Richard, I used the term 'open source' to refer to the following criteria of the definition for a project to be open source (http://opensource.org/docs/osd).
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups I am being discriminated against because I can not make improvements or discuss where the project is headed. >From a free software point of view: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. This means that any discussions should be made public. If not I feel I like I'm loosing this freedom. How can I improve a program if I don't know where the project is headed and reasons why the project is headed in that direction (what are the goals of the project)? Thanks Brendan On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 4:01 PM, Richard Stallman <r...@gnu.org> wrote: > > Doesn't this undermines the values of the open source community? > > To cite the "values of open source" as an ethical standard is ironic, > because the motive for open source was to avoid presenting an ethical > standard. > > The founders of open source split off from the free software movement > in 1998 with the aim of rejecting our ethical principles and values -- > for instance, the idea that we must respect the freedom of the users > when we develop software. They decided to present the matter as > purely a practical recommendation, and not as principle at all. > (See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html > for more explanation of how open source differs from free software.) > So it is ironic that some see it as a principle in itself. > > Openness as a principle is no substitute for freedom, which is why > GNOME needs to remember the free software ideals and not identify > primarily with "open source". But openness does have value, so I'd > prefer not to limit access to this list. _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
