What is Digg?87 Comments
- diggapleaze, on 10/12/2007, -1/+71I always knew Linux needed more drivers
- TremorX, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21Now when I tell people that Linux crashes are just as frequent and catastrophic as Windows, I'll have some video evidence!
- gdoss, on 10/12/2007, -5/+21I think this is a fabulous idea. I can't wait for the community to raise the entire amount and see a Linux powered car on the track!!!
- agrabob, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18If advertising on F1 cars is poor business, then why do so many Fortune 500 compaines pay for it?
I know, its the free seats, they just want to go to the races. Thats it. - parsap, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16Anyone know how that New York Times Firefox ad turned out? Do these open source companies collect stats about their campaigns? It would be cool if they involved us in the process outside of just asking us to open the wallet.
- jrmy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14I DVR/watch every race I can get through Dish. I also live in the states. I believe the makes your statement completely incorrect.
- karamba_kid, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Ladies and gentlemen start your init scripts.
- Mearn, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16The Indy 500 isn't even a NASCAR race, genius.
- msgyrd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Because the US is the only worthwhile market, right?
- endofdayz, on 10/12/2007, -7/+16Does the linux car only run on special gas? Do you need to install 250 little mini-components to get it to work? Next year, will there be 35 other linux cars out there, all with very slightly different parameters but all essentially the same?
Heh, I couldn't help myself. All in all this is good, the more people that become interested in computing through all methods, the better
Cheers - agrabob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8So how much have they raised so far? Weres the counter?
I do think this is a cool idea though, but I'm biased as a racing fan. - goodbeershow, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Biggest auto race in the world irrelevant?
- Trel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I always did like Tux Racer.
- agrabob, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11But the rest of the world does. F1 ranks right up there with soccer/footbal(whatever your country calls it).
I do agree though, Nascar has unfortunatley become the football(US) of racing here. Crappy announcers and they try to dress it up with cheesey effects and promotions. - antiNeo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8You deserve to be shot for the use of the word "gawd".
- bblades, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Considering that people either think that the Indy 500 is a Nascar race or an F1 race shows that the IRL is a complete failure and Tony George ruined the sport in North America. I doubt that the average Digg reader can name one IRL driver aside from maybe Danica Patrick. I doubt that you will see Tux on one of the cars, this whole thing reaks of vaporware.
- Rice, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11You can write a linux app for going fast and turning left, right?
- bhattsan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Stop spamming this site you piece of *****!
- IronKurton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I'm going to donate. Hey $10 is still something I guess... I really need to see a counter though -- so I'll email the guy.
For some reason, I'm really excited about this.
Edit: I _was_ going to donate, but I can't find Mr. Bob Moore's email address anywhere. If anyone has it, I'd like a word with him. A project with a call for *this* much money HAS TO HAVE A CONTACT EMAIL ADDRESS! - theonlyvlad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5350,000 is an awfully large amount of money to raise, with only 41 days to go. I think they don't show the counter because it doesn't look good. It'd be a nice idea, I'm curious, is anyone responding to this article actually donating? Raise your hand if you are.
- DoubtfulSalmon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6FTA: "The Indianapolis 500 is one of the largest, most recognizable sporting events in the world."
I think it was John Cleese who said that a fundamental difference between the Americans and the British is that when the British hold "international" sporting events, they invite other countries. - cawpin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@kenvsryu - Yeah, nobody dreams of winning the Indy 500. Go away.
@mearn - It is the largest single-day sporting event in the world. - ffejrey, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7One problem...the Indy 500 (which is in the US geniuses...) isnt F1, and the rest of the world doesn't care for oval racing. I could see if they managed to get it on an F1 car which the world actually cares about, not the IRL...
- cawpin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6The rest of the worl (not the US) doesn't care about oval racing or the Indy 500? Weird, I wonder what all those foreigners are doing winning the damn thing then.
