[$] A little surprise in the Ubuntu motd

At the end of June, Zachary Fouts noticed something on his Ubuntu systemthat surprised him a bit: an entry in the "message of the day" (motd) thatlooked, at least to some, like an advertisement. That is, of course, notwhat anyone expects from their free-software system; it turns out that it wasn't an ad at all,though it was worded ambiguously and could be (and was) interpreted thatway. As the discussion in the bugFouts filed shows, the "ad" came about from a useful feature that mayor not have been somewhat abused-that determination depends on the observer.