Re: Question to candidates: what about next ODF?
On Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 07:37:27PM -0500, Luis Villa wrote: On Nov 28, 2007 7:15 PM, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't see how the foundation can 'make sure' of anything in this instance. It can not force developers towards or away from either spec. That is simply not in it's mandate. I may be being obtuse, but what's not in it's mandate for ODF but is for OOXML? Or am I reading your words wrong? Yes, you are. :) He means that we can't force anyone to do anything. In the OOXML case, someone came to the board and volunteered, and the board helped out. There was no mandate there. Similarly, if someone came and volunteered to work on ODF, the board would (presumably) seek to join the relevant standards bodies so that that volunteer could participate. But we can't force anyone to go do that work for us. Thanks. We all appear to agree that implementing ODF is good for FLOSS. However, beyond that there's no stick, and a carrot (eg funding) seems inappropriate (why this project vs the dozens of others). Or one another in particular? For a fake standard, there is funding? What funding? No one is paying Jody to do what he does on OOXML; again, he is a volunteer, doing things voluntarily. If someone were to volunteer for ODF, the board would facilitate it. But the board isn't going to pay anyone to work on either standard. Thanks. -- Or is it? Today is Pungenday, the 41st day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3173 + No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown + Whatever you do will be insignificant, | but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi + So let's do it...? ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question to candidates: what about next ODF?
On Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 09:09:31PM -0500, Jody Goldberg wrote: On Thu, Nov 29, 2007 at 12:15:11AM +, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote: On Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 06:23:57PM -0500, Jody Goldberg wrote: On Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 09:34:54PM +, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote: and I hope the Foundation will help make sure the users of GNOME can use the next version of ODF I don't see how the foundation can 'make sure' of anything in this instance. It can not force developers towards or away from either spec. That is simply not in it's mandate. I may be being obtuse, but what's not in it's mandate for ODF but is for OOXML? Or am I reading your words wrong? I will try to be clearer. Thank you! :) We all appear to agree that implementing ODF is good for FLOSS. However, beyond that there's no stick, and a carrot (eg funding) seems inappropriate (why this project vs the dozens of others). Or one another in particular? For a fake standard, there is funding? I have no idea what you are talking about. No money has been spent, nor will any money be spent joining ECMA. As we've stated on numerous occasions the foundation is a non-profit entity and was given a _FREE_ _NON-VOTING_ membership. Thank you. The board has offered to try and facilitate a membership in OASIS for an interested candidate. The will is there, but like so much else we're short on man power. We'd welcome patches to improve the ODF exporter in Gnumeric or abiword. I'd prefer to be spending my time coding to these endless discussions of ISO-tactics. I think I might have missed this, where is it? I can't seem to find it, but it's late here and my googling skills may be already too hampered... It == Gnumeric ODF support ? http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/gnumeric/trunk/plugins/openoffice/ It == Joining OASIS ? It's been mentioned numerous times in various forums. Indeed when we first mentioned that I would be joining ECMA it was discussed that it would be good to get an OASIS membership too. This one. I don't recall seing it on foundation-list or foundation announce, though. I confess not to follow *all* forum sites. If you (or anyone else) is interested talk to the board. That is all it takes. I'd love to do it, but the weekly meetings are too much of a commitment at this point. My day job is not paying me to take part in standards organizations or FLOSS. I'd love to, but it very likely requires some geographical proximity I can't afford (US, or plane travels). Best, Rui -- You are what you see. Today is Pungenday, the 41st day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3173 + No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown + Whatever you do will be insignificant, | but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi + So let's do it...? ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question to candidates: what about next ODF?
