Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
Stormy, we seem to be miscommunicating. I said that people should not promote non-free software on Planet GNOME. You seem to be arguing against something different. For instance, My post on hunting comes to mind. I self censor now because I didn't like the negative comments directed at my kids. But would you block my whole blog because a vocal portion of the community is anti-hunting and people in my family hunt? GNOME is not connected with the anti-hunting movement; there's no reason it should have any position on the question. But GNOME is part of the GNU Project, and it ought to support the free software movement. The most minimal support for the free software movement is to refrain from going directly against it; that is, to avoid presenting proprietary software as legitimate. I think Planet GNOME should have a rule to this effect. There are many ways to implement such a rule, of which block the whole blog is about the toughest one we might consider. I'd suggest rather to try a mild approach; I'm sure that can do the job. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
On Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:12:16 -0500, Richard Stallman r...@gnu.org wrote: GNOME is not connected with the anti-hunting movement; there's no reason it should have any position on the question. But GNOME is part Is GNOME part of any anti-proprietary software movement? I don't think so and I've never seen it like that. If it's the case, then GNOME should reject contribution from any contributor that work with or for proprietary software. We should also be sure that any GNOME technology is definitely not possible to use within a proprietary software. of the GNU Project, and it ought to support the free software movement. The most minimal support for the free software movement is to refrain from going directly against it; that is, to avoid presenting proprietary software as legitimate. Supporting something was never meant as fighting something else. *Never* That's maybe your may of supporting free software but it's not mine, meaning neither yours or mine is the official vision of GNOME. And it's definitely not *THE* way of supporting free software. I think Planet GNOME should have a rule to this effect. There are many ways to implement such a rule, of which block the whole blog is about the toughest one we might consider. I'd suggest rather to try a mild approach; I'm sure that can do the job. As I said earlier, I think that the less rules, the better. But it seems that we have different goals. I don't believe that planet.gnome should be planet.anti-proprietary-software. I think it should be the planet of the people involved in the GNOME project, punt on de lijn. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
On 12/11/09 7:12 AM, Richard Stallman r...@gnu.org wrote: Stormy, we seem to be miscommunicating. I said that people should not promote non-free software on Planet GNOME. You seem to be arguing against something different. I believe Stormy was quite clear and on point: It sounded to me as though she were arguing against the sort of prior restraint that you seem to be attempting to impose here. GNOME is not connected with the anti-hunting movement; there's no reason it should have any position on the question. GNOME is not connected with the anti-VMWare movement, nor (that I'm aware of) any anti-proprietary software movement. But GNOME is part of the GNU Project, and it ought to support the free software movement. It does support free software, and does an effective job of it. The most minimal support for the free software movement is to refrain from going directly against it; that is, to avoid presenting proprietary software as legitimate. This is simple nonsense. Software is software, and people write about what they do. I use free software, and I also use things like Final Cut Pro, for which there's no equivalent. You seem to feel I should be barred from writing anything about film-editing, since it involves proprietary software. My use of Final Cut is completely legitimate. There's no equivalent piece of free software, and even if there were, surely my tools are my choice, are they not? Your attempts to control what gets posted are completely out of line. I think Planet GNOME should have a rule to this effect. There are many ways to implement such a rule, of which block the whole blog is about the toughest one we might consider. I'd suggest rather to try a mild approach; I'm sure that can do the job. This suggestion, which verges on a demand for censorship in the name of freedom, is completely appalling. I have no interest in seeing Planet GNOME turned into a outpost of Bad Vista, thanks. If muzzling people is a condition of being part of the GNU project, then maybe we should rethink _that_ aspect of things. Maybe the FSF should start its own planet and set its own rules there rather than attempting to impose its various litmus tests on the contributors to Planet GNOME. I haven't got even the slightest interest in seeing this job get done, and I'd be opposed to anyone's trying it. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
Hi, Lionel Dricot wrote: On Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:12:16 -0500, Richard Stallman r...@gnu.org wrote: GNOME is not connected with the anti-hunting movement; there's no reason it should have any position on the question. But GNOME is part Is GNOME part of any anti-proprietary software movement? I don't think this discussion is particularly helpful. It does not look likely that anyone's mind will be changed, or that Planet GNOME's policy will evolve. All that we can hope for and advocate is that people whose blogs are aggregated to Planet GNOME are people who adhere to the principles of the free software movement. And if that's the case, there is no reason that they would use their (Planet GNOME aggregated) blog to promote software which does not measure up against those principles. If people feel that they cannot separate their professional lives from their personal lives on their blog, then perhaps it is appropriate that they tag posts to do with their professional work on non-free software with a different tag to that which is aggregated on Planet GNOME. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
