OLC needs money, or is this just poor marketing?

[Romeozulu]

Today on OLC there have been interesting comments from the OLC Team.

Basically OLC are complaining to all pilots for not supporting them and paying the 10 Euros to get a smiley

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=3412529

Unfortunately this is in German, but I personally think it is disgraceful.

Surely it is up to the individual pilot to decide if he want to voluntarily pay or not.

Strangely there have already been guys jump camp to the newly formed Skylines.

https://www.skylines-project.org/flights/latest

These are also the guys that bring you XC Soar.
I am a neutral person in all this, never paid OLC, and never used Skylines, but I will be interested to see where it all goes from here.

[Kimmo Hytoenen]

OLC has done great job and their "competitions" are respected
by most pilots here. SkyLines project is more for flight analyzing
and sharing information with other pilots - even online.

Do not see that these two compete, and both are good. Got to
pay my €10...

At 21:14 29 October 2013, Romeozulu wrote:
>Today on OLC there have been interesting comments from the
OLC Team.
>
>Basically OLC are complaining to all pilots for not supporting
them and
>paying the 10 Euros to get a smiley
>
>http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?
dsId=3412529
>
>Unfortunately this is in German, but I personally think it is
disgraceful.
>
>Surely it is up to the individual pilot to decide if he want to
voluntarily
>pay or not.
>
>Strangely there have already been guys jump camp to the
newly formed
>Skylines.
>
>https://www.skylines-project.org/flights/latest
>
>These are also the guys that bring you XC Soar.
>I am a neutral person in all this, never paid OLC, and never
used Skylines,
>but I will be interested to see where it all goes from here.
>
>

[Max Kellermann[_2_]]

On Tuesday, October 29, 2013 10:39:02 PM UTC+1, wrote:
> - Would love to support them

The OLC doesn't need your support. It's a commercial company, and it gets plenty of money from sponsors. This campaign is a ridiculous attempt to make even more money.

Remember, you're not OLC's customer - you're their product. (Same with Google, Facebook etc.)

[Steve Leonard[_2_]]

Looks like they only pinged the daily top 5 that don't have a smiley? Or maybe the first 5 to submit that don't have a smiley? Or, pressure from a club or flying site?

Interesting.

[Dan Marotta]

I use both...

I use OLC since the Albuquerque Soaring Club likes for us local guys to log
our flights to keep them in or near the top slot.

I use skylines because it has a **MUCH BETTER MAP** (are you listening,
OLC?) and it allows me to choose my units, i.e., knots and feet, and it
gives me a direct readout of flight time. One can also view two (perhaps
more) flights overlayed with each other. Finally, being open source, the
people are way more friendly.


"Romeozulu" > wrote in message
...
> Today on OLC there have been interesting comments from the OLC Team.
>
> Basically OLC are complaining to all pilots for not supporting them and
> paying the 10 Euros to get a smiley
>
> http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=3412529
>
> Unfortunately this is in German, but I personally think it is disgraceful.
>
> Surely it is up to the individual pilot to decide if he want to
> voluntarily pay or not.
>
> Strangely there have already been guys jump camp to the newly formed
> Skylines.
>
> https://www.skylines-project.org/flights/latest
>
> These are also the guys that bring you XC Soar.
> I am a neutral person in all this, never paid OLC, and never used
> Skylines, but I will be interested to see where it all goes from here.
>

[John Galloway[_1_]]

At 22:01 29 October 2013, Max Kellermann wrote:

>The OLC doesn't need your support. It's a commercial company,
and it gets
>plenty of money from sponsors. This campaign is a ridiculous
attempt to
>make even more money.
>
>Remember, you're not OLC's customer - you're their product.
(Same with
>Google, Facebook etc.)



Are you saying that the description on the OLC website is not a
true representation of their organisation?

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/segelflugszene/cms.html?
url=olcorganisation

John Galloway

[Hans NL]

On Wednesday, October 30, 2013 10:03:48 AM UTC+1, John Galloway wrote:
> At 22:01 29 October 2013, Max Kellermann wrote:
>
>
>
> >The OLC doesn't need your support. It's a commercial company,
>
> and it gets
>
> >plenty of money from sponsors. This campaign is a ridiculous
>
> attempt to
>
> >make even more money.
>
> >
>
> >Remember, you're not OLC's customer - you're their product.
>
> (Same with
>
> >Google, Facebook etc.)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Are you saying that the description on the OLC website is not a
>
> true representation of their organisation?
>
>
>
> http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/segelflugszene/cms.html?
>
> url=olcorganisation
>
>
>
> John Galloway

I think the comment is just a bad marketing move. Based on their website information they are using this extra money to support the hardware to prevent becoming a victim of their own success.
As for the German text - Google translate helps ;-)

Should we pay that money or not? If you're using OLC a lot and flying 50.000USD/EUR+ material then what are we talking about?
This is almost like the complaints i see about the planned (?) yearly fee of 1 USD for Whatsapp. What is wrong for asking a tiny bit of money for a service that you choose to use?

