Re: Question for the candidates [Was: Re: Money spending, questions for the candidates]
> Work with the Membership Committee to document their practices and make > sure they perform them more consistently in future years. Miss one word and it changes the entire tone... "and help make sure". They have done a great job this year, though as a result of numerous changes to the volunteer team a couple of things have been dropped on the floor (such as question gathering from the community and linking to the election rules in the announcement). Easy to fix for the future. It's generally a pretty thankless task, so... thanks to the membership committee! :-) - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2008: Melbourne, Australiahttp://lca2008.linux.org.au/ "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run." - Kenny Rogers, The Gambler ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question for the candidates [Was: Re: Money spending, questions for the candidates]
Hey On 11/30/07, Elijah Newren <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, > (...) > > What will you as a candidate do to make sure we avoid this mess in the future? > I can only think of asking for question much sooner or proposing some topics under which to fill questions. But honestly, I don't know if anything could guarantee people participating more *before* this period. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question for the candidates [Was: Re: Money spending, questions for the candidates]
> What will you as a candidate do to make sure we avoid this mess in the > future? Work with the Membership Committee to document their practices and make sure they perform them more consistently in future years. During the current term, I have already made that you won't have to deal with this again for 18 months. :-) - Jeff -- GNOME.conf.au 2008: Melbourne, Australia http://live.gnome.org/Melbourne2008 "Itanium: A synthetic market-group tested plasticised square." - Jamie Wilkinson ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Question for the candidates [Was: Re: Money spending, questions for the candidates]
Hi, As warned about earlier in this election (by someone with better foresight than I have), when there isn't an organized call for questions people will fire off zillions of them at random. This puts an unreasonable burden on not only the candidates who feel obligated to spend time responding to an unbounded and haphazard collection of interrogations, but also similarly burdens the general community with too much email. You also find people asking additional questions based on misunderstandings due to the fact that they simply weren't able to keep up with all the other email (I have seen this in multiple threads, not just this one.) What will you as a candidate do to make sure we avoid this mess in the future? Elijah [With apologies to Philip--it wasn't really his fault since no one asked the general membership for questions in an organized fashion...but while his email probably makes some interesting points it very much qualifies as excessively long and spurred my comments.] ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
RE: Money spending, questions for the candidates
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 20:30 +0100, Philip Van Hoof wrote: > > I think the foundation could setup (orchestrate) meetings (or interops > or however you want to call them) with the different teams. Gather the > right people and put them together from time to times. The foundation tries to do that, and you will see more of these meeting this coming year. Note however that while the board tries to be proactive in proposing meetings, foundation members / hackers are the ones who should ask foundation / board for funding. I don't remember ever seeing any such proposal from your side. For reference, GNOME Foundation this year funded a java-gnome summit and an a11y summit. As I said, expect more next year. -- 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
The patent clauses of GPLv3 are designed to make Microsoft give us all patent safety thru its involvement in distribution of SuSe GNU/Linux, if and when programs under GPLv3 and not under GPLv2 are included in SuSe GNU/Linux. (If they aren't included in SuSe GNU/Linux, they don't affect Novell at all.) ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
> And for as much threatening as Microsoft does around IP, they're not > particularly active in litigating on it. > When the issue is about patent law, saying "intellectual property" > instead of "patents" only tends to confuse the issue, by spuriously > extending it to copyrights, trademarks, and other totally different > laws. I actually meant both patents and copyrights, so I think my characterization was accurate. If you mean patents and copyrights, please say "patents and copyrights". Saying "intellectual property" takes in a dozen other laws (such as trademark law) that don't relate to the issue, so it can turn accurate statements into inaccurate ones. However, even saying "patents and copyrights" seems like a distraction from the issue at hand. Patents are relevant to the use of Mono and C#, but copyrights are not. The fact that Microsoft has not yed sued us over these patents might be relevant -- though I've heard that Microsoft is privately threatening companies that run free software and demanding they pay. If Microsoft also has not sued in some case concerning copyright, that case must be very different from this one, and I don't think it relevant to this discussion. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 15:44 -0600, Shaun McCance wrote: > > We want to add support for Tracker as a search backend. Tracker > is implemented in good old C, and it finally seems to be getting > some uptake. It just takes some manpower. > With XESAM coming along, you wont need to have libtracker or libBeagle as a dependency (really these two should be deprecated as nautilus, yelp and Gtk file chooser can all use libxesam instead) Nor will beagle and tracker (and other indexers) have to write their own indexers for yelp as we will move towards having index-independent third party indexers for both individual entities as well as crawlers for container objects that contain lots of sub-entities (lime mbox, rss feed etc) Ideally the authors of yelp will be able to write their own indexer plugin that all indexers can use As soon as Xesam 1.0 is out (hopefully before xmas) the next thing will be 1.1 which will have the above plug-in functionality defined As always, lack of time is making progress on Xesam slow atm but its getting there jamie ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Money spending, questions for the candidates
