Hi Jan, Appreciate your comments however the issue is not the availability of the source or my ability to compile my own binaries from the source and I would even be glad to pay a fee for the convenience of downloading a pre built MSI when installing on windows machines and I am reasonably happy with the occasional donations to open source I've been able to extract from my clients. (Although, I admit, we could all possibly do more in the area of digging up donations and raising funds is a constant issue for all open source organisations). My complaint is I object to being SPECIFICALLY targeted by advertising. The only benefit derived from insisting on this type of "account" is to directly target advertising. THERE IS NO OTHER BENEFIT. I do not object to advertising. When I'm browsing MariaDB I expect to get advertising from MariaDB and maybe some affiliates. And MariaDB has some excellent affiliates. I'm on the mailing lists and forums of several open source communities. They constantly send me advertising matter. I contribute. I donate. I do OBJECT to DIRECT TARGETING. Here is just one example of how this works :- Every time I use a web browser to search for any subject, the search engine will target me with advertising from those businesses that have specified my credentials with the search provider thereby denying me access to alternatives. And that is a very real concern and in my opinion is totally contrary to the principles of open source. It's at least contrary to my principles. Now you may think this is trivial and I'm over reacting but I want to be the person in charge of what information I'm fed. No matter how trivial that sounds to you. In the end, if the only way I can get hold of the binaries is to download the source and build my own, I will or find an alternative product. On a completely separate note, Whilst I disagree with you on the subject of direct targeting I completely agree with your attitude to renewables. And I feel just as strongly about both subjects. Regards, Bruce Carlson -----Original Message----- From: Jan Steinman [mailto:Jan@EcoReality.org] Sent: Thursday, 17 September 2015 12:26 PM To: Bruce Carlson Cc: Rasmus Johansson; Maria Discuss (maria-discuss@lists.launchpad.net) Subject: Re: [Maria-discuss] ODBC.NET DOWNLOAD On 2015-09-16, at 18:13, Bruce Carlson wrote:
the openness of open SOURCE [emphasis mine]
Do you think you may be over-reacting just a bit? My understanding -- correct me if I'm wrong -- is that the SOURCE is freely downloadable, and that the extra content you vociferously object to is only presented if you choose to download a BINARY. Compiling, maintaining, and debugging binaries is NOT part of the "open source" agreement! Rather, it is a service for which one might expect to be compensated. If you want to compile and maintain and debug the SOURCE and provide binaries without advertising, YOU CAN! NO ONE IS STOPPING YOU! Again, my apology if I'm misunderstanding something, but I used Homebrew to download and compile the SOURCE for MariaDB, and I don't recall seeing ANY advertising of any sort. :::: We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using nature's inexhaustible sources of energy - sun, wind and tide. I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. -- Thomas Alva Edison :::: Jan Steinman, EcoReality Co-op ::::