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Linux Today Founder Calls for Boycott of Linux Today

Posted by michael on from the doh dept.

dave writes "I founded and managed Linux Today in 1998, bringing it up from nothing into the most powerful and large Linux news website in the world, in less than a year. I am now calling on the Linux community to boycott my creation until its current owners stop accepting money from Microsoft to publish blatantly anti-Linux/pro-Microsoft ads."

11 of 744 comments (clear)

  1. Ads on Slashdot by ziondreams · · Score: 5, Interesting


    I was shocked to find the very same ads mentioned in the article on this site a while back. I've always thought of /. as a very pro-linux community...let alone the OSDN, who, I'm assuming serves the ads.

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    1. Re:Ads on Slashdot by cshark · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I agree, but let's be practical. Microsoft is one of the biggest advertisers on the internet today. They have real money. If you're going to boycott LinuxToday, you're also going to need to boycott the OSDN which runs many of the same ads.

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    2. Re:Ads on Slashdot by steve_l · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What irritates me is when amazon do it. On my own book. There is a sponsored link on my book pointing people at the TCO comparisons -the one we know were so unbiased.

      Can I get the links taken down? nope, they pay, they get. All I can do is make sure the next edition has no support for Windows whatsoever.

    3. Re:Ads on Slashdot by Sean80 · · Score: 5, Interesting
      You could not physically be more wrong. Recently, one of the larger television stations refused to air one of MoveOn.orgs advertisements. Political reasons. As we all know, Disney also refused to distribute Fahrenheit 9/11. The list could go on and on. One person's FUD is another person's truth. You can't like free speech when it works for you, and hate it when it doesn't. It's as simple as that. Who decides what's truth here? You? What if Microsoft is actually right? And if you think that's anything other than a rhetorical question, you've missed the point entirely.

      No, you don't have to be silent about your disagreeing with one person's representation of the truth, but asking an entire community to boycott a website due to the advertisements which it runs is a dangerous, dangerous slide into the sort of polarity we see in the United States today.

    4. Re:Ads on Slashdot by thakadu · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yes, two different, and perfectly valid opinions. It always seems unfair when one side appears to be more honest than the other (at least to me) and the honest side then loses the race. A friend recently commented that conservatives are always going to win because they have perfected the art of non-accountability. I think he was referring to the party designated as R on C-span but this could equally apply to dishonest ad sponsors.

  2. do they pick the ads? by johnpaul191 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    do they pick the ads or are they through a service? i am not sure if it makes it any better.... but for example if you get ads from google and are a tech related site i am sure you will be hit with M$ ads as well as whatever else.

  3. If Microsoft wants to fund a Linux magazine... by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Interesting
    ...then more fool them. As long as "Linux Today" does not allow advertisers to interfere with its content, either directly or indirectly, I don't see an issue.

    I read nothing in the complaint to suggest that Linux Today's content has been compromised by these adverts. Instead, the entire complaint seems to be purely that Microsoft advertises, and the advertising itself is Linux-hostile.

    That's fine. And I expect most readers will ignore what Microsoft has to say, but be delighted they're funding Linux.

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  4. Re:Why? by TopShelf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Perhaps this speaks more to the founder's views of Linux Today readers than anything else. I would think tuxors would be thrilled to be siphoning some funds from MS in this manner...

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  5. Re:Boycott? by BeBoxer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Agreed. I think it's great that Microsoft likes to support pro-Linux magazines and web sites. Everytime I see one I chuckle to myself. "Suckers. No one here is going to be swayed by your ad, but thanks for spending the money anyway!" If anything, Microsoft's need to advertise in Linux channels helps legitimize Linux (as though that hasn't already been done.)

  6. Money's flowing in the right direction by pz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Way back in the 90s, my brother banded together a bunch of his friends to start a company and put up a web site. It eventually became one of the leaders in it's field with millions of hits per day (it's a sports site that is now run by one of the big television networks). My brother's a big proponent of open source, he's got an ultra-low Slashdot ID (less than 100), the web sites he's built have all been done under Linux and Perl, and has contributed to various open source projects pretty extensively (eg, xemacs, mysql). When the web site was just big enough to attract advertising, they made a $2000 booking from Microsoft, and I admonished him for doing business with the devil. He replied, "yeah, but the money's flowing in the right direction."

    Who among us wouldn't rather money flow from Microsoft rather than to them, especially when the recipient is an open-source advocate?

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  7. I call busllshit! by Luscious868 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm calling bullshit here. This guy sells his site to someone else to generate a profit. He then proceeds to bitch and moans when the current owners sell add space, also for a profit, and an add apears that the he doesn't agree with. It's complete and total bullshit.

    If he really cared about that site he wouldn't have sold it. Instead, he sells out to some corporate whore and then has the audicity to bitch and moan when said corporate whore, acting as all corporate whores do, sells out by selling add space to some other corporate whore who spreads FUD. Newsflash buddy, you sold out just the same as the current owners are selling out.

    I have no problem with people who start something and then sell it. It's called capitalism baby, but don't bitch and moan when whoever buys it does something you don't like. You sold the thing, if it was that important you shouldn't have sold it, but you did, so shut up and move on.

    Flame me all you want, but things like this tick me off. Oh and don't give me this "but the spirit of the site is being violated" crap. If he cared so much about the spirit of the site, as I've said over and over again, he wouldn't have sold it.