Donations don't get press coverage unless they're in ridiculously large amounts. But when a company has pledged to donate a portion of its profits to a worthy cause, it gets more attention.
Which is why this story is on Mozillazine and Slashdot. A simple donation wouldn't have done that.
I agree 100%.
At first I also thought "why not donate directly?", but then I realized that this was about more than money; it's about increasing mindshare among the "clients" *and* the vendors.
I submitted this story to/. because I figured that if this guy sold tons of this Mozilla coffee, then he'd keep doing it and maybe other stores would realize that they could attract clients among fans of this or that non-profit.org
So, while it's true that donating directly is great, it's also good to have a "product" to encourage donations. I probably would never tell my friends to just donate money to Mozilla, but I wouldn't mind telling them about this high quality coffee that ALSO helps a good cause.
"it is people like the Gentoo team that have made Linux the phenomenon that it is"
I think the original poster meant that it's people who are trying new approaches that helped Linux; not that it's the Gentoo team itself that has caused the phenomenon.
You are right that browser innovation was driven out of the "mainstream", but go try Mozilla Firebird (make sure to read enough about it to know where to get all the cool extensions and customizations) and you'll see that some people are still working hard on making better browsers (more secure, more standard compliant, more customizable, faster, etc).
You seem to think that the clock speed is a sure way to know a processor's performance; it isn't.
If I remember correctly (chip geeks will correct me if I'm wrong), the 2Ghz G5 from Apple is faster than even the faster P4.
Highly visible supporters in positions of power at the big game companies.
Imagine if some guy at Valve Software decided to release a Linux version of Half-Life 2 a couple of weeks before the Win32 version? I'm not saying that people would switch, but it'd certainly bring good press and make lots of people curious (and I doubt that they'd lose money doing that -- the Win32 people would still buy it despite the frustration).
Hell, no need for that; just hire a couple of extra guys to make sure that a Linux port of the game is available at the official release (both in the same box).
Gamers are a good target demographic for now because they usually know more about computers than the typical MS office-user and most distros of Linux still aren't that user-friendly.
Of course the hardware support would need to be better and... well, who am I kidding. This will not happen.
I'm sure that lots of programers are Linux fans but the publisher probably has the last say on the matter of allocating ressource for this kind of stuff. If it isn't where the money is, well...
That doesn't seem like a bad growth rate for an industry--from 0 to 1.5 billion per year in only 20 years. Of course, the PC industry puts that to shame, but I don't think a whole lot of industries have matched that growth rate.
Well, remember that the expenses would be very high too.
Slashdot Mirror
What Apple did to IBM, IBM is doing to MS.
Not to make you feel old, but that was almost 20 years ago. Things can and do change -- sometimes, maybe, whatever...
Hopefully they'll be interested in a new server after the /. effect...
I feel all warm and fuzzy inside for having submitted this story; anything that hurts spammers is bringing justice to this world.
...if the cameras were mounted on black helicopters.
I'll try to remember that.
It's not very surprising that people who are disgusted by that kind of stuff don't know about these websites, though...
I was expecting boobies and I get something really sick.
Where's the sad smiley on this keyboard?
...and yet I get internet access through an antenna directed at a local school, which in turn hops back to my father's office.
I guess I'm just not cool enough...
I'm impressed.
I agree. I shouldn't have written that... 50% *is* huge.
Oh well, too late now...
I'm just glad that some people are supporting the Mozilla Foundation. I think they're doing a great job, especially with Firebird.
Either way, the Mozilla Org gets money that it probably wouldn't have got otherwise, and you've got coffee.
I think this offsets any problem...
Man, I cant drink that mozilla coffee. It bloats me up.
Maybe they should have a Mozilla Firebird coffee.
Donations don't get press coverage unless they're in ridiculously large amounts. But when a company has pledged to donate a portion of its profits to a worthy cause, it gets more attention.
/. because I figured that if this guy sold tons of this Mozilla coffee, then he'd keep doing it and maybe other stores would realize that they could attract clients among fans of this or that non-profit .org
Which is why this story is on Mozillazine and Slashdot. A simple donation wouldn't have done that.
I agree 100%.
At first I also thought "why not donate directly?", but then I realized that this was about more than money; it's about increasing mindshare among the "clients" *and* the vendors.
I submitted this story to
So, while it's true that donating directly is great, it's also good to have a "product" to encourage donations. I probably would never tell my friends to just donate money to Mozilla, but I wouldn't mind telling them about this high quality coffee that ALSO helps a good cause.
Well, that was long-winded... Sorry.
I'm the guy who submitted the story.
...but the coffee *does* seem good, though.
Now that I think of it, I agree with you. Half of the profits is a very good deal. I should've worded it differently...
Buy IBM shares?
Same here with Firebird 0.6 Time to email the webmaster, I suppose.
Don't forget to wear dark glasses.
I'm getting 98k/s. heh...
"it is people like the Gentoo team that have made Linux the phenomenon that it is"
I think the original poster meant that it's people who are trying new approaches that helped Linux; not that it's the Gentoo team itself that has caused the phenomenon.
Have a look at this: http://stable.gentoo.org/
They are addressing the very issue you brought up with this new "flavor" of Gentoo.
Not sure how successful they are at this time, though.
You are right that browser innovation was driven out of the "mainstream", but go try Mozilla Firebird (make sure to read enough about it to know where to get all the cool extensions and customizations) and you'll see that some people are still working hard on making better browsers (more secure, more standard compliant, more customizable, faster, etc).
"I find your lack of faith disturbing." -SCO
You seem to think that the clock speed is a sure way to know a processor's performance; it isn't. If I remember correctly (chip geeks will correct me if I'm wrong), the 2Ghz G5 from Apple is faster than even the faster P4.
Highly visible supporters in positions of power at the big game companies.
Imagine if some guy at Valve Software decided to release a Linux version of Half-Life 2 a couple of weeks before the Win32 version? I'm not saying that people would switch, but it'd certainly bring good press and make lots of people curious (and I doubt that they'd lose money doing that -- the Win32 people would still buy it despite the frustration).
Hell, no need for that; just hire a couple of extra guys to make sure that a Linux port of the game is available at the official release (both in the same box).
Gamers are a good target demographic for now because they usually know more about computers than the typical MS office-user and most distros of Linux still aren't that user-friendly.
Of course the hardware support would need to be better and... well, who am I kidding. This will not happen.
I'm sure that lots of programers are Linux fans but the publisher probably has the last say on the matter of allocating ressource for this kind of stuff. If it isn't where the money is, well...
That doesn't seem like a bad growth rate for an industry--from 0 to 1.5 billion per year in only 20 years. Of course, the PC industry puts that to shame, but I don't think a whole lot of industries have matched that growth rate.
Well, remember that the expenses would be very high too.
1.5 billion revenue doesn't equal 1.5 billion profit.
Great point, especially since we help pay for that proprietary software with our taxes.