Okay, I had hoped this might simply die out, but instead, it's becoming increasingly absurd as well as increasingly personal in tone. First, Philip didn't ask anyone to stop saying things, he expressed some dismay at what was being said, and not without reason.
Beyond the suggestionwhich Philip has notedthat GNOME programmers were generally in need of "ethical" guidance from the FSF on matters involving "freedom", this thread included the suggestion that GNOME behavior should be predicated on unfounded and unsupported rumor (i.e. that Facebook is "probably" sharing all of your information with the CIA). I'm surprised that a suggestion that a specific site be singled out by GNOME for extra-special treatment, including warning messages, based on what amounts to unsourced gossip, is being treated with even a moment's serious consideration. This Facebook rumor seems to be not much different from last year's equally unsupported claim that Apple maintained a secret "back-door" in OS X, for which an apology was extracted from the FSF, presumably on the instigation of Apple's Legal departmentand I note, without much amusement, that the sole citation offered in support of this latest claim regarding Facebook leads to a non-existent web page. I do not believe that the GNOME Foundation should sign up to be in a position to have to apologize to Facebook, nor do I think it should be an official position of the GNOME Foundation that "using Facebook is a harmful practice". If the GNOME community is hoping for better engagement with Facebook and the like, want to encourage their meaningful participation in our efforts, and hope to cultivate some appreciation on their part of community concerns, surely claiming that they're in the business of routinely breaking Federal lawwithout compelling supporting evidenceisn't the way to be going about it. For my part, I don't believe that spreading defamatory gossip in the name of "freedom" is especially "ethical". Perhaps I've misunderstood Mr. Stallman's intention in making such an apparently irresponsible claim here. _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list