Re: proposed speaker guidelines
Richard, I'm fairly certain these guidelines are more about not making the audience uncomfortable when prominent speakers make sexist remarks, or remarks critical of religion, If the policy is clearly limited to such activities and comparable ones, I would not object to it. I did not do either of those things at GUADEC (though I was inaccurately accused of doing one of them). If the intent is not to restrict what people say about technical and legal issues, I suggest clarifying the guidelines to make that clear. However, technical and legal issues are not the only ones that need to be admissible--ethical issues are also vital to talk about. The C# issue I addresses is basically an ethical issue, though technical and legal aspects come into it. Whatever the criteria are, they have to be objective at least in principle. They would still depend on judgment; that is inevitable. But if they are not objective in principle, they amount to anyone can veto anything. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: proposed speaker guidelines
It seems that your perception of my speech is very different from what I said. What made C# users uncomfortable was not this criticism about patents, it was the way it was presented as an almost personal attack towards mono developers. It wasn't presented that way by me. I did not criticize Mono or its developers. On the contrary, I said that Mono does a useful job and I have no objection to it. I said this to make it absolutely clear i did not criticize Mono. My feeling from the talk was that it was more aimed at making us feel bad about using C# than presenting some constructive plan on rectifying the situation My constructive plan for addressing this problem is to refuse to let C# programs play into an important role in GNOME. I propose that plan because I know we can carry it out, if we make an effort. (e.g. by working with Microsoft on the issue instead of calling them the avoid enemy and the situation hopeless). I don't think we can achieve anything that way. Microsoft decides its policy based on strategy, not sentiment. If Microsoft decides to change strategy, it will take steps to show us. Otherwise, efforts to work with Microsoft will get nowhere. The one way we MIGHT be able to change their conduct is by pushing back. Treating C# programs as dangerous, while developing free implementations such as Portable.NET and Mono, is pushing back. That's how I see it. If you think working with Microsoft could change its license policy, by all means try. But that is a long shot, so we should protect ourselves also, in parallel with those efforts. In that sense, I agree with the guidelines. When you're speaking as a representative of GNOME, you're fine to bring up any uncomfortable topic, just keep in mind the viewpoints of the people in the audience and keep it constructive. That proposal is better than what the draft guidelines say, and I mostly agree with it. I approached the issue constructively because my aim was to address the problem. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: proposed speaker guidelines
On za, 2010-03-27 at 18:49 -0400, Richard Stallman wrote: The proposed speaker guidelines have a serious problem. Since they prohibit anything that makes someone uncomfortable, regardless of why, and since criticism of one's actions tends to make many people uncomfortable, the consequence is to prohibit serious criticism of any practice that is followed by someone in the audience. For instance, when I asserted that use of C# was risky, someone in the audience objected, claiming that this was unfair to the C# language. Apparently that person felt uncomfortable with what I said about C#. It seems that these proposed guidelines would prohibit any statement that GNOME needs to avoid a certain practice lest it cause a serious problem. I don't think anyone has any objections against honest criticism against the possible legal aspects of technologies. This is a very important topic. What made C# users uncomfortable was not this criticism about patents, it was the way it was presented as an almost personal attack towards mono developers. My feeling from the talk was that it was more aimed at making us feel bad about using C# than presenting some constructive plan on rectifying the situation (e.g. by working with Microsoft on the issue instead of calling them the avoid enemy and the situation hopeless). While the critic was correct, the way it was ushered led to alienation of the people that are the most involved in the issue, rather than encouraging them to work on a constructive solution. There's a difference between making people uncomfortable because they might be in danger (and offering help) and making people uncomfortable through reprimands (and basically calling them collaborators with the enemy). In that sense, I agree with the guidelines. When you're speaking as a representative of GNOME, you're fine to bring up any uncomfortable topic, just keep in mind the viewpoints of the people in the audience and keep it constructive. Ruben PS: If you're the person that loves holding flamewars about this topic, please don't reply. -- Ruben Vermeersch (rubenv) http://www.savanne.be/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
proposed speaker guidelines
The proposed speaker guidelines have a serious problem. Since they prohibit anything that makes someone uncomfortable, regardless of why, and since criticism of one's actions tends to make many people uncomfortable, the consequence is to prohibit serious criticism of any practice that is followed by someone in the audience. For instance, when I asserted that use of C# was risky, someone in the audience objected, claiming that this was unfair to the C# language. Apparently that person felt uncomfortable with what I said about C#. It seems that these proposed guidelines would prohibit any statement that GNOME needs to avoid a certain practice lest it cause a serious problem. These proposed guidelines themselves can make someone uncomfortable. For instance, people who want to state firm criticism of a certain practice, whether on ethical or practical or technical grounds, may feel uncomfortable on being reminded that GNOME policy forbids the expression of such views. Thus, among the actions prohibited by these proposed guidelines would be reciting or summarizing the very same guidelines. Is it the intention to prohibit these things? If not, I think the wording needs some work. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: proposed speaker guidelines
On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 3:49 PM, Richard Stallman r...@gnu.org wrote: The proposed speaker guidelines have a serious problem. Since they prohibit anything that makes someone uncomfortable, regardless of why, and since criticism of one's actions tends to make many people uncomfortable, the consequence is to prohibit serious criticism of any practice that is followed by someone in the audience. This is true, maybe we should be a little more clear about what it means to make somebody uncomfortable in the context of these guidelines. I don't think the guidelines refer to making the audience uncomfortable with your technical or legal opinion. For instance, when I asserted that use of C# was risky, someone in the audience objected, claiming that this was unfair to the C# language. Apparently that person felt uncomfortable with what I said about C#. It seems that these proposed guidelines would prohibit any statement that GNOME needs to avoid a certain practice lest it cause a serious problem. Richard, I'm fairly certain these guidelines are more about not making the audience uncomfortable when prominent speakers make sexist remarks, or remarks critical of religion, etc etc, especially when these remarks are completely off-topic. I don't think they are meant to prevent you from making critical statements on relevant subject matter based on technical or legal arguments. When viewing these guidelines as a reaction to your own GUADEC keynote, I think you might be thinking of the wrong uncomfortable statements. Sandy ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