[Max Kellermann[_2_]]

On Wednesday, October 30, 2013 10:03:48 AM UTC+1, John Galloway wrote:
> Are you saying that the description on the OLC website is not a
> true representation of their organisation?

What you read there has nothing to do with what I wrote.

The OLC is "owned" by the Segelflugszene gGmbH, a company owned by Reiner Rose (source: www.bundesanzeiger.de). The donations however go to Segelflugszene e.V., a charitable club. Even though the base name is the same, they are completely different legal entities. I suppose this was made to trick people into thinking the OLC is a charity.

Much of the OLC is organized by people who work without pay for Reiner Rose's company. Those people are listed on the link you provided.

Apart from that, the OLC gets a lot of money from advertisers (called "sponsors"). Plus, many national organizations pay money to the OLC. For example, the German Aeroclub pays 5-figure each year to the OLC (i.e. Segelflugszene gGmbH) so the OLC provides the technical platform for the DMSt.

The company has more than enough money to pay for server hosting. I mean, how much does server hosting cost? Maybe a few thousand bucks per year. But certainly in the five figure range.

Where does the rest of the money go? Why does the OLC beg its users for more money, in spite of earning already more than enough through commercial contracts?

[JS]

Yes it was a bad approach, perhaps after having a talk with Friedl Weber?
Only seems they did this intentional embarrassment to Germans.

The OLC has pushed people to fly more, faster and further every year. Almost every glider now has a logger. What a great thing for the sport!
People gladly pay a hundred times this amount for television with lots of ads.
Jim

[Roel Baardman]

> The OLC has pushed people to fly more, faster and further every year. Almost every glider now has a logger. What a great thing for the sport!

Yet all this data which we produce is sitting on their servers and cannot be used for research (I've tried).
This is my personal objection against OLC, they are not willing to cooperate with researchers and I obtained a ban when I started to download lots of files for my personal research.
And the files which you download are tagged too, the file you download is not identical to the file that was uploaded for that flight.

Yet we pay them, sponsors pay them, and we fill their website with content. Content attracts users, which makes the site an attractive place to advertize for the sponsors.

[Steve Leonard[_2_]]

Interesting that the OLC Comment has changed from what it first was. Now they are only asking for 9 Euro!

[pcool]

Even Wikipedia time to time is asking for money to cover costs.
Only a few people are paying for OLC, and nevertheless the service is top
quality.
If you have 9 users on a day, like on october 12th 2013, it is easy to
provide a service at no cost.
OLC the same day provided the service to 188. But that's pointless, seen as
a special case.
On june 7th, OLC had to deal with 2396 flights processed. Skylines dealt
with 47.
I am not saying that innovative skylines cannot deal with bigger numbers,
only I dont believe it will be as easy as it is now.
Try serving a sandwich to 47 friends at a party, and to do it for 2396
people. Organization changes, a lot.
And money will help a lot to provide bandwidth, hardware, and maybe also to
grant someone is looking at the service in the weekend, instead of going
flying.
So I cannot blame anybody for trying to rise some funds to cover costs.
I heard that Skylines is rising 10k euro too. So what's wrong? nobody is
getting rich anyway for this money!!!
Nobody is even covering the time costs dedicated to keeping up the service,
not to mention the software.

Concerning maps, on OLC there are also google maps available, so I dont see
the real difference.
It is not the maps making the difference with Skylines, I would say. That's
secondary.

paolo






"Dan Marotta" wrote in message ...

I use both...

I use OLC since the Albuquerque Soaring Club likes for us local guys to log
our flights to keep them in or near the top slot.

I use skylines because it has a **MUCH BETTER MAP** (are you listening,
OLC?) and it allows me to choose my units, i.e., knots and feet, and it
gives me a direct readout of flight time. One can also view two (perhaps
more) flights overlayed with each other. Finally, being open source, the
people are way more friendly.


"Romeozulu" > wrote in message
...
> Today on OLC there have been interesting comments from the OLC Team.
>
> Basically OLC are complaining to all pilots for not supporting them and
> paying the 10 Euros to get a smiley
>
> http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=3412529
>
> Unfortunately this is in German, but I personally think it is disgraceful.
>
> Surely it is up to the individual pilot to decide if he want to
> voluntarily pay or not.
>
> Strangely there have already been guys jump camp to the newly formed
> Skylines.
>
> https://www.skylines-project.org/flights/latest
>
> These are also the guys that bring you XC Soar.
> I am a neutral person in all this, never paid OLC, and never used
> Skylines, but I will be interested to see where it all goes from here.
>

[Papa3[_2_]]

On Thursday, October 31, 2013 11:05:12 AM UTC-4, Steve Leonard wrote:
> Interesting that the OLC Comment has changed from what it first was. Now they are only asking for 9 Euro!

Couple of thoughts/personal opinion.

