> > 	Oh, a directed spam campaign. perfect. that will endear us to our

quoted text
> > users.  Please return to marketing school from whence you came, and

> > think

> > before you suggest such things.

>

> A open source entity asking for donations from commercial entities

> with whom they already

> have a business relationship is not spam. Theo indicated he wished to

> somehow coalesce and

> redirect appeals so they would result in lump sums and/or machines

> rather than a trickle

> of small user donations. The suggested technique might be effective

> at achieving Theo's

> goals.

The idea you suggested takes a lot of time and effort.
We're already spending a lot of time and effort writing things

we give away.
Noone is going to change their mind based on some campaign.  They're

already selfish enough to use free software and believe that there is

no benefit in being the ones to give anything back.  Someone else will

give back, and things will keep moving along, that's what they assume.
No campaign will fix that.