- Stormwave0, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I agree. For a primary sponsorship (the full out Linux sponsored car they're showing the picture of) they want $350k-$600k. That's a little insane for a weekend event. Even for a minor sponsorship it's $25k. Not sure what they organizers are thinking here. They're going to have a hard enough time hitting that low number.
- cawpin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Yeah, it's only the largest single-day sporting event in the world.
Nothing to see here, move along. - tgunner, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5We can get Mark Shuttleworth to drive it!
- gmillerd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3car races != f1, both tony and ernie should be die in a lake of fire
- jftitan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I see Dell footing some of the bill. Considering they sell Linux servers, and workstations now. excellent PR. Oh and lets not forget HP, IBM....
Your wrong... and I can see how many people this will draw into new world of open'ness. - cm00uw, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5@cawpin
Spoken by someone who apparently has never watched an F1 race!! F1 is the finest form of racing there is, using guys who actually know how to drive and cars that are the definition of over-engineered. No form of racing can ever touch the excellence of an F1 race, IRL and CART are similar but nothing near the power or performance of F1 cars. - benplaut, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Can anyone else think of 6 open source projects that would take off with the help of 50,000 apiece (one full time paid dev)?!?! This money is a bit of a waste, albeit a good idea. If Red Hat, VA, or Novell wants to fund a car, go ahead... after all,. we aren't selling anything.
- spankaccount, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I just donated a whopping $20.00 for the sake of getting Linux and it feels good. Where is Redhat or Ubuntu or Microsoft/Novel SUSE? I'm calling on the big players to match my donation!
- SecularG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Seems to me that it is kind of late to try to sponsor a car, considering that entrant registration closed midnight April 4th.
- sjug, on 10/12/2007, -8/+11Do we have a hick distro?
- drilldown, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This is the dumbest, and subsequently desperate, idea I've heard yet. Only a reclusive basement dwelling Linux fanatic could dream up such daft "marketing" ideas.
_______________________________________________
So it doesn't make sense to you. Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean there will be no penalty screaming at the world, "you will never fly like Windows/MAC. And everybody knows it will fail, because the Earth doesn't GO around the sun." Raves fall in for people who get donations from the masses in every category, because, the majority is generally correct in their assessment of a situation, as opposed to big money buying an assessment of the situation.
Then there are people in garages everywhere sharing a dream. Being a part of a dream that is insistently being outsourced to every other country by "big money" wanting more and paying less. This is simply another way of the people saying, "We want our money here... Look what we are capable of." As a world united. It's the common dream of freedom which the U.S. tends to toss aside as so... not a moneymaker for me. Well, for the geeks in the garages, the system testers, like me, and the average Joe who gets a hand-me-down PC with a broken OS... It's a dream of Freedom. A dream of opportunity. A beginning from absolutely nothing to a unique form of freedom throughout the entire world. The Matrix, Unwound. The Enigma Machine, reverse-engineered.
The people who will never see the spotlight, yet have changed so many lives. Better or worse, Linux is far more the "spark" of knowledge and thinking than any other operating system out there. Like Firefox, all contenders are welcome. Would you like the source code for how to build your custom competition?
http://www.kernel.org/
Who cares who wins. Who cares how important that is. Who cares nothing is perfect in the world.
Instead, see what can be done!
http://sourceforge.net/index.php
I hand out Linux boot-disks like candy for people with utterly crashed systems and no way to recover. And to the rare perceptive individuals. http://www.linspire.com/ Note the freespire at the bottom.
http://www.ubuntu.com/
OH YEAH, you get dugg down, but you knew that. - R2C13, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Cool idea. I'd prefer to sponsor a MotoGP team though. http://www.motogp.com
Kenny Roberts is always looking for sponsorship money. Heck I think 350k would get you on the bike for a few races. http://www.teamkr.com - jrmy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Racing in America is not dead but sure could use a kick in the pants.
ALSM is starting to get more manufactures and is becoming something more than just a warm up for Le mans.
The split between Kart and IRL is what killed open wheel racing here in the US. That and they still continue to fight. It they would just make up and combine again things would be better.
