You took my words and left me speechless. That is: I would say exactly the same thing. ;)
2017-11-30T16:22:19+0100 Paul Boddie wrote: > Well, I guess there is some additional history that isn't readily apparent > from reading my remarks and others. Personally, I don't think it is too much > to ask that the different Free Software solution providers consider things > like interoperability between their own solutions and others, and that they > also try and grow the Free Software share of the market instead of trying to > be the biggest fish in an ever-shrinking small pond, but I suppose I'm in the > minority and my opinion doesn't matter, anyway. > > Indeed, there are fundamental issues with sustaining Free Software that > people > refuse to acknowledge or address. As long as those people retain the > mentality > that they may "dethrone" the proprietary software incumbent and show everyone > else how it is done, while trying to do what the incumbent does on a > vanishingly small fraction of the resources that this incumbent has, while > also leaning on "the community" as a source of free stuff when the resource > problem starts to bite, then we should just expect more disappointment when > Free Software is discarded or not chosen. Because those fundamental issues > will still be there. > > It is possible that I am completely wrong and that Free Software is > incredibly > successful in the area being discussed, but if so then such success is > happening behind closed doors, nobody ever speaks of it, and what we read > about in terms of the Free Software development process is largely just for > show, perhaps to attract support for specific products. And then I must > wonder > why "the community" should pay the topic any attention at all. I am sure my > life would be easier if I didn't spend time on these things. > > > These are indeed the standards we have to live with. I have less to say about > whether vCard can be customised to successfully provide "social profiles" > (why > not use URLs just as one of the commenters asks?) than I might have about the > way these files are encoded and structured (data should be represented in a > consistent way with as few edge cases as possible) and the way these > standards > are developed (iCalendar seems to be developed within some "pay to play" > organisation called CalConnect). > > Personally, I don't think people take enough advantage of what these > standards > can already do, anyway. Participants in a scheduling activity merely need a > means of exchanging calendar information, not some central server, but many > people seem to have the misapprehension that a server is mandatory when it is > at most helpful. It would be nice to enhance mail/calendar clients to > exchange > free/busy information between themselves, precisely as described by the > standards, but I've never seen it done. Again, someone insists on a server to > orchestrate the job. For example: > > https://help.gnome.org/users/evolution/stable/calendar-free-busy.html.en > > Such things matter more to the likes of you and me than to someone selling > solutions to businesses, however. But then again, we should care more about > these things than what "businesses demand" if we don't get to see any of > their > money. > > Paul > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion -- - https://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:Adfeno - Palestrante e consultor sobre /software/ livre (não confundir com gratis). - "WhatsApp"? Ele não é livre. Por favor, veja formas de se comunicar instantaneamente comigo no endereço abaixo. - Contato: https://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:Adfeno#vCard - Arquivos comuns aceitos (apenas sem DRM): Corel Draw, Microsoft Office, MP3, MP4, WMA, WMV. - Arquivos comuns aceitos e enviados: CSV, GNU Dia, GNU Emacs Org, GNU GIMP, Inkscape SVG, JPG, LibreOffice (padrão ODF), OGG, OPUS, PDF (apenas sem DRM), PNG, TXT, WEBM. _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list [email protected] https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
