I have no time sadly to go to OpenSuSE conferences. It brakes my heart by sadly i can not attend.
But I would like to raise an issue that could make the life very interesting to OpenSuSE.
I know I am going to get some fire on this but please do so.
Your opinion is important to this idea.
I’ve seen a competitor distro (cof …cof … cof … name starts with Ubun … ) making their browser start on the Amazon.com affiliate program of theirs. (they also enabled personal data spying stuff inside on their 16 release but that’s for another thread
The said distro does have an Affiliate agreement with the above mentioned online merchant.
My point is Would OpenSuSE had such agreement I would have Gladly followed OpenSuSE links and you guys would get a Kickback from my purchases.
Why not explore this EASY and Straightforward source of revenue?
It’s simple, costs nothing, requires Little Works and it’s done very very fast!
I’ve recently had to acquire some hardware, some hard drives and SSD’s, and sadly the best price for those particular models were on the dreadful amazon site.
Many other vendors have online affiliate programs like that where that and give a bit of a revenue in exchange for Customer purchases.
I strongly Urge the OpenSuSE Board to think about this possibility.
As a long time Lizard fanatic I worry about the OpenSuSE project and I think this could be a very good source of revenue for OpenSuSE … just saying … thought about this last week when I was making the purchases.
Also of course, I must stress that not only the big merchants like Amazon have such programs … many others exist and also I think you guys could have multiple partners to make a steady stream of revenue possible.
The distribution called “openSUSE” is a community-driven project, there are employees of SUSE working on the distro as a template for SLED/SLES and they already get paid, so first decision would be “who else should be getting the affiliate revenue”.
Volunteers (like me) doing some packaging/bug reports/etc.?
Fine, and how should it be distributed?
Not to mention the privacy issues related to using the “online marketing cancer” no matter for what product.
AK
P.S.
It’s simple, costs nothing, requires Little Works…
Well, in most cases this only means you are not the customer but you (=your data) are the product.
Money could go to say paying for the conference, making more marketing material … so many things can be done withe revenue from the OpenSuSE team …
I am not advocating any personal gains from that revenue but it is always good to haev some loose change in order to pay for expenses for … say promoting OpenSuSE at Linux and Open Source events.
Those events do not cost zero btw …
About the privacy issue.
I was refering to Ubun … the distro that can not be named and that has nothing to do with the amazon affiliate program.
Amazon and the big bad online retailers wiill get your data anytime you purchase something there. There is no way about it.
The only info you are giving them is simply they would know you’re a OpenSuSE advocate/user.
The ubun … thing is another story totally Orwellian. They say on their user agreement they will Share their users online and/or? OS usage data with “third parties” … and by sharing they may mean → Selling … very very different scenario and nothing btw related to the Amazon or others online shops affiliate programs.
Please I do not want to make incorrect accusation about other distros so please do no quote me on the above comments. I did not read the entire source of that news. But whatever they do with the private date it is Not Related to the Amazon or other affiliate program.
Why can not OpenSuSE do the same ?
I truly see no problem in this and it is a wasted opportunity if the team does not take advantage of such programs.
Always remember OpenSuSE users that do not wish to use such online functionality don’t have to …
Again the privacy issue I mentioned was just a lateral thing nothing related to the idea being discussed in here.
I truly see no reason why this is not done already …
On Mon 05 Dec 2016 04:46:02 PM CST, keyb user wrote:
Hi,
Money could go to say paying for the conference, making more marketing
material … so many things can be done withe revenue from the OpenSuSE
team …
Hi
Why do you think openSUSE needs money?
There is the travel program to help users get to a conference (assuming
time is available).
Better to make a donation for example to the packman folks… buy some
server time etc… help buy some more hardware, pay for the power
bill…
–
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There is a simple way, not using them and even better avoiding any sites offering such programs.
Yup, and quite likely even if you are actually not clicking on any affiliate link as some data related to that link gets pulled from their servers.
See above, as long as you don’t actively block the respective sites where that 3rd party content is fetched from (often via JS), you do take part even if you are not following affiliate links. If I am only reading the site without being logged into my openSUSE account, well whatever, but if I am logged in things might look different.
Few days ago there was quite an interesting story which fits very well in this scenario:
Don’t get distracted by the fact, that a browser extension was the “bad actor” here, that’s not really needed, some JS would be enough.
On the contrary, privacy issues should be discussed here, as they are the biggest concern when embedding such 3rd party applications like affiliate links, especially when these applications are related to marketing.