> I just want to put this in perspective: the foundation has $200,000 in > the bank, with guaranteed income of $100,000 a year approx. One employee > costs at least $70,000 per year, and depending on the role up to > $100,000 or more. > > Manpower is expensive :) American manpower is expensive. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
> And all of this could have been explained just as simply if the folks at > boycottnovell.com had simply emailed us and asked for details, instead of > posting unsubstantiated drivel. Pretty much the crux of the issue with that website. Despite transparency into the community that they would never get with companies, they do not actually do any primary research, and have come up with some doozies about things they simply don't understand. - Jeff -- GNOME.conf.au 2008: Melbourne, Australia http://live.gnome.org/Melbourne2008 "Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it." - Alan J. Perlis ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 15:44 -0600, Shaun McCance 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. > > > > 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. Sorry, I wanted to be absolutely clear on something here: Yelp itself is not written in C#, and does not run on top of Mono. Yelp is written primarily in C, with some XSLT for document transformation and some C++ for Gecko stuff. There is no need to re-implement Yelp. But if anybody wants to, hey, have fun. > Others have commented, but here's the detailed explanation > of how things work and where we're heading from somebody > who actually co-maintains Yelp: [snip other stuff I said] -- Shaun ___ 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. Others have commented, but here's the detailed explanation of how things work and where we're heading from somebody who actually co-maintains Yelp: Yelp currently has two backends for searching the help files on your computer: beagle and "basic". The basic search will simply ransack your hard disk every time you do a search. It's nowhere near as fast as beagle, but it does work. We want to add support for Tracker as a search backend. Tracker is implemented in good old C, and it finally seems to be getting some uptake. It just takes some manpower. We do not want to be in the business of maintaining our own indexer, and we believe the Gnome platform should be providing that for us. As for dependencies, Yelp has a configure-time option: --with-search=basic|beagle|auto auto (the default) will build Beagle support iff beagle is found on your system. Even when compiled with Beagle support, Yelp will still fall back to basic search if Beagle can't be found at run time. I believe we've done a good job of providing useful functionality without being able to depend on functionality that really should be a part of our platform. (And by "we", I mostly mean my fellow co-maintainer, Don.) The fact that this results in a hard dependency for some binary packages is really outside what we do. And all of this could have been explained just as simply if the folks at boycottnovell.com had simply emailed us and asked for details, instead of posting unsubstantiated drivel. -- Shaun ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: two questions for candidates
On Nov 30, 2007 3:51 PM, Shaun McCance <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mon, 2007-11-26 at 14:54 -0500, Luis Villa wrote: > > On Nov 26, 2007 10:28 AM, Richard Stallman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > 2. How do you think the GNOME Foundation should support the Free > > > Software Movement in general? > > > > I think the most pressing thing is that the Foundation and our > > partners need to investigate (with SFLC's help) the GPL v3, and decide > > whether or not to move forward on that. I've been involved with v3 for > > a long time now, and hopefully can help coordinate that effort. > > If people are going to be looking at licenses, I would very > much like to discuss the FDL v2, and our usage of the FDL in > general. There are some troublesome parts whose implications > for GNOME aren't clear to me. My immediate gut instinct on this one is 'we're stuck with it whether we like it or not', but you know more about the copyright ownership of the docs than I do. > Also, I'm not certain how the copyleft nature of the FDL will > impact the dynamic-collection-of-pages nature of Mallard. I'd love to look into that if I'm elected; please remind me about the question if/when that happens. (I'm not really taking down todos quite yet.) Luis ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Money spending, questions for the candidates