On Thu, Nov 29, 2007 at 08:25:30AM +, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote: On Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 09:09:31PM -0500, Jody Goldberg wrote: If you (or anyone else) is interested talk to the board. That is all it takes. I'd love to do it, but the weekly meetings are too much of a commitment at this point. My day job is not paying me to take part in standards organizations or FLOSS. I'd love to, but it very likely requires some geographical proximity I can't afford (US, or plane travels). There is no requirement for travel. All relevant discussion takes place on mailing lists and conference calls. The only significant requirements are time and expertise. Time being the more important factor. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 08:03:38PM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: I read http://boycottnovell.com/2007/11/05/gnome-mono-yelp/ with great concern. (...) However, making GNOME depend on Mono is running a grave risk, and a grave mistake. If the article accurately describes the situation, I think we need to launch a high-priority project to reimplement Yelp in some other language. RPM (as used in most distributions) is not as flexible as DEB and a badly made package will bring in *optional* dependencies as if they were required. People are very freaked out and nerves on a real fringe, so it's very easy to trigger alarm. We have Novell, as a huge puppet from Microsoft's manouvers to divide the Free Software community, to thank for so much friction. Rui -- Frink! Today is Pungenday, the 41st day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3173 + No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown + Whatever you do will be insignificant, | but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi + So let's do it...? ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Nov 29, 2007 11:48 AM, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 08:03:38PM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: I read http://boycottnovell.com/2007/11/05/gnome-mono-yelp/ with great concern. (...) However, making GNOME depend on Mono is running a grave risk, and a grave mistake. If the article accurately describes the situation, I think we need to launch a high-priority project to reimplement Yelp in some other language. RPM (as used in most distributions) is not as flexible as DEB and a badly made package will bring in *optional* dependencies as if they were required. Actually it is, even if this is quite recent. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Thu, Nov 29, 2007 at 12:22:23PM +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Richard Stallman I read http://boycottnovell.com/2007/11/05/gnome-mono-yelp/ with great concern. Unfortunately, the authors of that website are obstinate in their indifference to the truth, and do not serve the interests of the Free Software community. They prefer to create suspicion and insinuations than report the truth of important matters such as these. http://boycottnovell.com/2007/11/26/the-novell-fud-never-existed/ I think you're way too harsh on people who actually concluded things like: Jeff has written a good blog item to clarify things about Novell and GNOME. (...) (...) You are encouraged to read Jeff’s detailed and honest writing on this issue. Hey, I have a handicap, English is not my native language and I have a truth be told damn the consequences attitude, so what I write ususally seems harsher than what I mean. I wish English was like Perl, in that regard. Rui -- This statement is false. Today is Pungenday, the 41st day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3173 + No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown + Whatever you do will be insignificant, | but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi + So let's do it...? ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Thu, Nov 29, 2007 at 01:15:34AM +, Bastien Nocera wrote: On Wed, 2007-11-28 at 20:03 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: I read http://boycottnovell.com/2007/11/05/gnome-mono-yelp/ with great concern. snip usual rant Yelp has had an optional Beagle dependency for at least 2 years. It's optional, and it's not news. We need a new RPM in some distributions, as optional dependencies are not part of current RPM in Fedora, for instance :) Rui -- Umlaut Zebra �ber alles! Today is Pungenday, the 41st day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3173 + No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown + Whatever you do will be insignificant, | but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi + So let's do it...? ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question to candidates: what about next ODF?
On Thu, Nov 29, 2007 at 05:40:47AM -0500, Jody Goldberg wrote: On Thu, Nov 29, 2007 at 08:25:30AM +, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote: On Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 09:09:31PM -0500, Jody Goldberg wrote: If you (or anyone else) is interested talk to the board. That is all it takes. I'd love to do it, but the weekly meetings are too much of a commitment at this point. My day job is not paying me to take part in standards organizations or FLOSS. I'd love to, but it very likely requires some geographical proximity I can't afford (US, or plane travels). There is no requirement for travel. All relevant discussion takes place on mailing lists and conference calls. The only significant requirements are time and expertise. Time being the more important factor. If there's no geographical limitation or travel needs, please consider my offer to help in this regard *iif* nobody better suited comes along. I will likely happen to tackle this issue on the Portuguese TC-173 in the future, anyway, unless it's still Microsoft-controlled, in which case I still don't know what the future will be. Rui -- Fnord. Today is Pungenday, the 41st day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3173 + No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown + Whatever you do will be insignificant, | but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi + So let's do it...? ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