On Fri, 2009-12-11 at 10:12 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: But GNOME is part of the GNU Project, and it ought to support the free software movement. The most minimal support for the free software movement is to refrain from going directly against it; that is, to avoid presenting proprietary software as legitimate. I understand your position. I think you might not understand the position of a lot of GNOME foundation members and contributors. Their position isn't necessarily compatible with your position that GNOME should avoid presenting proprietary software as legitimate. The way I see it is that most members want GNOME to stay out of that philosophic discussion. Although GNOME usually advises to work upstream and to do things opensource when possible, as much as possible. This is just a personal point of view, of course. You, as one of the key FSF people, appear to be keen[1] on enforcing a strict policy on how GNU's member-projects should behave. So ... I propose to have a vote on GNOME's membership to the GNU project. I think Planet GNOME should have a rule to this effect. I think it's clear that I disagree. Philosophically. There are many ways to implement such a rule, of which block the whole blog is about the toughest one we might consider. I'd suggest rather to try a mild approach; I'm sure that can do the job. Let's first get a consensus from our members on GNOME's status as being or not being a well-behaving GNU project, or having its own identity. Cheers, Philip [1] You write minimal support. Minimal to me means: either you do this, or you're out. Feel free to correct me. -- Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer home: me at pvanhoof dot be gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org http://pvanhoof.be/blog http://codeminded.be ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
(repost, I didn't use the right E-mail address) On Fri, 2009-12-11 at 10:12 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: But GNOME is part of the GNU Project, and it ought to support the free software movement. The most minimal support for the free software movement is to refrain from going directly against it; that is, to avoid presenting proprietary software as legitimate. I understand your position. I think you might not understand the position of a lot of GNOME foundation members and contributors. Their position isn't necessarily compatible with your position that GNOME should avoid presenting proprietary software as legitimate. The way I see it is that most members want GNOME to stay out of that philosophic discussion. Although GNOME usually advises to work upstream and to do things opensource when possible, as much as possible. This is just a personal point of view, of course. You, as one of the key FSF people, appear to be keen[1] on enforcing a strict policy on how GNU's member-projects should behave. So ... I propose to have a vote on GNOME's membership to the GNU project. I think Planet GNOME should have a rule to this effect. I think it's clear that I disagree. Philosophically. There are many ways to implement such a rule, of which block the whole blog is about the toughest one we might consider. I'd suggest rather to try a mild approach; I'm sure that can do the job. Let's first get a consensus from our members on GNOME's status as being or not being a well-behaving GNU project, or having its own identity. Cheers, Philip [1] You write minimal support. Minimal to me means: either you do this, or you're out. Feel free to correct me. -- Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer home: me at pvanhoof dot be gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org http://pvanhoof.be/blog http://codeminded.be -- Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer home: me at pvanhoof dot be gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org http://pvanhoof.be/blog http://codeminded.be ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
Philip van Hoof writes I propose to have a vote on GNOME's membership to the GNU project. I'd second this. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
Hi, Philip Van Hoof wrote: I propose to have a vote on GNOME's membership to the GNU project. Such a vote, whatever the outcome, would have little effect on the GNOME project. The debate during the vote could cause a lot of harm discord for the GNOME community. An outcome whereby GNOME is no longer a GNU project could cause a lot of harm to the free software and open source movements in general - there would be massive negative publicity. Since there is very little up-side and substantial down-side, both real and in terms of image (which is an important consideration, I think), I do not think that we should vote on this issue. Don't we have more concrete issues to address? Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
On Fri, 2009-12-11 at 17:40 +0100, Dave Neary wrote: Hi Dave! (Are you coming to FOSDEM? We need another of those IRL chats, no?) Philip Van Hoof wrote: I propose to have a vote on GNOME's membership to the GNU project. Such a vote, whatever the outcome, would have little effect on the GNOME project. I'd agree. The debate during the vote could cause a lot of harm discord for the GNOME community. I actually do agree, yes. I don't think being afraid of that is sufficient reason to sidestep this issue We're an intelligent group of people. We can deal with this. An outcome whereby GNOME is no longer a GNU project could cause a lot of harm to the free software and open source movements in general - there would be massive negative publicity. I agree but we cannot be blind when the leader of the Free Software Foundation is requesting that the minimal thing GNOME should do, is to support it by, and I quote, avoiding presenting proprietary software as legitimate. I fully understand that ignoring Richard's request is the easy way. But his request cannot be ignored any longer. He really wants this as a minimal commitment from GNOME. No matter what feels good for us. We've been ignoring this for too long. Such a commitment is, as far as I understand our community, not entirely compatible with the current mindset of a lot of its members, so ... I think we should be intellectually honest; by doing this vote. Since there is very little up-side and substantial down-side, both real and in terms of image (which is an important consideration, I think), I do not think that we should vote on this issue. Don't we have more concrete issues to address? I ask the same about the apparent necessity to address certain moral issues like policing the behaviour of our members and introducing a set of punishments for bad behaviour. That doesn't mean it can't be discussed. It can. Cheers, Philip -- Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer home: me at pvanhoof dot be gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org http://pvanhoof.be/blog http://codeminded.be ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
