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.
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).
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.
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!
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
"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.
- 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.
- Links in the browser: Just change your home page (you were going to do that anyway, right
:-)
- 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.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.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Well, if you keep buying Mandrake boxes, you don't have to worry: only the download version contains ads.
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.
Oh... So I guess I'd better stop braaging about that invitation I got...
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!)
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!