Rally has indeed became more popular through the years but until it can lose the image as being the rookie leagues for the "real" driving in Europe it will not really catch on. They should also implement Group B again. :P - helios, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2" Many people in the Linux community could think of dozens of better ways to promote Linux..."
OK pal, so start spitting them out. I really want to hear your ideas. And while you're up...try to actually implement some of them, take some action. It's easy to stuff Cheetos into your mouth as you deride or ridicule someone else's efforts. I find that behavior stops once the offender actually gets involved in something other than brick throwing.
Your attitude could use some "holiness"
h - echo1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i'll drive
- helios, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2To those that are helping, thank you, to those of you who make excuses EVERY TIME a promotional idea comes along...go back to your westnoth game, sorry to disturb you. Indy is just the first stop. This is the launch of THE Linux ad campaign. some of you are smart enough to have figured it out...some of you never will be.
Linux will be on television, radio, newsprint and magazines after this. It's all arranged. Now, have we turned down BIGBOX corporates? Yes...just one, and I'll leave you to guess who that is. That is if you can come up with a novel idea.
h - kenvsryu, on 10/12/2007, -8/+10Indianapolis 500 is irrelevant in the racing world. Should aim for the F1 race or hire penguins to street race.
- karamba_kid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You can however get rich putting it to use. Just ask Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, or Sergey Brin. I do agree w/ you that this money could be better spent to advance Linux adoption and development.
- usacomputertec, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Thanks!
- usacomputertec, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1The Indy 500! Root for the 77 Car!
This is Justin. I hope you watch the Indy 500 this Sunday. I along with several other individuals have sponsored the 77 TUX500 car. Yes thats right I actually am sponsoring an Indy car. I gave $6.00 so far. See the entire Linux community (all the people world wide that use Linux) decided we need to be advertised in order to fight Microsoft. Anyway the website for the team is www.TUX500.com .
There is a compelling story behind this car and how we got here. First Stephan Gregoire qualified and the very same day Microsoft Declared War Against Linux by trying to threaten us and claim that Linux had broken almost 300 Microsoft Patents. When Linus Torvalds asked Microsoft to show them the Patents and the Linux code that broke these patents Microsoft backed down. Durring the 4 days of qualifying Stephan Gregoire crashed and hurt his spine. So he can't race at the Indy500. However a better driver Roberto Moreno has a lot more experience and had got to qualify and practice with the car before Bump Day (when you have to fight to keep your qualifying position). This first day he was slow qualifying in 2nd to last place trying to get a feel for this car. After adjusting the car and practicing with it on Bump Day he made a 4 second improvement (most drivers made a .7 second improvement) and qualified 15th. I don't know if he still was 15th at the end of bump day but when he came in everyone was so excited that the people in the infield jumped the walls to pit road and congratulated him along with the press. I watched it live on the internet. The Target Car's driver was very cocky yesterday. (not that the ESPN people didn't encourage him) He was pointing out that with a strong team like his behind him and extra cars and all his experience he didn't have to worry. But for poor cars like the number 31 that had a rookie driver and only one car that was crashed just before Bump Day and rebuilt and barely qualified I felt very sorry. I think Roberto Moreno might have what it takes (if he gets use to the car in time) to take the checkered flag. The question is will he become comfortable with the car and have enough time to get the adjustments made during practice. It should be one exciting race! The reason we (me and the rest of the Linux users) are so adimate about doing this is because 2008 is the deadline. The deadline for what? Victory. Well 2008 is when people will have figured out what OS they will stick with for the 64 bit computers. So if we can let people know Linux exists and that they can switch and get more stability and no viruses then we will have won the victory. To do this we must convince over %30 of Americans, Japan, China, and Germany (the parts of the world that still use Microsoft products) that they should try Linux. Once that happens there will be an irreversible course of events that will make Linux top dog. The same thing happened with Microsoft when they left Mac in the dust. (Mac is a good company but the computers are expensive and can't do much unless you install Linux on them) So anyway enjoy the race!
