Question: What policy should govern requests by commercial entities for preferential listing on the inkscape.org website.
*** All current board members are requested to vote ***
Voting: Please rank the following in order of your preference for what Inkscape's policy should be.
I. No paid advertisements are permitted. The Inkscape project will consider inclusion of links or references to relevant products as the website maintainers see fit.
II. The board votes on each paid link proposal individually. (Basically, status quo for how we're doing things so far.)
III. Specific pages on the website are designated for commercial listings. Each page has a standardized format which all listings must follow for inclusion. These listings are ordered by amount paid, with highest paid at the top. No proposals for links or listings on any other location in the site including headers, footers, or menus will be entertained.
IV. Similar to III, except all such pages reserve the top section for options that adhere to FOSS principles, secondly items that are gratis, and thirdly commercial. As with III, the commercial listings are ordered with highest paid to lowest.
V. Ala Carte. Every location on the website is given a price value for being listed for a specified period of time (e.g. 3 months). A schedule is drawn up and placement is sold on a first-come / first-serve basis.
VI. Similar to IV but with a bidding system so prices are set by the highest bidder within a period of time.
Motivation: A number of commercial entities have contacted the board regarding permission to promote publications, et al on the Inkscape web site. To date these requests have been handled on a case-by-case basis, but response from the board has been slow, and without an established policy there is a danger of being inconsistent and appearing biased in favor of one group or another. By establishing a policy, the Inkscape project will be able to handle these requests directly and consistently, without requiring committee votes for each.