Dear Firefox,
Do you remember sending me this?
“The support of your website and you in particular is important to us. Please do what you can to aid us in our efforts…”
You sent me that back in 2004. What was it all about? Well, it seems that the folks at firefox had a great idea. They would solicit funds from computer users themselves in order to take out an ad in the New York Times. In fact, it seems you did very well by doing so. Here is something that was said along those lines:
“The ad appears to have become a temporary victim of its own success. The Mozilla Foundation’s novel fund-raising campaign to run a full-page ad listing financial contributors rocketed past expectations, attracting so many donors that Mozilla is still struggling to fit their 10,000 names on the advertisement.”
Full Story Here.
Congratulations. For all purposes, your efforts seemed to pay off and we now enjoy mainstream acceptance of Firefox. It was truly an astounding media coup. You deserve to take a bow.
But, I am wondering at something in particular. It seems that a couple of Linux gurus want to follow in your footsteps. The model worked once, why not again. In fact, I contacted one of them in order to suggest that they contact you to gain your reciprocal support. The idea of putting a car in the Indy 500 is not only novel, it is brilliant.
I am speaking of the Tux500.com project.
According to Ken Starks, or “helios” as his fans know him; you were indeed contacted. You simply did not have the courtesy to reply. Ken’s reply was nice enough. He said nothing bad about you. He has just shrugged your rejection off and moved on to other prospects.
So, having personally raised in excess of three thousand dollars for your efforts, I am wondering why Firefox/Mozilla can not or will not support this effort. Is it the “scam” controversy that infected this program early on? If so, I do believe that myth has been busted, and busted wide open. The only thing that particular muck-raker did was discredit himself in the process. Today, even the Indianapolis Star has given this effort the attention it deserves. Positive attention I might add. That is not to mention the two prominent Linux Community Members that are personally auditing the books for Tux500. Linux Community coverage of this project has been complete. I have trouble believing you haven’t heard of it.
So Firefox, please tell me. Just what is it that is holding you back from joining this noble effort to spread the word of Linux?
Might it be that the majority of donations you received were from Windows users? I would hate to think so.
Jan Dykstra
Detroit Michigan