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 20:28 +, Diego Escalante Urrelo wrote: > Hey > > On 11/30/07, Bastian, Waldo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > o. What is your opinion on an examination that could carry the > > title: > > > >"GNOME Mobile certified software developer exam" > > > > > > > > > > If the examination is offered by a third party, then I would say they > > > are violating the trademark guidelines :). > > > But if you suggest that GNOME via the Foundation could offer a > > > certification, I wouldn't like to see that, sadly certifications tend > > > to mean nothing with time due to people taking them "just to pass the > > > test". I think it would be more healthy to have easier ways for > > > contributors to show their work and prove how much they have given to > > > the project, hence showing their possible employer that they surely > > > rock. > > > > Although the company that I work for surely employs a few rock stars, > > more often a project team or company is just looking for someone who > > knows how to use GTK+ widgets (think bellcurve). I believe the objective > > here would be to make it easier for commercial companies to develop > > solutions based on GNOME and part of the problem that such companies > > face is finding developers that are familiar with the technology. > > Reducing that hurdle will help to make the technology more popular. I > > don't think the Foundation should offer certification itself but maybe > > it could work together with an existing institute on expanding its > > training offerings around Gnome technology. Just my 2 ct. > > > > Interesting, I feel that anyway certifications tend to get worth > nothing when people start taking them "just to pass them", but still I > see your point of letting people not in GNOME but users of GNOME's > technology to prove they know that stuff. > Certification implemented as training could be a different matter, as > long as the real "juice" of the thing is the training. > > I still don't think Foundation should get involved into saying place X > is an approbed training center, I fear that would go beyond its scope. > I also fear it would lead to favoritism though I am all for helping out a company develop course-ware I am very much opposed to partnering with one entity over another. -- John (J5) Palmieri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ___ 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 14:54 -0500, Luis Villa wrote: > On Nov 26, 2007 10:28 AM, Richard Stallman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > 2. How do you think the GNOME Foundation should support the Free > > Software Movement in general? > > I think the most pressing thing is that the Foundation and our > partners need to investigate (with SFLC's help) the GPL v3, and decide > whether or not to move forward on that. I've been involved with v3 for > a long time now, and hopefully can help coordinate that effort. If people are going to be looking at licenses, I would very much like to discuss the FDL v2, and our usage of the FDL in general. There are some troublesome parts whose implications for GNOME aren't clear to me. Also, I'm not certain how the copyleft nature of the FDL will impact the dynamic-collection-of-pages nature of Mallard. -- Shaun ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Money spending, questions for the candidates
Hey On 11/30/07, Bastian, Waldo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > o. What is your opinion on an examination that could carry the > title: > > >"GNOME Mobile certified software developer exam" > > > > > > > If the examination is offered by a third party, then I would say they > > are violating the trademark guidelines :). > > But if you suggest that GNOME via the Foundation could offer a > > certification, I wouldn't like to see that, sadly certifications tend > > to mean nothing with time due to people taking them "just to pass the > > test". I think it would be more healthy to have easier ways for > > contributors to show their work and prove how much they have given to > > the project, hence showing their possible employer that they surely > > rock. > > Although the company that I work for surely employs a few rock stars, > more often a project team or company is just looking for someone who > knows how to use GTK+ widgets (think bellcurve). I believe the objective > here would be to make it easier for commercial companies to develop > solutions based on GNOME and part of the problem that such companies > face is finding developers that are familiar with the technology. > Reducing that hurdle will help to make the technology more popular. I > don't think the Foundation should offer certification itself but maybe > it could work together with an existing institute on expanding its > training offerings around Gnome technology. Just my 2 ct. > Interesting, I feel that anyway certifications tend to get worth nothing when people start taking them "just to pass them", but still I see your point of letting people not in GNOME but users of GNOME's technology to prove they know that stuff. Certification implemented as training could be a different matter, as long as the real "juice" of the thing is the training. I still don't think Foundation should get involved into saying place X is an approbed training center, I fear that would go beyond its scope. thanks for your comment, Diego ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Money spending, questions for the candidates
Hi, Philip Van Hoof wrote: > o. Given that the Foundation of GNOME has plenty of money, will you if >elected vote to spend this money on important projects? I just want to put this in perspective: the foundation has $200,000 in the bank, with guaranteed income of $100,000 a year approx. One employee costs at least $70,000 per year, and depending on the role up to $100,000 or more. Manpower is expensive :) > - 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+ There are some good project ideas there, and there are certainly bodies who might be prepared to subsidise them. Someone (?) needs to go hunt for money for one or more of those projects to make them happen. Cheers, 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: Money spending, questions for the candidates