quote who=Rui Miguel Silva Seabra I think you're way too harsh on people who actually concluded things like: Sorry, but the negativity of that site greatly outweighs the positive. It takes more than a little sucking up to earn back my respect after the crap they've been spewing. - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2008: Melbourne, Australiahttp://lca2008.linux.org.au/ Money can't buy me grok. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
quote who=Rui Miguel Silva Seabra Yelp has had an optional Beagle dependency for at least 2 years. It's optional, and it's not news. We need a new RPM in some distributions, as optional dependencies are not part of current RPM in Fedora, for instance :) libbeagle does not depend on Mono. Perhaps, if the Fedora RPM of libbeagle actually depends on Mono, it needs to be fixed. - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2008: Melbourne, Australiahttp://lca2008.linux.org.au/ Again you are making up inventing as you go. Be specific aba gaba datata. - Oscar Plameras ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
quote who=Bastien Nocera libbeagle does not depend on Mono. Perhaps, if the Fedora RPM of libbeagle actually depends on Mono, it needs to be fixed. It doesn't. I am Jack's abject lack of surprise. :-) - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2008: Melbourne, Australiahttp://lca2008.linux.org.au/ Love never misses the chance to put the boot in. - Kelly, SLOU ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Thu, 2007-11-29 at 22:00 +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote: quote who=Rui Miguel Silva Seabra Yelp has had an optional Beagle dependency for at least 2 years. It's optional, and it's not news. We need a new RPM in some distributions, as optional dependencies are not part of current RPM in Fedora, for instance :) libbeagle does not depend on Mono. Perhaps, if the Fedora RPM of libbeagle actually depends on Mono, it needs to be fixed. $ rpm -q beagle package beagle is not installed $ rpm -q libbeagle libbeagle-0.2.18-1.fc8 $ rpm -V libbeagle $ It doesn't. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Nov 29, 2007 5:59 AM, Jeff Waugh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: quote who=Rui Miguel Silva Seabra I think you're way too harsh on people who actually concluded things like: Sorry, but the negativity of that site greatly outweighs the positive. It takes more than a little sucking up to earn back my respect after the crap they've been spewing. I'll second this. The fact:fiction ratio of boycottnovell is just incredibly, incredibly bad. Luis ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: A question to candidates
About the hiring, it really depends. At first sight, I would prefer to hire an executive director because it would have more impact on GNOME Foundation actions (marketing, business partnerships, conferences, etc). However, if we can't find a really good person for the position, I would prefer to hire a sysadmin. Of course, one thing doesn't necessarely exclude the other. In the long run I would hope an executive director would increase the income of GNOME to pay his/her salary. -- George (gk4) ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Wed, 2007-11-28 at 20:03 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: I read http://boycottnovell.com/2007/11/05/gnome-mono-yelp/ with great concern. Since I am not an expert, I cannot tell on my own if that description of the situation is accurate. If part of it is not accurate, I hope someone will explain. However, if it is accurate, GNOME has a serious problem. I have always supported the development of free platforms for C#, just as I've supported the development of free platforms for any language that users use. I also wouldn't argue that people should not use C# with a free platform for secondary applications. However, making GNOME depend on Mono is running a grave risk, and a grave mistake. If the article accurately describes the situation, I think we need to launch a high-priority project to reimplement Yelp in some other language. Yelp uses, optionally (off by default), libbeagle, which is a C library. I don't see where the problem is, really, it's just an optional dependency like other programs, that have an optional dep on Python, for some plugins and similar stuff. Should we raise the alarm also that GNOME is depending, not only on Mono, but on Python also? I think the guy that wrote that article should have done what he says at the end, that is, look at the sources and the .spec file. He probably would have written another thing -- Rodrigo Moya [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Nov 29, 2007 8:31 AM, BJörn Lindqvist [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Nov 29, 2007 1:33 PM, Luis Villa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Nov 29, 2007 5:59 AM, Jeff Waugh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: quote who=Rui Miguel Silva Seabra I think you're way too harsh on people who actually concluded things like: Sorry, but the negativity of that site greatly outweighs the positive. It takes more than a little sucking up to earn back my respect after the crap they've been spewing. I'll second this. The fact:fiction ratio of boycottnovell is just incredibly, incredibly bad. RMS message read If part of it is not accurate, I hope someone will explain. Do you care to sort out what is fact and what is fiction? Jeff has ably debunked this particular fiction already in the thread, and more generally ably debunked the FUD that Novell somehow controls the Foundation. As to the rest, I have better things to do with my life than to debunk the rest of boycottnovell post-by-post. Luis ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
