But really, I am actually shocked that anyone thinks this site-closing protest helps.
It may, in a small way, help the cause du jour. But, at the same time it most definitely hurts the site/business which is shutting down to a greater degree.
Take GIMP for example. If I were interested in GIMP, especially from a user perspective, and I get to their site and find it shut down, guess where I'm going? Bzzzt! Wrong answer, I'm not going to give a crap, and I'm going to the Adobe site to order Photoshop. I'm Joe average pixel-painter, and I need to get this work done so I can buy my kid the G.I. Joe with the Kung-Fu grip. Your closing your site just sent me off to the site of a software-patent supporting proprietary for-profit vendor.
Congratulations! You've just eroded your user base and hurt the cause more than helping it. You've managed to hurt several open source and free software causes, actually. Major Kudos!
Here's a better idea - devote a major portion of your homepage to "the cause", and make it so it's almost impossible to not read a little about it. Suck some people in... Then, let those who don't or can't care at that time still get to what you have to offer, grow your user base, and produce more users who might give a rat's-ass in the future!
I'm really not attempting to cause a flamefest here - I'm just at a loss as to why folks think this is an effective protest in the big scheme of things.
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But really, I am actually shocked that anyone thinks this site-closing protest helps.
It may, in a small way, help the cause du jour. But, at the same time it most definitely hurts the site/business which is shutting down to a greater degree.
Take GIMP for example. If I were interested in GIMP, especially from a user perspective, and I get to their site and find it shut down, guess where I'm going? Bzzzt! Wrong answer, I'm not going to give a crap, and I'm going to the Adobe site to order Photoshop. I'm Joe average pixel-painter, and I need to get this work done so I can buy my kid the G.I. Joe with the Kung-Fu grip. Your closing your site just sent me off to the site of a software-patent supporting proprietary for-profit vendor.
Congratulations! You've just eroded your user base and hurt the cause more than helping it. You've managed to hurt several open source and free software causes, actually. Major Kudos!
Here's a better idea - devote a major portion of your homepage to "the cause", and make it so it's almost impossible to not read a little about it. Suck some people in... Then, let those who don't or can't care at that time still get to what you have to offer, grow your user base, and produce more users who might give a rat's-ass in the future!
I'm really not attempting to cause a flamefest here - I'm just at a loss as to why folks think this is an effective protest in the big scheme of things.
-- I survived the IPO rush of '99