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 11:07 -0800, Bastian, Waldo wrote: > So what should the foundation be doing to address this issue in your > opinion? I think the foundation could setup (orchestrate) meetings (or interops or however you want to call them) with the different teams. Gather the right people and put them together from time to times. For example funding the participant's travelling expenses and making decisions about which meetings are high priority and which are low priority (and therefore wont get a budget for this). Maybe out of those face-to-face / round-table meetings could a group of maintainers step forward to discuss things on a regular basis? Whether or not we'll call that 'technical leadership' is just branding of course. Basically do what GUADEC is, but far more often and on a micro scale. With ess people who'll be a lot more focused on a specific goal: for example "improving network manager's API" or "making a better VFS API" or "in three weeks we want a Unit Test library in GLib, several app developers are using different things already, let's discuss IRL" I, for example, don't think mailing lists and IRC are always the right medium for discussion and consensus making. At least not anymore. We get much more decided during and after GUADEC. I don't think the foundation should pick up the role of technical leadership itself. I do think it should play a more active role in supporting the existing "leadership" in cooperating more closely. As Behad said, it's the maintainers themselves who know their technology best. I think that putting smart heads together usually leads to better software. > On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 11:52 -0500, Behdad Esfahbod wrote: > > > Anyway, my short answer to most of your mail is that every team / > group > > is only mandated to do whatever the actual people doing the work like > to > > do. No one knows better than me as the Pango maintainer that what > Pango > > needs most. > > And that's fine and the right way, indeed. > > Then the problem starts: integration of the different components, > decisions about how this integration will take place, helping future > customers with picking the right components, ... > > For example D-Bus APIs for desktop services > > A good example (yet it's just an example) are the differences between > Network Manager's D-Bus API and many competing network management and > detection mechanisms. > > A reason for that might be that Network Manager right now doesn't tell > me about the latency nor the cost of the (mobile) connection. With some > discussion at the level of GNOME Mobile, it would probably have come to > the surface that things like these are needed for mobiles. > > Multiple platform providers are each using their own API for the purpose > of this. Access has something, Maemo has Conic, the desktop has Network > Manager. This is 'not' good and more complicated for app. developers. > > I know most people will now think: "yes but THEY should have " (fill > in the dots). The reality is different. And sometimes it's good to also > open your eyes for the actual situation. > > > I can make a very long list of examples (and I can point to code, if > necessary). I already promised not to make such long philosophic E-mails > anymore. > > -- 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: Question to candidates: what about next ODF?
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 11:48 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: > > Such action for the larger free software community is one example of > the issue that my second question was intended to raise--namely, > issues important to the community's health in general. > > Some candidates answered my question it by stating the intent to > contribute to the community through the development of GNOME > itself--and in no other way. I didn't say "and in no other way". You asked what should GNOME Foundation do to help FS *in general*. Now English is not my native language but if I understand that correctly, I still think in general GNOME Foundation should foster GNOME development. Doesn't mean htat it shouldn't help/support/endorse other causes and efforts. If I wanted to be smart to /pass/ your test I would have said "GNOME should help spreading Free Software and software freedom to everyone, no matter if they need or can execute their freedom, because software freedom is good for them even if they don't know it.", but I rather avoid political debate around a pretty mud-work position candidacy. -- 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: Money spending, questions for the candidates
So what should the foundation be doing to address this issue in your opinion? Cheers, Waldo Intel Corporation - Platform Software Engineering, UMG - Hillsboro, Oregon -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Philip Van Hoof Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 10:29 AM To: Behdad Esfahbod Cc: foundation-list@gnome.org Subject: Re: Money spending, questions for the candidates On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 11:52 -0500, Behdad Esfahbod wrote: > Anyway, my short answer to most of your mail is that every team / group > is only mandated to do whatever the actual people doing the work like to > do. No one knows better than me as the Pango maintainer that what Pango > needs most. And that's fine and the right way, indeed. Then the problem starts: integration of the different components, decisions about how this integration will take place, helping future customers with picking the right components, ... For example D-Bus APIs for desktop services A good example (yet it's just an example) are the differences between Network Manager's D-Bus API and many competing network management and detection mechanisms. A reason for that might be that Network Manager right now doesn't tell me about the latency nor the cost of the (mobile) connection. With some discussion at the level of GNOME Mobile, it would probably have come to the surface that things like these are needed for mobiles. Multiple platform providers are each using their own API for the purpose of this. Access has something, Maemo has Conic, the desktop has Network Manager. This is 'not' good and more complicated for app. developers. I know most people will now think: "yes but THEY should have " (fill in the dots). The reality is different. And sometimes it's good to also open your eyes for the actual situation. I can make a very long list of examples (and I can point to code, if necessary). I already promised not to make such long philosophic E-mails anymore. -- 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 ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Money spending, questions for the candidates