Luis Villa wrote: Jeff has ably debunked this particular fiction already in the thread, and more generally ably debunked the FUD that Novell somehow controls the Foundation. As to the rest, I have better things to do with my life than to debunk the rest of boycottnovell post-by-post. Now what could possibly be better than that? Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Thu, 2007-11-29 at 15:54 +0100, Dave Neary wrote: Luis Villa wrote: Jeff has ably debunked this particular fiction already in the thread, and more generally ably debunked the FUD that Novell somehow controls the Foundation. As to the rest, I have better things to do with my life than to debunk the rest of boycottnovell post-by-post. Now what could possibly be better than that? boycottboycottnovel.com is still available! -Jonathan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Nov 29, 2007 10:37 AM, Jonathan Blandford [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 2007-11-29 at 15:54 +0100, Dave Neary wrote: Luis Villa wrote: Jeff has ably debunked this particular fiction already in the thread, and more generally ably debunked the FUD that Novell somehow controls the Foundation. As to the rest, I have better things to do with my life than to debunk the rest of boycottnovell post-by-post. Now what could possibly be better than that? boycottboycottnovel.com is still available! Stabmyselfintheface.com also available! ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Nov 29, 2007 3:13 PM, Luis Villa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Nov 29, 2007 8:31 AM, BJörn Lindqvist [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Nov 29, 2007 1:33 PM, Luis Villa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'll second this. The fact:fiction ratio of boycottnovell is just incredibly, incredibly bad. RMS message read If part of it is not accurate, I hope someone will explain. Do you care to sort out what is fact and what is fiction? Jeff has ably debunked this particular fiction already in the thread, and more generally ably debunked the FUD that Novell somehow controls the Foundation. As to the rest, I have better things to do with my life than to debunk the rest of boycottnovell post-by-post. No. The boycottnovell site and the OP alluded to that there would be moral, philosophical and or legal problems with GNOME depending on Mono and or C#. Is that fact or is it fiction? -- mvh Björn ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
Hi, On 11/29/07, BJörn Lindqvist [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No. The boycottnovell site and the OP alluded to that there would be moral, philosophical and or legal problems with GNOME depending on Mono and or C#. Is that fact or is it fiction? Moral or philosophical is hard to judge, since so many people are involved in GNOME for so many different reasons. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say they object to Mono because it's a Microsoft technology. I've never had this problem personally, but maybe that's because Mono is a totally independent, free and successful implementation of it, and partly because C# is so much like Java it's tough to argue that it's somehow new and novel. Likewise the level of hatred toward Novell over the past year would color people's moral and philosophical positions, as is clearly the case at boycottnovell. The legal aspects have always seemed like a strawman argument to me. There's nothing particularly different about Mono than GNOME, Samba, or Apache. There's no reason to believe that Mono is any more or less patent encumbered than any other piece of open source software. There's no reason to believe that Mono infringes on copyrights any more or less than other pieces of open source software. However, unlike many other open source projects, Mono's messaging on this has been clear: they don't believe they violate any patents and have plans to work around them if they do and if you've used tools to disassemble Microsoft code, etc., you may never contribute to Mono. I don't believe GNOME has a policy that clearly articulated. And for as much threatening as Microsoft does around IP, they're not particularly active in litigating on it. In fact, they are the 900lb gorilla and most small companies and patent trolls target them, because that's where the money is. Their FUD against us is a more effective weapon than actually suing us. And I believe the broader open-source community, with the help of invested corporations like IBM, Red Hat and yes, even Novell, have given us a reasonable defense in the unlikely event. The real legal threat to us comes from patent trolls, and we've already seen the start of this with the recent lawsuit against Red Hat and Novell, and over things that are much more trivial and broad than what applies to Mono. They're more likely to cripple us, and it's ought to be a driving motivator for patent reform in the US. Joe ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Wed, 2007-11-28 at 20:03 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: I read http://boycottnovell.com/2007/11/05/gnome-mono-yelp/ with great concern. Since I am not an expert, I cannot tell on my own if that description of the situation is accurate. If part of it is not accurate, I hope someone will explain. However, if it is accurate, GNOME has a serious problem. I have always supported the development of free platforms for C#, just as I've supported the development of free platforms for any language that users use. I also wouldn't argue that people should not use C# with a free platform for secondary applications. However, making GNOME depend on Mono is running a grave risk, and a grave mistake. If the article accurately describes the situation, I think we need to launch a high-priority project to reimplement Yelp in some other language. The use of code from Firefox in a way that might cause trademark problems is also a serious issue. The solution might not be difficult -- it may be enough to remove the trademark in the sources used by GNOME wherever that is necessary -- but the solution does need to be carried out. The nontechnical impact of these issues vastly exceeds the technical impact, so considering them only in technical terms is fundamentally misguided. In this sort of decision, the Foundation should intervene and decide based on the nontechnical issues at stake. If those who work for Novell tell us not to worry, we should not listen to them. I would also like to ease your mind and say the Release Team would take great exception to a core GNOME module all of a sudden sprouting hard dependencies. Some modules are more scrutinized than other, Yelp would be one of them. Novell has also been very sensitive to the Mono issue in the past. They still champion it but have done things like create C glue libraries and refrain from making their apps like Evolution depend on Mono. -- John (J5) Palmieri [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question to candidates: what about next ODF?
