Re: [LAU] [OT] Advertising vs Linux Audio

On Mon, April 23, 2012 11:05 pm, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 03:33:56PM -0400, S. Massy wrote:
>
>> I do not think there is anything wrong with advertising itself, nor is
>> there with combining advertising and Linux or Linux audio. If you and
>> some like-minded peopole wish to develop a site/platform promoting,
>> supporting, and/or showcasing Linux-related projects, businesses, and
>> artists and use advertising to both fund and promote it, I will not
>> complain and may consider using, recommending, and potentially joining
>> it. *However*, I do *not* feel advertising is relevant to nor belongs on
>> linuxaudio.org, its wiki, or its mailing lists.
>
> There's advertising and advertising. There are some forms I'd
> happily accept in some circumstances (e.g. ads for pro audio
> equipment in a specialised journal) and there are some forms
> I'd never accept - being forced to listen to ads in a restaurant
> for example).
>
> And I certainly don't want them in a context where I'm searching
> for factual information rather than opinion. There's a good
> reason why e.g. Wikipedia wants to remain free of ads.
>
> A lot has to do with the integrity of who provides the information
> on a channel that is sponsored by commercial advertising.
>
> When I started reading 'Studio Sound' 40 years or so ago, it
> had very strict editorial policies. At that time they also
> published real equipment reviews (based on actually measuring
> and testing the items being reviewed) rather the subjective
> blablah and personal impressions that are presented as a review
> today. I remember that this frequently resulted in conflicts with
> advertisers whom often cancelled their inserts as a result.
>
> Today you'd be hard pressed to find any journal that keeps up
> such standards. Or a commercial TV network that has a critical
> 'consumer interest' program. Advertising has corrupted almost
> everything, and the web has multiplied the effect thousandfold.
> That alone is IMHO reason enough to oppose it.
>

Would you be willing to read or even contribute to a journal that seeks to
revive the glory days of "journal"ism and return to the kind of content
that you reference above? Would you be willing to accept that in order to
pay people for their time and effort a certain level of tasteful
advertising would contribute greatly to the funding pool?

That is the purpose of http://linuxaudiojournal.com

If you are interested please know that you are not alone and there are a
great many very experienced industry people out there who have watched the
decline over the years and are ready for a change. I think that the Linux
Audio community is best place to manage this initiative because we are not
afraid or beholden to anyone elses agenda. Therefore if we saw things
going off the rails we would auto correct through the power of community
discussion. Something that the other pyramidically heirachically
structured organisations don't have to bother with.

I'm not saying that we are all individually incorruptible but as a
community it would be a very tough fight if any chose to take that on.

Of course I need to bootstrap the development process which probably means
funding that from my own time and/or money. I am considering a kickstarter
campaign to help get things up and running though.

If other people would like to be involved then I will look at setting up a
mailing list for that purpose. Unless it would be viable to discuss it
here or at LAD in the short term. If the powers that be deem it we may
even be allowed to use the linuxaudio.org servers for hosting a new
mailing list for a "for profit" industry journal...

Although I realise that is a long shot given the level of animosity that
some people have towards "for profit" ventures round here ;-P

--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd
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