Maybe (at least according to what I was told by people who use/used affiliate links for some of their projects) because the amounts of money you can get out of this is -in most cases- highly over-estimated?
It is just an idea and this is something that costs Nothing to those supporting OpenSuSE for decades like me.
In my particular case I would have payed exactly the same for that hardware or anything else for that matter. So yes I prefer to support OpenSuSE in that way.It
It’s easy, costs nothing.
Also in the example you mentioned … OpenSuSE could support with that revenue say Packman for the great work they do to the distro … or so many other projects that the users have no idea need some support …
That could be of course all Open and very very transparent.
umm I’ve been thinking about the way you pose the issue.
The issue is not whether OpenSuSE project needs money or not.
If people had to donate then that would be an issue.
In the case of an affiliate/kickback program (I know it sounds bad but they are kickbacks … it is what it is … ) the issue is simple:
The users will spend not a single cent more on their purchases.
And instead of amazon taking all their profit at least a small amount goes to sponsors whatever OpenSuSE feels needs sponsoring, Packman, other projects, server time, more server offsite backup space … developers that need a Raspberry Pi to test the new Rpi release …all that makes a difference.
and that is to Zero Cost for the users …
All done in a non-intrusive way I think it is a good idea.
Hi
Because of the nature of packman, there should be no association like that due to legal issues. Just like openSUSE (it’s been discussed numerous times on the ML’s) AFAIK, it would need to become a foundation.
I think Per Jessen proposed something awhile back (Project, General or Marketing ML’s)… https://lists.opensuse.org/
Why not promote openSUSE in your area? An install-fest of such like, you can contact the marketing team (on the ML) I’m sure they will provide goodies eg install media etc…
You’re talking to fellow openSuSEr that uses normally Startpage on the tor browser with Javascript disabled globally with multiple KDE sessions depending on topic of search …
I know every time I simply search inside those sites all data gets logged, cross-referenced and quite frankly they know long time ago I use OpenSuSE for the past almost 20 years …
We are not talking about “hacking” personal data trough using a link/hidden Js, sharing data with third parties … whatever.
That’s not the issue.
Yes every time we use Amazon our privacy will be totally depraved whether you like it or not.
Again that is immaterial to the fact that I bought hdd’s and ssd’s in their page, with their total control, that would have happened regardless of the fact that OpenSuSE could at least gain something.
So every single OpenSuSE supporter buying stuff with a simple Link rather then directly over their site would clearly be subjected to the Exact Same privacy exposure as if the affiliate program was not there.
Simply OpenSuSE would be the Source of the purchase, or better, the channel.
So no matter what privacy concerns we have, and we have the exact same ones btw, they have zero impact on what i propose as a source of revenue and cost for the OpenSuSE users.
And yes I also tend to avoid Amazon but some times they’re the only ones that have what I need so …
and …as I know we both agree, they already know Way too much about every single one of us for a simple purchase more to matter.
What I propose btw does not involve any browser extention.
Could be a simple link on OpenSuSE page.
Also important note:
this is only a general idea … we all know of course implementation and the way it gets distributed to the user base is of course paramount.
Regarding the total amount of revenue … anything other then Zero is good
Also there is not only Amazon.
Many other sites have the exact same stuff working.
Also there are people using Open SuSE that make large purchases, we simply do not know.
So i truly believe most sites would have a very very small return from such programs, namely blogs that make product evaluations/reviews …
Most are computer/Tech related.
Remember they have usually a very very small viewer base.
I think OpenSuSE could do better then most blogs since it is way more general then those very strict single subject blogs.
On the other way many youtube more generalist channels have large revenues from such programs …
We simply do not know …there’s nothing like trying right ?
ummm ok … look I “aint’ no lawyer” so I’m sorry that was not something I considered, the legal part of the issue.
But …apparently … the distro that can not be named ( cof cof cof name starts with Ubu … something ) as no such Legal restraints … they’re doing it … just sayin’ …
I think Per Jessen proposed something awhile back (Project, General or Marketing ML’s)… https://lists.opensuse.org/
Why not promote openSUSE in your area? An install-fest of such like, you can contact the marketing team (on the ML) I’m sure they will provide goodies eg install media etc…
I apologize since I do not read the marketing ml … time is scarse for the fora, news, blogs and my own development … )
I will not insist if this was already discussed, I was just putting the thing out there for consideration …
About the install fest Malcolm …I wish in my area folks would not bother me with windoze bugs and crashes, totally smashed systems after virus/malware and the like …
I truly try to hide the fact that I work on IT not joking Folks around me are totally lost in terms of their IT “choices” … and truly I have no more patience for ignorance.
