> Please allow me to chime in here for a sec. The decision to advertise or
> not in this case is not Board's decision but Virginia Tech's decision, or
> rather Commonwealth of Virginia decision. This is because the server
> resides on the VT infrastructure which is in turn at least in part paid by
> the taxpayers' money. VT is also a Land Grant university which means we
> need to work towards bettering the community we service and who
> essentially at least in part provides funding for our everyday expenses.
> Therefore, we cannot advertise and collect funds when that will be in
> direct competition with external entities who essentially foot our bill
> through their taxes. In other words, we as non-profit Land Grant
> University cannot be in competition with external for- or non-profit
> entities. This is why we cannot advertise unless we move said sites off
> the University servers. Personally, I have little interest in advertising
> as the benefit of practically unlimited bandwidth, free backup, and
> hosting space far outweighs amounts one could get through ads such as the
> one being discussed here. For this reason, I would simply suggest that we
> move your sites off VT servers if you wish to pursue the ad revenue and
> leave it at that.
>
> Another thought is to finally go ahead and do 501c3 for the linuxaudio.org
> and seek ways for us to fund our own hosting space in which case we'll be
> able to put as many ads as we like. I am simply reluctant (apart from the
> fundamental questions such as where to find funding to do this, who will
> do this, and just how much money we could earn through ads) to do this
> since LAO efforts have been by and large based on copious amounts of
> volunteer work by Robin and I. The community has expressed little to no
> interest in helping in the process or providing resources to do this on a
> larger scale and as such the current situation seems to be by far the best
> under given circumstances. I'll gladly entertain thoughts of those who
> would like to prove me wrong as far as the 501c3 matter is concerned,
> particularly those who are interested and willing to join our rather thin
> pool of volunteers.
>
> HTH
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Ico
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Patrick Shirkey [mailto:pshirkey@boosthardware.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 7:41 PM
>> To: Robin Gareus
>> Cc: Ivica Ico Bukvic; consortium@lists.linuxaudio.org; Daniel James
>> Subject: Re: [Consortium] Advertising Policy - linuxaudio.org
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I appreciate your point of view but I feel it is more of a board
>> decision
>> about how we handle sponsorship opportunities rather than a single
>> persons
>> call.
>>
>> - Being a "not for profit" organisation does not mean that we are not
>> able
>> to take any cash contributions. Instead it means that we are obligated
>> to
>> spend all the funding that we receive in support of our charter/mission.
>> Anyway at the moment we are not officially registered as not for profit
>> so
>> that means we have no obligations under the "Not for Profit" laws for
>> funding.
>>
>> Of course we don't have to take payments directly to Linuxaudio.org or
>> the
>> Consortium. Both Daniel and myself have registered companies that can
>> legally act as proxies and deal with the accounting issues with no
>> impact
>> on Linuxaudio.org. After all it is simply a website with a .org suffix
>> from a legal point of view. The Linux Audio Consortium is a completely
>> seperate entity again. There is no legal requirement for the consortium
>> to
>> have any financial duties for the Linuxaudio.org domain name and/or
>> any
>> content hosted under that url.
>>
>> - As we already have sponsored advertising I don't see why it is a
>> problem
>> to allow *some* of the subdomains to host paid advertisements. As long
>> as
>> they meet the requirements of whatever policy we come up with.
>>
>> I have suggested that lau.linuxaudio.org and quicktoots.linuxaudio.org
>> be
>> hosted on my private server. These domains have always been about
>> providing a "fun" entry into the Linux Audio Community so it seems to me
>> they are prime places for *appropriate* paid advertising.
>>
>> - I have no problem with taking payments, handling the accounting
>> process
>> and distributing the cash in whichever way we determine to be the most
>> appropriate. Daniel and I have already established a working
>> relationship
>> between Boost Hardware Ltd and 64 Studio Ltd.
>>
>> - In a perfect world I would love to be able to earn enough money from
>> the
>> "Linux Audio" digital channel to pay for content contributions,
>> development and design in addition to hosting and maintenance costs. I
>> think it is entirely within our charter to operate a professionally run
>> digital media channel for the purpose of promoting the Linux Audio
>> platform and open source multimedia software/hardware and
>> businesses.
>>
>> I have already established
http://linuxmusicvideos.com. I am currently
>> looking into the costs for purchasing the linuxaudio.com domain name.
>> The
>> whois for that domain is mysterious. I suspect it is already owned by
>> one
>> of our members.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> --
>> Patrick Shirkey
>> Boost Hardware Ltd
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, April 19, 2012 9:56 pm, Robin Gareus wrote:
>> > Hi *,
>> >
>> > Personally, I am against any commercial for-profit advertising on
>> > *.linuxaudio.org domain and sub-domains. I suggest to use your own
>> > domain-name for doing so.