What funding? No one is paying Jody to do what he does on OOXML; again, he is a volunteer, doing things voluntarily. If someone were to volunteer for ODF, the board would facilitate it. But the board isn't going to pay anyone to work on either standard. We have analogous situations in Emacs development. It is done by volunteers, so we can't direct anyone to implement a new feature for use on GNU/Linux, and we can't direct anyone to implement a new feature for use on Windows. Both are done if and when someone volunteers. But if someone offers to contribute code that implements a feature on Windows which we don't have on GNU/Linux, I tell him that we can't install it until the feature also works on GNU/Linux. That's because our goal is to replace proprietary systems, not enhance them. Occasionally this means Emacs works less well on Windows than it might have, but that's no real loss. More often it convinces someone to implement the new feature on GNU/Linux, and we install it for both platforms. Either way, it is better than installing a Windows-only feature. In pursuit of the broader goal of software freedom, it would make sense for GNOME to adopt an analogous policy not to give support to OOMXL any sort of support that it doesn't also give to ODF. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question to candidates: what about next ODF?
quote who=Richard Stallman The reason this is not so is that Microsoft is trying to spin the apparent support of GNOME into proof that OOXML is not bad for free software. Microsoft haven't done so publicly thus far, but the risk is there, and we will endeavour to make it absolutely clear that our participation does not imply endorsement, contribution or support. We've taken one step already with our statement on our participation, and you are sure to see more in the future. - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2008: Melbourne, Australiahttp://lca2008.linux.org.au/ No clue is good clue. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
quote who=Joe Shaw It's been frustrating over the past few years that GNOME hasn't taken a firm position on the issue. Agree. I suspect there hasn't been anything firm because (a) there is quite a bit of division within the community on the issue and (b) there is some element of walking on eggshells around Novell and its endorsement of the environment. Agree. Also, I think much of the issue has moved on from legal paranoia to concerns about adopting a strategy perceived as Microsoft-friendly (at least among those who don't adopt a knee-jerk, black-and-white approach to such issues). I agree this isn't really something that the foundation can force, but even asking politely in an official capacity would be a step in the right direction. The Foundation asking politely of developers with regards to their choices, or Novell (or any developer advocating Mono) asking politely of the GNOME Foundation with regards to a policy? My feeling on past discussions about this at the Foundation (or Advisory Board) level is that it has been other participants, not generally Novell, that have pursued the discussion. Maybe Novell raising the issue would be a good thing. - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2008: Melbourne, Australiahttp://lca2008.linux.org.au/ The beanbag is a triumph of modern day eclectic colourism... - Catie Flick ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
quote who=Og Maciel On Nov 29, 2007 5:40 PM, Jeff Waugh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If these programs are important enough to deserve the term miss out on, then I think they should be written in another language. Note that the above quote is misattributed, and was stated by Richard, not me. - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2008: Melbourne, Australiahttp://lca2008.linux.org.au/ Creative thinkers make many false starts, and continually waver between unmanageable fantasies and systematic attack. - Harry Hepner ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
Hi, On 11/29/07, Jeff Waugh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree this isn't really something that the foundation can force, but even asking politely in an official capacity would be a step in the right direction. The Foundation asking politely of developers with regards to their choices, or Novell (or any developer advocating Mono) asking politely of the GNOME Foundation with regards to a policy? I meant in the context of your email, which I understood to be the foundation asking politely of its developers not to develop using Mono. Novell asking would be fine too. Or anybody. Consider this my asking. :) Joe ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Money spending, questions for the candidates
