Re: Putting ads on GNOME websites

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Tue, 2009-05-05 at 17:07 -0400, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> On 05/05/2009 05:05 PM, Stormy Peters wrote:
> > I agree that if it's even a percentage of that, it might be worth it.
> >
> > What would people think of trying it out for a couple of months? We
> > could start with Google ads to see how well ads work and once we have an
> > idea of how much to expect, we could solicit ads directly from companies.
> 
> It's one of those holes I don't think we want to get down into.  But I don't 
> have strong reasons for, other than sanity.  It just feels bad IMO...

I would be very concerned about ads for non-free software
on our site, especially non-free software that directly
competes with what we're doing.  I don't think we could
control that with an external ad source like Google ads.

Obviously, we'd have much more control if we handled our
own ads, but that would take some work.  Somebody would
have to build the infrastructure (tracking click-thrus,
etc).  And somebody would have to solicit companies to
advertise through us.

Maybe (*maybe*) it would be feasible with a low-tech,
insider-only thing.  See if any of our AdBoard members
would be willing to pay for simple, static sponsored
links.  But I don't know if any of them would bite.

Also, aren't there restrictions on ways a non-profit
can make money?  Somebody should check the legal stuff.

--
Shaun