[maemo-community] Banners on maemo.org

[From: Jeremiah Foster]

On May 1, 2011, at 13:47, Randall Arnold wrote:

> Maybe I'm just thick in the head, Jeremiah... but I don't quite get your position.  Seems like an overreaction to what's proposed.
> 
> No one is talking about commerce here.  For now it's community contests and the like.  I'd agree if the discussion was about becoming a web store, but we're just formalizing a very basic banner program.
> 
> But rather than just argue I'd like to know how you would approach something like the MeeGo coding contest.  Are you against ANY sort of maemo.org advertising for it, or just banners?  Or do you disagree with the contest itself?

To be clear - I'm all for a Maemo coding contest. I am totally against advertising on the Maemo site. 

And lets be honest, we are talking about commerce here. The banner is a style explicitly associated with advertising. Even if the current banners are not being monetized it is a short step to that happening.  If Maemo were something original, if it weren't built on Debian and Debian's social contract as well as the Debian tools and Free Software, I'd say "go ahead, do as you please." But Maemo isn't original, it is almost wholly derivative. Taking someone else's software and putting banners all over it is a questionable practice in my mind. 

If the current council wants Maemo to become a commercial entity it needs to make sure it communicates that in no uncertain terms. It also needs to return changes back from Maemo to Debian to be in compliance with the GPL. There is a project for this called "DEX" and I strongly advise the council and all members of Maemo to look into it and participate. This project was created explicitly for Debian derivatives like Maemo. Canonical's CTO is actively moving patches from Ubuntu back to Debian through DEX. Maemo should do this too.

I think the council needs to be more transparent about its intentions, statements like "even Maemo itself is not completely and specifically open source" are wrong and misleading. This is what leads many to believe that the banners are a step on the road to ads on the maemo.org site. 

Regards,

Jeremiah


> 
> Randy
> (sorry for the top-posting-- I can only get Ovi to work on my MeeGo netbook now and in-line replies are a pain.
> 
> On Fri, 2011-04-29 at 12:10 +0200, Jeremiah Foster wrote:
>> This is a very, very misguided decision and ought to be entered into only with consensus from the wider Maemo community. 
>> 
>> Look at any Open Source project's web site, i.e. MeeGo, Fedora, Debian, you won't see any banners.
>> 
>> I'll answer your replies inline below.
>> 
>> On Apr 28, 2011, at 14:43, Sunny B wrote:
>> 
>> > Well, Jeremiah had the only negative comments.   I don't know what Maghreb is, but military dictatorship is a bit of hyperbole. Since banners weren't even invited before, and now they are (subject to some rules), the criticism seems misplaced.  In any event, I've tried to utilize the constructive parts and revised the rules to be as below.  They are intended to prevent the website from being overrun with ads for fart apps and such.  
>> > 	• Banner should be for a project with a clear and compelling purpose.
>> > 	• The purpose of project should be related to Maemo or a maemo device.
>> > 	• The project should maintain an online presence at maemo.org or own web site.
>> > 	• The project should be generally open source or open governance.
>> > 	• The banner should not violate any trademark or copyright. 
>> > 	• The project agrees that posting a banner to support a project does not make maemo.org a sponsor or otherwise responsible for the project.
>> > 	• A maemo.org member in good standing must be designated as primary contact.
>> > 	• The project agrees to answer queries from Council regarding project.
>> > 	• All requests for banners (and objections) shall be directed to Council who shall determine whether the banner satisfies these rules and the length of time the banner will be posted.
>> > 
>> > 
>> > On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 5:00 PM, Jeremiah C. Foster <
>> jeremiah at jeremiahfoster.com
>> > wrote:
>> > On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 03:17:49PM -0400, Sunny B wrote:
>> > > Council has decided to allow a limited number banners on maemo.org for
>> > > related projects.  There is already a banner for the 2011 Coding
>> > > Competition.  A banner has been prepared for the Cordia project.  And
>> > > council has approved the Community SSU for a third banner, although a banner
>> > > has not yet been submitted for review.  The following set of rules are
>> > > proposed to serve as guidance for those who might consider submitting a
>> > > banner to maemo.org in the future.  Constructive comments on the rules are
>> > > requested.
>> > >
>> > >    - Banner must be for a project with a clear and compelling purpose.
>> > 
>> >     How are you defining "compelling"? This seems like it will be easily misunderstood.
>> > 
>> > We are not defining "compelling".  We'll leave that to the dictionary. 
>> 
>> So you are going to be intentionally vague about what can go on the site?
>> > 
>> > >    - The purpose of project must be related to Maemo or a maemo device.
>> > >    - The project must maintain an online presence at maemo.org or own web
>> > >    site.
>> > >    - The project must be generally open source or open governance.
>> > 
>> >     "Generally"? Don't you mean "specifically"? What are you trying to avoid,
>> >     banning an app that requires paid support?
>> > 
>> > No.  Even Maemo itself is not completely and specifically open source. 
>> 
>> Wrong. This is an open source project and even the Maemo council does not have a clear mandate to litter the web page with ads. If this happens, there will be a fork of the project and there is nothing you can do to stop it, it is allowable through the software licenses of the project.
>> > 
>> > >    - The banner must not violate any trademark or copyright.
>> > 
>> >     You'll never be able to know for sure. You can only check if it has appropriate
>> >     copyright attribution and assume it is correct. (Plausible deniability is what
>> >     Maemo needs if there copyright claims against something you thought was okay.)
>> > 
>> > Granted, you'll not know for sure.  But this is to make explicit the policy on such matters. 
>> > 
>> > >    - The project agrees that maemo.org incurs no responsibility by posting
>> > >    banner.
>> > 
>> >     How on earth are you going to absolve yourselves of responsibility for
>> >     posting the banner? In some European countries its been proposed that bloggers
>> >     register with the government. What makes you think that the council or those
>> >     in charge of maemo.org won't be responsible for what they post on their web site?
>> > 
>> >  Rules are amended to clarify that posting a banner does not imply responsibility for the project.
>> 
>> This is not a legal strategy. You may open up maemo.org to legal action if you fail to determine provenance or accuracy of the content of the ads.
>> > 
>> > >    - A maemo.org member in good standing must be designated as primary
>> > >    contact.
>> > >    - The project agrees to answer queries from Council regarding project.
>> > >    - Banner may be removed at any time and for any reason by Council.
>> > 
>> >     So the council can remove anything they want, without supplying a reason,
>> >     but bears no responsibility?
>> > 
>> > The rules don't say a reason doesn't have to be supplied.  And yes Council is responsible for banner decisions.  The webmasters don't want to be (and shouldn't be) in the position of deciding which banners get posted and for how long.
>> >  
>> >     Really?
>> > 
>> >     This sounds like military dictatorship in the Maghreb.
>> > 
>> > Lighten up. 
>> 
>> Nope. It is you who need to take this much more seriously. Advertising on the maemo website will put the final nail in the coffin of Maemo and you'll bear the responsibility.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Jeremiah
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