>> >
>> > As Ico already pointed out: "we cannot make money off the site unless
>> we
>> > move to private hosting" -- private hosting equivalent to what vt.edu
>> > offers us incl. unlimited traffic, 3 hourly, 7 nightly and 4 weekly
>> full
>> > backups of our 300GByte volume plus 24h support is probably >= 0
>> per
>> > month. I guess Ico could find out the exact numbers, though i suppose
>> > it's better not to ask :)
>> >
>> > Besides, linuxaudio.org is a not-for-profit organization. As soon as
>> we
>> > receive money - for any subdomain -, someone would need to spend
>> the
>> > money and take care of accounting. Daniel who pays the DNS
>> registration
>> > for linuxaudio.org every year would be on top of the list to receive a
>> > few beers from our first revenue.
>> >
>> > best,
>> > robin
>> >
>> >
>> > PS. some lac.linuxaudio.org pages do indeed feature links to sponsors
>> > which and may fall under the category "advertising". However, none of
>> > those is for-profit. The "sponsors" are institutions or companies who
>> > directly support the Linux Audio Conference - mostly with
>> non-financial
>> > contributions: e.g. this year: LWN ran an ad-campaign for us; Stanford
>> > sponsored location, coffee, Nando & Bruno's time, etc; CiTu.fr allowed
>> > me to co-organize LAC while being employed there,..
>> >
>> > For the record, the LAC is under the auspices of the institution that
>> > hosts the conference, linuxaudio.org is providing free hosting for the
>> > conference site to the benefit the LA community.
>> >
>> > Besides, all external links on lac.linuxaudio.org and
>> > wiki.linuxaudio.org are marked as rel="external" which defeats SEO to
>> > some extent. If you find some links on *.linuxaudio.org to commercial
>> > sites that are not rel="external", please let us know and I'll see to
>> > remove them.
>> >
>> >
>> > On 04/15/2012 02:36 AM, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
>> >> Ok,
>> >>
>> >> I'll coordinate with Daniel to get the dns for those subdomains
>> pointing
>> >> at my server.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Patrick Shirkey
>> >> Boost Hardware Ltd
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Wed, April 11, 2012 5:23 pm, Ivica Ico Bukvic wrote:
>> >>> Redirecting paid things to your own server will be the easiest and
>> >>> fastest
>> >>> solution to this if you are interested in having this done quickly.
>> >>>
>> >>> HTH
>> >>>
>> >>>> -----Original Message-----
>> >>>> From:
consortium-bounces@lists.linuxaudio.org [mailto:consortium-
>> >>>> bounces@lists.linuxaudio.org] On Behalf Of Patrick Shirkey
>> >>>> Sent: Monday, April 09, 2012 6:16 AM
>> >>>> To:
consortium@lists.linuxaudio.org
>> >>>> Subject: Re: [Consortium] Advertising Policy - linuxaudio.org
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> On Sun, April 8, 2012 3:29 am, Ivica Ico Bukvic wrote:
>> >>>>> On 04/07/2012 09:16 PM, Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote:
>> >>>>>> On 04/08/2012 01:38 AM, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
>> >>>>>>> Easter Greetings to the list.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> I have been contacted by a reputable audio company who
>> would
>> >>>> like to
>> >>>>>>> sponsor the "audio quality howto" by placing an advertisement
>> on
>> >>>> the
>> >>>>>>> page
>> >>>>>>> for a one year period.
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>>
http://lau.linuxaudio.org/audio_quality_howto.htm
>> >>>>>>>
>> >>>>>>> Do we have an advertising policy for Linuxaudio.org?
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> why would anyone want to advertise on a page that has been
>> >>>> bitrotting
>> >>>>>> for 12 years?!
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>> Bitrotting or not, the site is hosted by a land grant university
>> for
>> >>>>> free which I believe (translation: I am 99.99% sure) means we
>> cannot
>> >>>>> make money off the site unless we move to private hosting. I can
>> >>>>> double-check with the powers that be if anyone needs a 100%
>> >>>> confirmation
>> >>>>> on this one.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> They have offered for a one year placement. I'm still deciding
>> if
>> >>>> that
>> >>>> is a fair amount.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I am happy to host paid content on my own server if we can
>> redirect
>> >>>> the
>> >>>> DNS to that location. I suggest that all content under the "lau"
>> and
>> >>>> "quicktoots" subdomains are hosted on my server.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> That way we are able to have paid content and free (as in beer)
>> >>>> content so
>> >>>> we are Libre in the true sense of the word.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> The next step will be to figure out a policy for advertising
>> >>>> placements,
>> >>>> how to deal with any income that is generated and how far we are
>> >>>> prepared
>> >>>> to go down that path.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Personally I would love to be able to pay people to contribute to
>> LAO
>> >>>> and
>> >>>> if advertising in a respectful and tasteful way helps make that
>> >>>> possible
>> >>>> then I think it is a reasonable topic for discussion.
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Cheers
>> >>>>
>> >>>> --
>> >>>> Patrick Shirkey
>> >>>> Boost Hardware Ltd
>> >>>> _______________________________________________
>> >>>> Consortium mailing list
>> >>>>
Consortium@lists.linuxaudio.org
>> >>>>
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/consortium
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Patrick Shirkey
>> >> Boost Hardware Ltd
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Consortium mailing list
>> >>
Consortium@lists.linuxaudio.org
>> >>
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/consortium
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>> --
>> Patrick Shirkey
>> Boost Hardware Ltd
>
>