[Savannah-hackers-public] Re: Savannah article

[Sylvain Beucler]

> > Imposing advertising, be it for proprietary or free software, is not
> > in our plans, and probably neither in the users' - you imply that free
> > software advertising would be acceptable, which is not necessarily
> > true.
> >
> 
> I think it's an important consideration, and I know RMS agrees, but
> you are right that it is surely not the only reason. I changed the
> language so it just points out that not requiring advertising avoids
> this problem, which other sites have.

What does RMS agree to?


To answer your IRC question, I asked Loïc and Mathieu about it.

There was no precise philosophical ground behind this decision, but
both agreed that advertising tend to bring bad side effects.

Here are the ones I personaly think of:

- Advertising is a nuisance for visitors and for project members. I
  don't want my competitor's ad on my page whatever license he's
  using.

- Direct profit makes a volunteer change his view about his
  involvment. Relying on FSF donation is safer - and that's what I
  recommend to people who wish to thank Savannah. The same may apply
  to users, who may consider they "paid" their hosting through
  advertising, involving different behavior.

- The Savannah "market" is surrounded by "competitors" offering the
  same service (or more) gratuitously. We'd better keep
  advertising-free as a sustainable advantage over those competitors,
  giving us a chance to reach more people with the ethical values that
  support Savannah.

-- 
Sylvain