On Tuesday 21. May 2019 15.48.06 H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: > > Am 21.05.2019 um 15:13 schrieb Jonas Smedegaard <[email protected]>: > > > > Speaking for myself, I got discouraged when we met in Bavaria and it > > became clear to me that your avoiding OSHW certification was a > > deliberate business choice. > > No it was not about avoiding it. It was about not seeing any benefit > for anyone. > > Just more paperwork and discussions. And some requirements that are > difficult to fulfill. And nobody covering additional expenses.
Personally, I am increasingly skeptical about associations that collect membership dues and merely do advocacy with a bit of extra lobbying on the side. It seems like a great way of siphoning money away from the actual work, albeit one that some corporations might like due to questionable tax arrangements. Confirming that someone happens to license their work in a particular way might provide some benefit to end-users, but if that isn't a continual process then it is just easy money for some persuasive branding. I also remain concerned about the effect of certification on the perception of works that are genuinely licensed appropriately. No-one should act as a monopoly who gets to decide whether works or projects are merely perceived as being acceptably licensed, casting doubt on those who do not wish to be certified by some self-appointed authority. The FSF might have an authoritative view on whether some software actually complies with the GPL, but they don't implicitly undermine random GPL-licensed projects on the basis that those projects failed to sign up for some FSF money-making scheme. > My key learning came from a discussion before that meeting where some guys > urged me to publish the schematics. I did finally say: ok - here are the > EAGLE source files. What happened? NOTHING. Nobody did apparently > make use of this information. The device did not become better. Nobody > had needed this for writing software - a PDF of the schematics was > sufficient. The only argument I can make excusing those asking for the schematics (or even the layouts) was that Eagle is proprietary software. There has been a discussion about such topics on another list I follow recently, involving software that is also presumably expensive as well as proprietary. But then again, I feel that there are people out there who just want to "tick the box" and feel good about the hardware being "open source". I believe that such people do not appreciate the investment involved in getting to a point where the hardware can be made. Something similar might also be said about how people perceive software, thinking that "open source" means lots of free-from- cost stuff that magically gets made, too. I recall Nikolaus getting quite a bit of hassle from people who demanded full access to the materials around projects like GTA04. I wonder if those people are currently pursuing projects in a way that is consistent with the demands they made of Nikolaus (and others) back then. [...] > > but you decided to compete with LetuxOS > > instead of joining and improving Debian :-) > > Where does LetuxOS compete with Debian? It does not modify or fork any > Debian package. It just *adds* a handful of config packages to Debian and > builds installable packages for a handful of devices not supported by > Debian. Or in the case of QtMoko or Replicant or QuantumSTEP it compiles > application software. I wouldn't mind a clarification of how LetuxOS is somehow competing. One might claim that there are ways of doing similar things with Debian tools, but given that the toolset seems to change constantly with the latest fad tool for building, bootstrapping or whatever being introduced, advertised, outdated and abandoned within the season, perhaps there is a valid argument for just writing something that will do the job regardless of what other people think about it today. Maybe the reason why there is such a constant parade of tools is that people struggle to persuade the right people within the Debian community. And, of course with all these projects, the people who get to decide have their own pet projects and ideas about how things should be done. When they get round to it, naturally. Paul _______________________________________________ Community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goldelico.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/community http://www.tinkerphones.org
