Published at LXer:

If it sounds too fishy that $350,000 dollars is needed to put a sticker on a racecar in the Indy 500, that's because there's no car, no sticker, no Indy connection, but a couple of crooks.

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Seems genuine to me http://www.indy500.com/news/story.php?story_id=8602

I am not comfortable with that picture of the car.

Look at the shadow cast across the body by the air intake behind the cockpit. It seems to indicate a light source above and right of center, and behind the vehicle. The shadow angles to the left actoss the body to the left of the cockpit.

Now look at the shadow on the ground under the car. It indicates a light source directly overhead, which would not cast a shadow by the air intake.

Inconsistent shadows. Perhaps the picture is a nice digital image made up by someone to advance a scam?

Now if the car starts appearing at shopping malls in an effort to raise money, I may have to revise my opinion.

The car is a mock-up. It's not intended to represent what the real thing will look like. Nobody ever said it was.
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OK. I googled around looking for things to discredit the Tux500 business. I looked at the links PenquinPete told me to, and I don't see his point at all. It does look like the idea has been kicked around a little before it got to the form it's in now, but so what?

One thing that I googled without PenquinPete having to prompt me was "Chastain Motorsports," and looked at the News links ... Sure the big ones are generating from Tux500 ... Isn't that what a promoter does, but there are lots of little stories, too, that barely mention the Linux connection, or don't mention it at all.

Bottom line. Tom Chastain, owner of Chastain Motorsports definitiely has a car in the race. Typical blurb: Somebody is going to sponsor it, and I sure don't see any denials that it'll be Linux users.

Of course, columns like this don't help matters any. I wonder what PenguinPete's motivation is.

Well, the link I provided is to the (I think) official Indy 500 site. Now, I may be being naive here, but with the millions of dollars flying around the Indy 500 I would have thought that someone woud have done some basic verification to ensure that this was kosher.

And if I was trying to con money out of the general public, OSS users are the very last people I would try to con - not because we're smarter than the average bear or because of ethical reasons - because, for the most part, we're cheap buggers who hate spending money. To test, tell people you can't d/l for free any more and see what happens

"The car is a mock-up. It's not intended to represent what the real thing will look like. Nobody ever said it was."

you meen they didn't slap penguin logo's all over an actuall multi million dollar IRL car just for one photo. i'm sooo confused.

Re: the car.

Check out this model. Same 3D model (POVray, I'm guessing?), different texture, made to look like the Firefox car. Notice the Firefox's site reaction; they don't want any part of it either.

As for the post at indy500.com: I'm trying to find out from them who that press release came from. Like any news site, they could just accept submissions and run them. Considering that this story is plastered all over the web, it would be hard for them *not* to get it submitted to them.

"either?" I think it's a great idea, and I still wonder what PenquinPete's motivation is. Don't guess it could be simply that he's jealous of the fact that helios is a better blogger.

Uh, yeah, right, I'm jealous. As opposed to the IBM Superbowl commercial, the New York Times Firefox ad, the Novell mock "PC-vs-Mac-vs-Linux" commercials, which I've always praised, and the other efforts to promote Linux out there...

all of a sudden, out of the clear blue, I picked this one time to get jealous about the publicity. Is that REALLY the best you can do?

Sheesh, man! Grow a skin! I didn't say anything about you being jealous.

Unless Hosiah is Penguin Pete!!! *cue music* Dunh dunh dunh!

Hmmm! If he is, I'm still innoncent. lol. The adage about the blind pig and the acorn applies.

After 14 days, tux500 has raised only $8,150. They gotta get some big donations, or a lot of little ones. (K)Ubuntu still far in the lead, Debian solidly in 3rd place. Where the h--- are the little donations from Slackware and Fedora, and the big ones from Redhat and Suse.

I'm sorry, but I'm glad this is falling flat on its face. It is beyond a doubt the most lame-brained idea I've ever come across. It does absolutely NOTHING to promote Linux. Face it, a logo slapped on the side of a car is a ridiculous waste of $350,000. I can only think of a couple hundred places where this money could be better spent.