OpenOffice.org Newspaper Ad Mockup Released

Benjamin Horst writes "The volunteer effort raising $10,000 to place at least two backpage ads in New York City's free daily paper Metro is now entering its second full week. We've collected over 10% of our goal already and continue to find new pledge donors at a healthy pace. Our project's purpose is to help 'cross the chasm' and bring awareness of OpenOffice.org 2.0 to the large number of computer users who stand to benefit from its broad feature set and range of useful capabilities. This is not the first time an open source project has sought a high-profile newspaper ad buy. In fact, our effort was directly inspired by the Firefox New York Times ad. Firefox's famous effort announcing its arrival on the world stage helped push it from about 10 million downloads to its current tally of over 185 million!"

Comments

Re:Racist warmongers!

[XanC]

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery.

I am a little uneasy about the abolishment of slavery in this District of Columbia.

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it.

I will say, then, that I am not, nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not nor ever been in favor of making voters of the free Negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, or having them to marry with white people. I will say in addition, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which, I suppose, will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality, and inasmuch as they cannot so live, that while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any other white man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man.

I think the grandparent is simply trolling, but the idea that Lincoln was a great hero of racial equality is complete bunk.

Re:For the US market only

[christian.einfeldt]

hi vandan,

The 'free people' bit raised a few chuckles around my workplace. After all the stories of the US government rapidly meeting their aim of converting the country to a fascist state, with universal surveilence of all ( including bank records ), I find it laughable that Americans still consider themselves free. There are also a plethora of countries around the world who have experienced first-hand the flip-side of US imperialist 'freedom'.

Your point is well-taken. I'm helping Ben Horst out a bit on this campaign, and I've gotta tell you, I am extremely concerned about the prospects for the implementation of "perfect control" in the US. The more Microsoft owns of the market in the world, the closer the day of perfect control becomes. DRM. Spyware. Closed format standards. A two-tiered Internet. Paying to access your own data, whereas the government and the corporations get it for free.

There really are a lot of things that are ass-backwards here in the US. I'm not kidding when I say that we in the US need help from the rest of the world to remind us what freedom means. I'm glad that you and your colleages got a chuckle, but I ain't laughing. I live here. If you think the US looks locked down from the outside, you should come here and experience it. We really are sliding into the abyss. So don't mock us, help us. Seriously. There are a lot of people here in the US who are very, very opposed to the direction that things are going, but we need help. The media is owned by conservatives. The conservatives control all three branches of government, and a majority of the States' governments. We need money, and we need publicity for the few areas where free-thinkers are winning. Open source software is one of those few areas where free thinkers are winning. Come on, throw us a bone! Support this effort! Christian Einfeldt