Last Chance: Enter to Win an HP BladeSystem for Your IT Infrastructure

With such an international readership, it is particularly short-sighted to restrict this to US only.

I live in and work from Budapest Hungary, but manage Linux servers for clients all over the world. As CTO of a busy social networking organisation, I would have had something to contribute!

Andy Haveland-Robinson

I agree with ahaveland - really short sighted to be US only.
Andrew Martin
Melbourne, Australia

Add another round of short-sightedness. Ever heard global?

Fernando
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Thanks for the opportunity. There isn’t much money for support as we are educational, not commercial.

http://lexspiac.wcupa.edu

Thanks for the opportunity to get a much needed update - we are currently running our engineering applications (CFD & FEA) on 9 HP Itanium 1.3 GHz boxes running HP-UX. It’s been years since our last update and the last year has been particularly painfully difficult as our needs increase. As a commericial business in bankruptcy and our stock holding in at $0.10 per share, there isn’t much money for upgrades on the commercial side of this economy either.

Here’s another international who thinks that things for US residents only should not be published internationally.

Canada adds it’s voice to the discontent over US only participation.

Ok, adding my voice from Italy to the critics for making it US only, one would think that people dealing with Open Source would be Open Minded as well…

j1k

Planet Earth calling Linux Magazine: “Hello?”…

“Hello World!”

Plus another one from Israel. Only for US entries? FYI - really short sighted!!!

let’s cut them a little slack. as far as i know, running a promotion like this worldwide would require them to comply with the rules/regulations of EVERY COUNTRY that had contest entries. Since the laws governing these contests vary from country to country, it is almost impossible to satisfy everyone’s rules.

I do agree with the sentiment that the IT industry is a worldwide entity, not just the US!!

Hello World!

It is a U.S. Company providing this promotion - it is amazing to me that the rest of the world believes that a U.S. company doesn’t have the right to set its own ground rules for the free “give-away”. It is likely that international laws/regulations/taxes make an international “give-away” contest nearly impossible. We still have freedom here in the U.S. and I’ll be there to protect and defend that freedom!

I’m also representing Canada and would have liked to enter. I agree that a company should be able to limit their promotions however they see fit, and since linux-mag doesn’t have our contact details (other than email), they can’t really filter these promotional emails.

Oh well.

Nice, only one blade! Why not give to give out 5 empty enclosures to everyone who takes the survey to sell even more blades ;-) This way you don’t have worry about international sweep takes laws and regulations!

Hello LinuxMag, from WORLD. (NZ this time.)

Please use GeoIP or some similar tech to avoid making offers that you can’t fulfil, like competitions where the prize can only go to the US.

It’s just not polite to exclude people. Sure, laws are laws, but you’re perfectly capable of not showing the form to people who aren’t able to enter - or at least giving them a clear warning.

Thanks in advance for considering this next time.

It is probably HP and not Linux Magazine that put on that restriction. Due to laws governing raffles, exports, etc. in other countries, they are just avoiding problems. It is not a slap in the face to any other country. Don’t take this stuff so personally. I’m sure there are contests, etc. in your respective countries that don’t include the US as prospective winners.

I suspect that the “US Only” restriction may have to do with US technology export regulations and/or tax laws in addition to the monumental task of compliance with all give-away laws in all countries.

no it’s because in the u.s. sales are sagging, economy is bad, nobody’s buying anything, everybody’s sitting tight where they’ve been sitting in the last 14 months, no money available, no credit available, recession is looming etc. so these guys want to see how they can keep an elephant on its feet that is about to fall down.

does that make sense?

We’re a US company (translation/localization), but we send work to Brasil, Argentina, Canada, etc., so, if we win, the expansion that this will enable will mean more work going out.
Fair enough?

I completed the survey. I hope you change your mind with the contest and allow readers all over the world to enter. You can condition the participation of non-US people to those who can cover the expenses of transport and customs. I can (I hope).
Best regards
Juan C VL

Having run a few drawings like this, my guess is that the reason for the restriction is threefold:

1) the logistics of legal compliance with the regulations of all possible entry locations make open offer impractical. Even including all of North America is a real challenge. MOst companies deal with this by having seperate offers in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Blame the politicians.

2) the cost of fulfilling the offer globally can easily far exceed the cost of the item. In some jurisdictions it’s simply not possible. Again, blame the politicians.

3) it’s probably sponsored tbe US regional marketing organization. They have no interest or incentive to support a global contest. Blame the corporate politicians.

I understand the problem. There are several European, Australian, and Japanese contests that I’d like to enter but are not open to me. Blame, oh, I dunno, pick one.

IP filtering has it’s own problems. I’m in the US but my current gateway is in Germany. If they filtered on IP, *I* couldn’t participate.

Silly it US only. One more similar comment because the world is larger then the US. This one comes from Belgium

India adds it’s voice to the discontent over US only participation.

US only again.
C’mon “linux-mag” you never learn?

HP, Novell and AMD are a multinational companies.
SuSE Linux cames from Germany.
Linux isn’t a US OS.
Open Source is for open minds.
I’m from Spain and I decide to unsusbscribe and unregister in this site.

change your mind.
Open your mind.

It doesn’t bother me that this is restricted to US, but why in the world did I receive the email when I’m not a US resident? It took me time and energy to visit this page (regardless of how minuscule that is…).

If it’s US only, why a “fill in the blank” required *Country field?
Globalization? of WTF!

Seems you pulled the plug on the survey more than 12 hours early.

Alread have your winner picked out?

Where’s this survey that people outside the US seem irritated about being asked to fill out? I can’t seem to locate it on this or any linked page.

It seems to me that the US only requirement was pretty prominent. They even made the font bold for us. Kind of petty you “world” people. When I see a contest for only Isreal, Australia, Europe, etc., I don’t get mad and send whiny complaints to the people running the offer. I just shrug, maybe say “Bummer” and continue with my life.

Grow up “world”, please.

Seems the web page has been fixed and the survey is back.

In fact the survey is now on the web page along with the article instead of a link.

KUDOS for getting the problem recognized and fixed in 30 minutes.

AW CRAP!!!!