Hi there, The questions: o. Given that the Foundation of GNOME has plenty of money, will you if elected vote to spend this money on important projects? Being mostly interested in mobile targets and GNOME Mobile, I could certainly come up with some projects that might both increase deployment of our GNOME technologies on mobile devices and increase the amount of contributors. Both reasons are, I think, part of the reason why our Foundation exists. - Development on language bindings, like a binding generator for for example Android and other mobile targets (plenty of our components don't require Gtk+ yet could run on this target) - Funding development on development tools (like the new Anjuta) - Development on a WinCE port of Gtk+ - Development on a P.I.P.S. (Symbian with POSIX) port of Gtk+ - Improve the existing Win32 target of Gtk+ - Employ a maintainer and/or additional developers for Gtk+'s development - Pay people to travel to schools and universities to educate students about GNOME (serious educating, not just doing cheap presentations) - ... (for making these decisions we need people who'll make real and hard decisions) o. What is your opinion on an examination that could carry the title: GNOME Mobile certified software developer exam o. How are you planning to help the GNOME community overcome the fact that we have relatively few technical leadership? - By waiting for the integration our softwares to turn into something that looks a lot like that O.S. called CHA-OS? - By letting companies like Nokia, Novell, ... set our goals? I think this is what's happening right now. Might be fine imo. Note that, however, our users sometimes get confused by this: o. People thinking that Miguel De Icaza, Novell and GNOME are one entity. (I love your work Miguel, don't get me wrong. A lot of GNOME people do) o. Too late announcing of GNOME developers joining the OOXML discussions (I think it's great that we are among the people defining this, don't get me wrong. But our technical leadership, the one that we lack, should have made our position clear to the audience (our users) before getting Slashdotted by the religious ones in the land of freesoftware. I think that we are having quite a handicap by this, and that we should do something about it. This year. How will you do that? What is your strategy? Notes on my mind: o. Technical leadership != one person dictatorship, we can work with committees too. Let's be open minded in stead of the I'm against everything point of view. If the right people are in that committee, nobody will be against anything. o. I'm still hoping for GMAE/GNOME Mobile to be(come) that committee for mobile related components. Why not do ... o. one for the Desktop o. one for the translators and documentation writers o. one for that futuristic Online Desktop o. one for the language bindings and development tools o. On importance level: I think that without such technical leadership, GNOME will fragment into a huge amount of unconnected projects. I think this will eventually render most our components irrelevant. I don't want to end with panic-speech but I just did. I'll continue my philosophic text with ... passion We are a bunch of passionate people. I've met a lot of the other developers at conferences and my conclusion is that our average level of passion is high. With our combined passion, I think we can compete with any big player on this planet. I believe it has always been passion that made the final difference in technology It would be a waste to steer ourselves to irrelevance. I think we can be both passionate and successful. And if not, let's die trying. (now that's a good conclusion, no?) ps. I hereby promise I will try not to make such long philosophic E-mails anymore. You must be insane for reading all of it! -- 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: GNOME dependent on Mono
Le jeudi 29 novembre 2007, à 18:03 -0500, Joe Shaw a écrit : It's been frustrating over the past few years that GNOME hasn't taken a firm position on the issue. I have personally felt very in limbo because my application is in C#, and it would make me much more comfortable if the community and/or the foundation came out strongly in support of it as a first-class language and environment, or to reject it from ever becoming a core piece of the platform. It depends what you call platform :-) If it's the GNOME Developer Platform, it is my understanding that there's a consensus we want to keep the platform in C. To me, it's already a first-class language and environment for GNOME since it's we ship GTK# in the bindings and it's allowed to have a GTK#-based in the Desktop suite. The main issue here is that each time a mono-based app is proposed, there are comments only made on the fact that it's mono-based. Also, quite often, there are comments for python apps because it's slow, memory-hungry, etc. I admit I might be oversimplifying the problem, but my point is that for many people, it has become a non-problem. (oh, and I don't think I'd want to hack in Mono, if anybody think I'm completely biased on this -- so far, I'm a C/python guy) Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: two questions for candidates
On Mon, 2007-11-26 at 10:28 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: 1. Would you change anything in the GNOME Foundation statement about OOXML? No. (send it out sooner is not a valid answer.) 2. How do you think the GNOME Foundation should support the Free Software Movement in general? By providing what it's good at and aiming for: providing excellent, easy to use, i18nized, accessible, stable desktop software. -- behdad http://behdad.org/ Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question to candidates: what about next ODF?