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 11:52 -0500, Behdad Esfahbod wrote: > Anyway, my short answer to most of your mail is that every team / group > is only mandated to do whatever the actual people doing the work like to > do. No one knows better than me as the Pango maintainer that what Pango > needs most. And that's fine and the right way, indeed. Then the problem starts: integration of the different components, decisions about how this integration will take place, helping future customers with picking the right components, ... For example D-Bus APIs for desktop services A good example (yet it's just an example) are the differences between Network Manager's D-Bus API and many competing network management and detection mechanisms. A reason for that might be that Network Manager right now doesn't tell me about the latency nor the cost of the (mobile) connection. With some discussion at the level of GNOME Mobile, it would probably have come to the surface that things like these are needed for mobiles. Multiple platform providers are each using their own API for the purpose of this. Access has something, Maemo has Conic, the desktop has Network Manager. This is 'not' good and more complicated for app. developers. I know most people will now think: "yes but THEY should have " (fill in the dots). The reality is different. And sometimes it's good to also open your eyes for the actual situation. I can make a very long list of examples (and I can point to code, if necessary). I already promised not to make such long philosophic E-mails anymore. -- 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
Hi Richard, Richard Stallman wrote: > We are talking at cross purposes. The issue I raised is not whether a > person _can_ write a program in C#; Microsoft might try to stop him, > but we will not. The question is whether these programs are treated > as part of GNOME, and to what extent other parts of GNOME use them, > and what other GNOME developers are asked to do in regard to them. > > The GNOME Foundation ought to have something to say about that. Indeed - the Foundation board has enfranchised the release team, a group accountable to the board and the membership, to decide exactly that. Vincent Untz posted our Mono policy yesterday, which states very clearly GNOME's stance on the issue. No part of the core platform can depend on Mono, and no part of the desktop suit can pick up a new Mono dependency without going through the module approval process again. A Mono dependency does not exclude an application from consideration as part of the GNOME desktop suite, or of any suite other than the core development platform. Cheers, 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: Money spending, questions for the candidates
Hi Philip, So you put the candidates under moral obligation to read your mail by calling it question for candidates, and then call them insane for reading it all the way down... Not going to answer point by point. I'm also surprised that you have so much time to write such a long mail for, I assume, basing your votes on. Anyway, my short answer to most of your mail is that every team / group is only mandated to do whatever the actual people doing the work like to do. No one knows better than me as the Pango maintainer that what Pango needs most. And I base my decisions on requests I get from others, through Bugzilla, IRC, email, and face to face conversations. If I see people requesting a reasonable feature that makes sense and is hard to work around, I probably get it implemented in a few months time. That is IMO how it should work: Companies simply pay hackers to communicate to maintainers about what it is they need, and provide patches if they need faster resolution. No obligatory "you should implement this" please, be it from the Foundation, the Board, the Tech Lead Team, or the US president. behdad On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 02:51 +0100, Philip Van Hoof wrote: > 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
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 11:48 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: > That is a decision left entirely up to those who create such Free Software. > I don't believe that we can tell them what to do or how to do it. We can > ask > politely. > > We are talking at cross purposes. The issue I raised is not whether a > person _can_ write a program in C#; Microsoft might try to stop him, > but we will not. The question is whether these programs are treated > as part of GNOME, and to what extent other parts of GNOME use them, > and what other GNOME developers are asked to do in regard to them. > > The GNOME Foundation ought to have something to say about that. And it does through the Release Team. I have personally witnessed and participated in numerous consensus meetings on the Release Team where pros and cons are heavily weighed. Mono has been a hot button for awhile there. It was only two releases or so ago that Tomboy was allowed in and that was after hard thought about the mono dependency. Vincent Untz already posted the policy that came out of that discussion (http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2007-November/msg00332.html) -- 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?