On a side note Novell gave money to Microsoft so they would play nice and stop attacking Linux customers. This was not a complete waste. Because Microsoft sold SUSE Linux coupons with no expiration date they have agreed to be bound by the GPL (General Public License agreement that Linux uses) forever! Even if there are changes made to the GPL. So Microsoft forfeited it's rights to keep Linux from using their patents. This is huge because it means Linux could use any Microsoft code they want to legally so that people could run all Microsoft programs on Linux! So who needs Windows? Well since that just happened it should take us a while to adopt the new Microsoft code they handed us on a silver pladder by mistake.
My site www.mindblowingidea.com - usacomputertec, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I do believe the website should be a little more Linux promoting but hey they have a link to how to learn Linux!
- MrZodiac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's a great ideal. I'm diffenatly going to donate as much as I can to see this done....
- mikeoh, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Gee, I would of thought the F1 Monaco Grand Prix or the Le Mans 24 hour would of been the biggest race in the world.
Thank you for enlightening me... NOT!
BTW the BMW Sauber is using one of the fastest supercomputers in the world running SUSE linux to design their cars. - jlebrech, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Linux could be stickered on any racing team whos looking for a lot of sponsorship money.
They could run one season with Linux ads for free, and Microsoft will be throwing money at them.
All they need is to freely advertise free alternative to commercial stuff (Blender, Linux, Gimp, etc.) and the Commercial software companies (Autodesk, Microsoft, Adobe) will be throw money away to replace those open apps on the car. And as they wouldnt have a contract with the freebies they could put the new sponsors on midseason. - Mearn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1It's the biggest sporting event because of its past, not its present. The current IndyCar series is a shadow of its former self.
- misfit815, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1So you know where I'm coming from, I'm a born-and-raised Hoosier, a big IndyCar fan, an even bigger 500 fan, a part-time Linux user (I'm running a LAMP server right now - that's about it), and a full-time (i.e. paid) C#/.NET developer.
First, the 500 is indisputably the largest single-day sporting event in the world. It generally attracts about 350,000 fans to the race (though accurate numbers are difficult because the Speedway doesn't publish any). It does have a worldwide audience (not what it used to, admittedly), unlike NASCAR. It has an American audience (again, not what it used to), unlike F1.
IMHO, Linux is on the threshold of mass adoption. The techies who like it are using it, and the techies who don't aren't going to change soon. You need to move past techies, though. You need a wider audience, though one that's perhaps still somewhat technophile. The 500 should provide that. Race fans in America are often just dumb, drunk rednecks (I should know, I'm one of them). But IndyCar fans (and - grumble - Champ Car fans - *blech*) are also more technically savvy than your average consumer. Just the type of people you're looking for.
Why not Champ Car? They don't have the exposure (and they suck!). Why not F1? Costs are too high. Why not some other sport? Where else can you cast such a wide net as a one-shot?
The Speedway is responsible for the SAFER barriers - you know, those foam walls that keep drivers from getting dead? They're running 100% ethanol this year. This is the place where the rear-view mirror was invented! It is known for its innovation. What better place to shout "Linux" from the rooftops?
Now, the downside? I think some others have mentioned this, and I'd have to agree. The site doesn't look like the best possible representation for Linux. It looks like a race fan like me got the idea to be noble and promote Linux to score some pit passes. That IndyCar graphic? Yeah, the official Indy 500 / IndyCar sites have had "draw your own" cars for quite a while with downloadable .jpg's. This is somebody that took their template and played paint-by-numbers.
I think it's good because I love the series and anytime a sponsor comes around, that's a good thing to me. I think it's the right type of exposure for Linux at the right time. Whether or not it's the best use of money - I don't know about that.
Oh, and one last thing. The "you had to be there" factor when Mary Hulman-George says "ladies and gentlemen, start your engines" is completely off the scale - I don't care if you're a race fan or not. -
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