1. There were roughly 13,000 competitors in the 2013 OLC. If 25% of them contributed 10EU, that's roughly 40,000EU. The actual percentage may be slightly more or less, but an unscientific page-through of the full list shows that 25% is probably an optimistic guess (high participation among the couple thousand pilots who accumulate 2,000 or more points, very low participation among those with fewer). While that's not an insignificant chunk of money, I know from my interactions with OLC that there are several people who contribute to the ongoing support and development of the site. I don't know that I would begrudge the support team being paid 5K to 10K each....

2. ... But, I agree with Roel and others that the OLC doesn't win any friends by not making data/files more available for research. I tried when we were attempting to do some batch analysis related to IGC vs. Non-IGC loggers, and I was stonewalled. Certainly not a positive relationship building experience.

3. Same thing on transparency. I have no problem contributing money as long as I understand where it's going. Non-profits in the US are generally required to file reports that show what executives are getting paid; I don't think it would be unreasonable to ask OLC to explain in broad categories where funds are going (hardware, third party software, hosting/networking, staff payments).

4. Which, to wrap it all up, means there is probably an opportunity for others. OLC is currently successful thanks to the first-mover advantage. But, it wouldn't take too much for another site to displace them if they could offer the same services and fix some of the relationship issues (i.e. transparency related to funding, more support for research projects, etc.). Success depends on the goodwill/active participation of pilots rather than some unique and impossible to replicate secret sauce.

So, rather than griping, pilots have the option to vote with their IGC files and take their participation and contributions elsewhere if they don't like the OLC, right?

P3

[Max Kellermann[_2_]]

On Thursday, October 31, 2013 6:24:34 PM UTC+1, pcool wrote:
> I heard that Skylines is rising 10k euro too.

Ah, very interesting! Who told you that fairy tale? Or did you just make it up?

The truth is: I alone pay for the SkyLines server. I refused all the money that was offered to me for it.

Total cost so far: about 200 EUR for one year and and a half. Yes, that's all the money that was paid for making SkyLines possible.

[Roel Baardman]

I feel that, as someone having administrator access to the skylines infrastructure, I have some insight.
I also own a full backup of all IGC files by the way, because I ran into problems while dealing with OLC.
The same also applies to our local RASP files. Anyone interested in parts of the data, feel free to contact me.

> Try serving a sandwich to 47 friends at a party, and to do it for 2396 people. Organization changes, a lot.
That is true. In terms of this party, the changes start when you cannot perform all tasks by yourself.
Or, in the case of computers, when you need multiple computers. Especially when you need more computers than you have components (database server,
webserver, etc) in your architecture.

The skylines server is rather idle on any given moment, so the point where one would need multiple servers is not near.

> I heard that Skylines is rising 10k euro too.
Since the birth of SkyLines I have not witnessed or heard about any money being donated or otherwise obtained from third parties.
Given the fact that the source code of the whole system and its contents are freely available, I also find it hard to imagine how it would "rise" money.

[Dan Marotta]

I'll bet Skylines will allow you access to the data that's been uploaded...


"Roel Baardman" > wrote in message
...
>> The OLC has pushed people to fly more, faster and further every year.
>> Almost every glider now has a logger. What a great thing for the sport!
>
> Yet all this data which we produce is sitting on their servers and cannot
> be used for research (I've tried).
> This is my personal objection against OLC, they are not willing to
> cooperate with researchers and I obtained a ban when I started to download
> lots of files for my personal research.
> And the files which you download are tagged too, the file you download is
> not identical to the file that was uploaded for that flight.
>
> Yet we pay them, sponsors pay them, and we fill their website with
> content. Content attracts users, which makes the site an attractive place
> to advertize for the sponsors.

[Roel Baardman]

> I'll bet Skylines will allow you access to the data that's been uploaded...
I run the backup of skylines, so yes :-)

But others too.

[[email protected]]

Hey that was a positive statement. Some cash to pay for servers or a better service or to pay for some students passing weekend on duty to check that everything is ok..
A friend told me today about daec (I think) going to endorse the service.

But if you don't want the money you can donate it to OLC you know.

[Max Kellermann[_2_]]

On Thursday, October 31, 2013 11:36:06 PM UTC+1, wrote:
> Hey that was a positive statement. Some cash to pay for servers or a better service or to pay for some students passing weekend on duty to check that everything is ok..

We don't pay developers/admins for their time (unlike the OLC). SkyLines is 100% voluntary and unpaid, like XCSoar, and we're proud of it.

> A friend told me today about daec (I think) going to endorse the service.

Yet another fairytale.

[Peter von Tresckow]

Max Kellermann > wrote:
> On Thursday, October 31, 2013 11:36:06 PM UTC+1, wrote:
>> Hey that was a positive statement. Some cash to pay for servers or a
>> better service or to pay for some students passing weekend on duty to
>> check that everything is ok..
>
> We don't pay developers/admins for their time (unlike the OLC). SkyLines
> is 100% voluntary and unpaid, like XCSoar, and we're proud of it.
>
>> A friend told me today about daec (I think) going to endorse the service.
>
> Yet another fairytale.

On the segelflug.de forums there is a similar uproar. Some we're comparing
Reiner Rose to Friedl Weber.

Pete