Tux Racer at Indy 500

[MikeTbob]

Well, it looks like our favorite Penguin is going to be in the Indy 500 after all. I'm not sure "making Linux a household name" is going to work this way.
Photos: Linux penguin to race in the Indy 500 | CNET News.com

[smolloy]

It won't help outside the US, but it might mean there are a few more people in the US who've actually *heard* of linux.

It can't hurt.

[benjamin20]

... who paid for that?

[tommytabib]

Is that the same thing people, on these forums in fact, were calling a scam and urging people not to donate?

[MikeTbob]

Is that the same thing people, on these forums in fact, were calling a scam and urging people not to donate?

That is the one. I thought it was a scam too. It was just fishy back then, and they were pretty vague about the whole thing.

@benjamin20: I am not sure who organized this but it is funded by donations. See here Tux 500

[cheesecake42]

i'm not a fan of motersports at all but that's pretty freakin cool

[Oxygen]

I'd of considered a donation if I thought it was a sport anybody watched, they shouldn't of expected to make that much money in such a short ammount of time. I wonder how much it would cost to put Linux on an F1 car

I actually am interested, if you know please post.

[smolloy]

I'd of considered a donation if I thought it was a sport anybody watched...

Not sure if you're being sarcastic (apologies if you are), but the Indy 500 gets ENORMOUS audiences in the US. It doesn't do well outside the US, but there must be tens of millions who watch it here.

Maybe Linux will start doing well in the Red-States after this

[bidi]

I'm surprised they got enough money to sponsor a whole car! According to their website they are only up to $16k, which is obviously not enough to even turn an Indy car on (exaggerating). I wonder where they got the rest of the money from.

I do agree that they had too little time to raise the money. Something like this should have had a better laid out plan that should have span a few years to eventually have a fully sponsored car (start small, and build up), would also give people enough time to figure out that it wasn't a scam. The whole idea seems to have just been dropped on everyone's lap with no background, which would explain all the scam theories.

[carlosponti]

if we could have managed to get everyone in this forum to donate 3 dollars you might have been able to get them to their goal.