On 12/11/09 8:40 AM, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: Don't we have more concrete issues to address? We _were_ attempting to finalize a Code of Conduct which could be provided to speakers, in the hope of avoiding future instances of the sort of harmless fun we experienced during Mr. Stallman's keynote at the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit, as I recall. It seems that Mr. Stallman would prefer to discuss ways and means to throttle contributors to Planet GNOME of whose postings he happens not to approve, however. I understand your interest in pouring oil on troubled waters here, Dave, but neither Philip nor I are the ones who raised this issue. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
On 12/11/2009 11:32 AM, Lefty (石鏡 ) wrote: Philip van Hoof writes I propose to have a vote on GNOME's membership to the GNU project. I'd second this. Quick procedural note: If you really want to pursue this, according to the bylaws you need support of 5% of the membership IIRC to put something to vote. I'm not sure the vote would be binding though. I thought I point that out since that's your rights as members of the foundation. That said, I agree with Dave. behdad ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
On Fri, 2009-12-11 at 12:32 -0500, Behdad Esfahbod wrote: On 12/11/2009 11:32 AM, Lefty (石鏡 ) wrote: Philip van Hoof writes I propose to have a vote on GNOME's membership to the GNU project. I'd second this. Quick procedural note: If you really want to pursue this, according to the bylaws you need support of 5% of the membership IIRC to put something to vote. I'm not sure the vote would be binding though. Okay, thanks for the information. I thought I point that out since that's your rights as members of the foundation. That said, I agree with Dave. I'll support whoever proposes this as a vote. Being a member I'd like to propose this vote (but apparently I need '5% - 1 person' of the other members, I don't know how they can officially support the proposal). As a reply to the legitimate concerns you and Dave have: o. I don't think being afraid of that is sufficient reason to sidestep the issue. We're an intelligent group of people. We can deal with this. o. I think we should be intellectually honest. We owe it to ourselves. -- Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer home: me at pvanhoof dot be gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org http://pvanhoof.be/blog http://codeminded.be ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Budget and plans (2010)
Dave: In employee expenses, I see that Stormy is paid $8,000 per month, with a discretionary bonus of $1,500 per quarter. Last year she also received a substantial annual goal-related bonus, IIRC - I don't see this in the budget, though. Could you explain how the bonus figure for 2008-09 was arrived at, and give an idea of how much that bonus might be, if the budget happens as planned, in 2010? I will be taking care of making this information available shortly. In the past fiscal year, there was a huge concern about whether the GNOME Foundation was financially sustainable. The GNOME Foundation budget was starting to drain savings. So, a fairly large portion of her bonus was based on fund raising. Today, the GNOME Foundation finances are in a much more healthy state. The time spent by Stormy to negotiate with advisory board members regarding the recent announcement to double the advisory board fees was, I am sure you can imagine, delicate and time consuming, for example. Before I send out this report, Stormy and I are working to create a proposed list of CEO goals for the next year. Since our finances are in better shape now, it makes sense to refocus the CEO goals and bonus structure on other, more community-oriented, tasks. Working with the community to define next years goals and bonus structure will be more transparent and help to put the GNOME community in a better position to drive how the GNOME Foundation operates. Once we have the proposal together, Stormy and I will start a discussion. Hopefully in the next week or so. Thanks for keeping us honest, Brian ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 10:01 AM, Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org wrote: On 12/11/09 9:32 AM, Behdad Esfahbod beh...@behdad.org wrote: Quick procedural note: If you really want to pursue this, according to the bylaws you need support of 5% of the membership IIRC to put something to vote. I'm not sure the vote would be binding though. Is there anything in the bylaws as to how this support might be collected and demonstrated? If not, I doubt _anything_ will ever get put to a vote... Presumably it is assumed you use the resources provided by the gnome project including but not limited to mailing lists and irc. Also the Foundation publishes a full membership list with contact information. According to that list there are 357 members of the GNOME foundation. If you can't get 17 or 18 people to agree that your idea is worthy enough to put up to a vote given the community orientated nature of the GNOME project, then maybe the idea isn't worth considering or at least not a priority for the project. I don't think anyone--with the possible exception of Mr. Stallman--subscribes to the notion that the GNOME Foundation approves of, endorses, or supports every posting syndicated to Planet GNOME. Nor have I noticed conspicuous calls on Planet for this sort of rule to address a looming threat posed by the inappropriately unfree. I do not believe RMS thinks this is so. His position as I understand it is that it is bad publicity for the FOSS movement if such a public facing venue like Planet GNOME is used to promote proprietary software. Obviously we all have our own positions which is what this discussion has been addressing. Les ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 11:12 AM, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: There is precedent for a membership petition for an election. I ran one to have the board size reduced some years ago: http://live.gnome.org/BoardSizePetition At the time I was told I needed 10% of the membership: http://foundation.gnome.org/about/charter/ says 10%. I couldn't find a reference to either number in the bylaws. Stormy ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: foundation-list Digest, Vol 68, Issue 13