On Thu, 2007-11-29 at 17:32 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: The reason this is not so is that Microsoft is trying to spin the apparent support of GNOME into proof that OOXML is not bad for free software. Such a risk is always there. People who base their information on what one side of a story says are doomed to hear everything but truth in 99% of situations. -- behdad http://behdad.org/ Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
2007/11/30, Richard Stallman [EMAIL PROTECTED]: The more cool stuff depends on Mono, the closer we get to a situation where a Microsoft attack on Mono would put GNOME in a vice. If these programs are important enough to deserve the term miss out on, then I think they should be written in another language. Yeah, also all those uglier-than-lawful Perl programs! Here's my request: Please don't write cool stuff in Perl since I want to run them with Python Thanks a bunch for complying. Makes me feel all free to choose and stuff. P.S. In my opinion, freedom should not limit even the bad choices people make -- Kalle Vahlman, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Powered by http://movial.fi Interesting stuff at http://syslog.movial.fi ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
Quick reply to say that I pretty much agree with Joe. There are areas that it's very clear to anyone that our code infringing MS patents. And none of that is hidden to anyone. Lemme give a very central and specific example: - GNOME requires at least one of Microsoft Uniscribe, Apple ATSUI, or FreeType to run. There is no way you can run a Gtk+ application without any of those three. And all three have code implementing technology patented by at least two of Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe. Yes, FreeType has at least two features (TrueType bytecode interpreter / hinter, and subpixel text rendering) that are clearly and undoubtedly are infringing on Microsoft patents, and possibly Apple patents. The solution Red Hat and Fedora has taken is to not use those features at the cost of inferior text rendering, but most other distros don't do that. Yes, those features in FreeType are optional. Also to not clutter mailboxes even more, I don't see how an optional dependency on anything can be worse than the fact that GNOME optionally compiles on MS Windows systems. behdad On Thu, 2007-11-29 at 13:05 -0500, Joe Shaw wrote: Hi, On 11/29/07, BJörn Lindqvist [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No. The boycottnovell site and the OP alluded to that there would be moral, philosophical and or legal problems with GNOME depending on Mono and or C#. Is that fact or is it fiction? Moral or philosophical is hard to judge, since so many people are involved in GNOME for so many different reasons. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say they object to Mono because it's a Microsoft technology. I've never had this problem personally, but maybe that's because Mono is a totally independent, free and successful implementation of it, and partly because C# is so much like Java it's tough to argue that it's somehow new and novel. Likewise the level of hatred toward Novell over the past year would color people's moral and philosophical positions, as is clearly the case at boycottnovell. The legal aspects have always seemed like a strawman argument to me. There's nothing particularly different about Mono than GNOME, Samba, or Apache. There's no reason to believe that Mono is any more or less patent encumbered than any other piece of open source software. There's no reason to believe that Mono infringes on copyrights any more or less than other pieces of open source software. However, unlike many other open source projects, Mono's messaging on this has been clear: they don't believe they violate any patents and have plans to work around them if they do and if you've used tools to disassemble Microsoft code, etc., you may never contribute to Mono. I don't believe GNOME has a policy that clearly articulated. And for as much threatening as Microsoft does around IP, they're not particularly active in litigating on it. In fact, they are the 900lb gorilla and most small companies and patent trolls target them, because that's where the money is. Their FUD against us is a more effective weapon than actually suing us. And I believe the broader open-source community, with the help of invested corporations like IBM, Red Hat and yes, even Novell, have given us a reasonable defense in the unlikely event. The real legal threat to us comes from patent trolls, and we've already seen the start of this with the recent lawsuit against Red Hat and Novell, and over things that are much more trivial and broad than what applies to Mono. They're more likely to cripple us, and it's ought to be a driving motivator for patent reform in the US. Joe ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list -- behdad http://behdad.org/ Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Thu, 2007-11-29 at 18:03 -0500, Joe Shaw wrote: Again, I think this is a strawman argument. There's no evidence to suggest that Microsoft would attack Mono any more than they would attack other free and open source software like GNOME, the Linux kernel, OpenOffice, Samba, Apache, Python, etc. No evidence, but as pointed out by Jamie, the MS-Novell deal is a hint. A strong hint in fact. -- behdad http://behdad.org/ Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