Most users I know would have a hard time making the transition sadly.
So, does that mean if I asked you to jump off the top off a flight of stairs… you would
One other option is to support our primary sponsor and use SLED and a subscription… just like running openSUSE Leap 42.2 at present… Plasma should be up on PackageHub one day…
The Board has discussed this repeatedly and have come to the following conclusions
Financially the Project as a whole is in a very healthy state, and we rarely/never expend the funding we receive from our primary sponsor, SUSE. I can never remember a time where a justified request from the openSUSE Project has been met with an answer of ‘no’.
For events like openSUSE Conference and openSUSE Asia we request additional sponsors, including individual ticket sales, to spread the financial burden and allow us to do extra things like pay for social events, food for attendees and extras. We always manage to cover what we ‘need’ and often cover more of what we ‘want’ than expected.
Outside of the above, we really have no need for money and it would put significant administrative burden on the Project to be able to take such money and distribute it fairly in the project. Accounting laws & taxes suck…
So, if you want to help the project, CONTRIBUTE, by doing something. Your time, your code, your forum posts, help the project more than a few dollars ever would
Alternatively, the only other ‘medium’-sized way people could help the project is by providing hardware and servers, our Infra Heroes are putting together a specific wish-list of stuff they’d like…but it’s also not an area of absolute pain at the moment, just something we’d like to see improve over time.
On Mon, 05 Dec 2016 16:26:02 +0000, keyb user wrote:
> I strongly Urge the OpenSuSE Board to think about this possibility.
> As a long time Lizard fanatic I worry about the OpenSuSE project and I
> think this could be a very good source of revenue for OpenSuSE
The openSUSE board frequently has received questions about monetary
donations, and the standard answer has basically been “we have the
financial resources we need - we need people to contribute time to the
project”.
If you want to support the project, money isn’t what’s needed -
volunteers are.
On Mon, 05 Dec 2016 18:06:01 +0000, keyb user wrote:
> as no such Legal restraints … they’re doing it … just sayin’ …
They do have a legal liability - they’ve decided to take the risk. The
openSUSE project has decided not to, because it’s backed by a company and
other larger donors who have deep pockets (which means more likely a
target for litigation).
On Mon, 05 Dec 2016 20:26:02 +0000, RBrownSUSE wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The Board has discussed this repeatedly and have come to the following
> conclusions
>
> - Financially the Project as a whole is in a very healthy state, and we
> rarely/never expend the funding we receive from our primary sponsor,
> SUSE. I can never remember a time where a justified request from the
> openSUSE Project has been met with an answer of ‘no’.
> - For events like openSUSE Conference and openSUSE Asia we request
> additional sponsors, including individual ticket sales, to spread the
> financial burden and allow us to do extra things like pay for social
> events, food for attendees and extras. We always manage to cover what we
> ‘need’ and often cover more of what we ‘want’ than expected.
> - Outside of the above, we really have no need for money and it would
> put significant administrative burden on the Project to be able to take
> such money and distribute it fairly in the project. Accounting laws &
> taxes suck…
>
> So, if you want to help the project, CONTRIBUTE, by doing something.
> Your time, your code, your forum posts, help the project more than a few
> dollars ever would
>
> Alternatively, the only other ‘medium’-sized way people could help the
> project is by providing hardware and servers, our Infra Heroes are
> putting together a specific wish-list of stuff they’d like…but it’s
> also not an area of absolute pain at the moment, just something we’d
> like to see improve over time.
>
> Hope this helps
Well stated, Richard - and of course, about as official as it gets.
It seems that you want to promote openSUSE (well, not goinf a route I would llike to walk). Whatever you actions might be to do this, please first learn how to spell the name of the product you want to promote.
Also I do no understand why you are acting so childish about using the name Ubuntu.
Just saying 1: for multiple reasons your post would not have passed the spamfilters I’m using so I probably wouldn’t have seen it when posted to the ML.
Just saying 2: if you want to propose something, write a straight proposal, not some kind of soapbox post.
Just saying 3: Refrain from implicitely bashing other distros. There is never any need for it.
time is scarse for the fora, news, blogs and my own development … )