If there is enough people to do a vote, that's great. My vote: -1 I do not think that people should be discouraged from suggesting rules for the GNOME community, and a reaction like leaving the GNU community because Richard made a suggestion could be interpreted that way, I think. We can always say no. Richard Stallman said: There are many ways to implement such a rule, of which block the whole blog is about the toughest one we might consider. I'd suggest rather to try a mild approach; I'm sure that can do the job. Richard's suggestion that a mild approach may be appropriate does not seem over-the-top to me. Perhaps a mild approach could be something simple like a disclaimer on planet that highlights that some information on planet may advertise non-free software, and we want to make clear that GNOME does not endorse non-free software and instead encourages people to consider free alternatives. might be a reasonably mild and acceptable solution? I would prefer to see such a disclaimer, actually. Perhaps we should also make the disclaimer say something about hunting. Brian Such a vote, whatever the outcome, would have little effect on the GNOME project. The debate during the vote could cause a lot of harm discord for the GNOME community. An outcome whereby GNOME is no longer a GNU project could cause a lot of harm to the free software and open source movements in general - there would be massive negative publicity. Since there is very little up-side and substantial down-side, both real and in terms of image (which is an important consideration, I think), I do not think that we should vote on this issue. Don't we have more concrete issues to address? ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
Hi, Richard Stallman wrote: Stormy, we seem to be miscommunicating. I said that people should not promote non-free software on Planet GNOME. [snip] But GNOME is part of the GNU Project, and it ought to support the free software movement. The most minimal support for the free software movement is to refrain from going directly against it; that is, to avoid presenting proprietary software as legitimate. I think Planet GNOME should have a rule to this effect. There are many ways to implement such a rule, of which block the whole blog is about the toughest one we might consider. I'd suggest rather to try a mild approach; I'm sure that can do the job. To put this discussion in perspective, the question does not come up very often (if at all). The last case I can think of where a proprietary piece of software got substantial attention on pgo was the release of the free ($0) VMWare client 3 years ago I think? Aside from that, proprietary software is mentioned all the time, but I would not consider mentioning (say) that Adobe Acrobat Reader is using GTK+ on Linux is promoting Adobe - if anything, it's promoting GNOME. The problem is restricted to sporadic mentions of new releases of proprietary software using substantial components of the GNOME platform, developed by people who are members of the GNOME community. As you say in the last paragraph above, a mild case by case approach is more than sufficient to handle the problem. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
Hello Lefty, On Fri 11 Dec 2009 16:37, Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org writes: On 12/11/09 7:12 AM, Richard Stallman r...@gnu.org wrote: The most minimal support for the free software movement is to refrain from going directly against it; that is, to avoid presenting proprietary software as legitimate. This is simple nonsense. Software is software, and people write about what they do. I use free software, and I also use things like Final Cut Pro, for which there's no equivalent. You seem to feel I should be barred from writing anything about film-editing, since it involves proprietary software. My use of Final Cut is completely legitimate. There's no equivalent piece of free software, and even if there were, surely my tools are my choice, are they not? Your attempts to control what gets posted are completely out of line. The four points in the code of conduct are: # Be respectful and considerate # Be patient and generous # Assume people mean well # Try to be concise Lefty I think you are doing well regarding the fourth :) I would submit that Richard has behaved in accordance with these rules[*], but always after I read your mails or blogs on the subject, it ends up sounding very combative. I know you probably don't mean it that way, and I don't want to put you on edge. I'm just sayin'. And in the interest of *topic*, well, I think we have strayed from the initial proposal. Best regards, Andy [*] I consider the GCDS incident as adequately atoned for by Richard's apology. YMMV. -- http://wingolog.org/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
On 12/11/2009 01:14 PM, Stormy Peters wrote: On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 11:12 AM, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org mailto:dne...@gnome.org wrote: There is precedent for a membership petition for an election. I ran one to have the board size reduced some years ago: http://live.gnome.org/BoardSizePetition At the time I was told I needed 10% of the membership: http://foundation.gnome.org/about/charter/ says 10%. I couldn't find a reference to either number in the bylaws. You're right. My bad. I was misremembering. The bylaws say 5% is needed to call for a meeting, something like that. behdad Stormy ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
