Archive for June 1st, 2007

Posted on June 1, 2007 - by jono

The Opinion Slab: Ad Supported Websites?

Here we are for another slab of opinion. As ever, scribe your views into the comments on this post. Here goes:

Running a website can be expensive, be it a personal website or a site for an Open Source project. Speaking personally, I run sites like jonobacon.org and recreantview.org which are personal, but also jokosher.org and lugradio.org for Open Source projects – all of these sites get hit quite a bit. Currently they are funded out of my pocket and Aq who also runs the machine. Is it cool to put ads on a website (such as the ones on jonobacon.org now) to contribute to these costs? Does this detract from the ethos of free software? Are ads always evil and never acceptable or a perfectly reasonable way of covering these costs? Does the type of ad, size, and/or relevance affect your view?

My take: I think moderate use of ads on personal or Open Source websites are fine, but overuse is frustrating for the reader. The key thing is not the ads but what happens to the money. On a personal website it is fine for the owner to pocket the money, but for an Open Source project, the money should be tracked by the project and be used for the benefit of the project and not go to an individual.

So what do you think? Click that Comments link and share your view!