While it was semi-promotional, they offered him it as a sort of compensation. Should a company not be allowed to give out their products for free for compensation?
> While it was semi-promotional, they offered him it as a sort of compensation. Should a company not be allowed to give out their products for free for compensation?
Of course they should be able to do so, but chasing someone down who has (publicly, implicitly) expressed a desire no longer to be contacted, and for whatever reason making the contact in a forum in which it does not belong ("sorry if it was unwelcome" arguably belongs here; "how can we make it up to you?" belongs, if at all, in private communication), it seems to me is an unsavoury tactic.
The event doesn't really need more promotion -- it's already the largest developer conference in history. We're trying to raise money for a dozen non-profits in the coding space, and all money goes to them, not us -- so I'm not going to lose too much sleep if the event gets some more exposure incidentally from my reply to offer someone a free ticket.
If you read my bio, I think you'll see that I understand the demographic quite well -- http://about.me/Edro