Microsoft haven't done so publicly thus far, but the risk is there, (Reports are that they often do this privately to great effect.) 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. I am glad that we will see more. On issues like these, the whole community needs to pull together. Such action for the larger free software community is one example of the issue that my second question was intended to raise--namely, issues important to the community's health in general. Some candidates answered my question it by stating the intent to contribute to the community through the development of GNOME itself--and in no other way. In effect, those statements imply that the GNOME Foundation would disregard the larger issues of the community. Perhaps some would like to post a new answer. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
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. That GNOME can work on Windows has no effect on what GNOME does in a GNU/Linux system. However, a dependency for GNOME when running on GNU/Linux does have an effect on what GNOME does in a GNU/Linux system. A mandatory dependency is automatically crucial. If the dependency is optional, then it is not necessarily important. But it is not necessarily unimportant either. Its importance is determined by the practical details of the situation. Thus, having some applications written in C# is not an automatic disaster, but the more they are the more the problem. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Question to candidates: what about next ODF?
> 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. If that occurred only at random due to carelessness, we could dismiss it that way. However, it seems that Microsoft pays people to systematically give officials one-sided pictures. We should follow the advice of people in the anti-OOXML campaign when they report on what they see. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
That is a decision left entirely up to those who create such Free Software. I don't believe that we can tell them what to do or how to do it. We can ask politely. We are talking at cross purposes. The issue I raised is not whether a person _can_ write a program in C#; Microsoft might try to stop him, but we will not. The question is whether these programs are treated as part of GNOME, and to what extent other parts of GNOME use them, and what other GNOME developers are asked to do in regard to them. The GNOME Foundation ought to have something to say about that. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
Hi, On 11/30/07, Richard Stallman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > And for as much threatening as Microsoft does around IP, they're not > particularly active in litigating on it. > > When the issue is about patent law, saying "intellectual property" > instead of "patents" only tends to confuse the issue, by spuriously > extending it to copyrights, trademarks, and other totally different > laws. I actually meant both patents and copyrights, so I think my characterization was accurate. Joe ___ 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, Vincent Untz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 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. Indeed, I wasn't totally clear on this. I do believe things get a little muddied when we start talking about things like daemons, D-Bus interfaces, etc. My understanding is that we want the Platform in C because it makes it usable from all applications and bindable into other languages. But libbeagle is a C library that talks over a IPC to a C# running daemon. Does that make it suitable for platform? Can D-Bus interfaces become part of the platform? > 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. Indeed, the technical arguments are sane and good criteria to determine a module's suitability. But the philosophical and moral objections, to borrow a phrase, are what seem to create a double standard in my eyes. Thanks, Joe ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
> With Novell's customers getting exclusive patent protection for mono, it > seems unfair for everyone else who have a heightened risk. Thats something to take up with the FSF. The implementation of the GPLv3 is badly flawed by allowing that activity to continue. The original act was Novell's, but the ongoing problem is caused by the FSF. And the sooner the FSF realise that and issue a GPL v3.1 removing that exemption the better. The FSF not Gnome wrote Novell the get out clause. Alan ___ 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 Fri, Nov 30, 2007 at 09:41:24AM +1100, Jeff Waugh 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. > > 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. I've heard Stephen McGibbon himself say to Portuguese TC-173 such suggestions. He made a quick list to show there is support from the Free Software community, and one of the references was "de Icaza *from*GNOME*", another was a lawyer who has worked with OSI, Jody, etc... Just so you may know for sure that in closed circles they *are* spinning it. Rui -- Keep the Lasagna flying! Today is Prickle-Prickle, the 42nd 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: Money spending, questions for the candidates
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 00:43 -0800, Bastian, Waldo wrote: > > > o. What is your opinion on an examination that could carry the > title: > > >"GNOME Mobile certified software developer exam" > > > > > > > If the examination is offered by a third party, then I would say they > > are violating the trademark guidelines :). > > But if you suggest that GNOME via the Foundation could offer a > > certification, I wouldn't like to see that, sadly certifications tend > > to mean nothing with time due to people taking them "just to pass the > > test". I think it would be more healthy to have easier ways for > > contributors to show their work and prove how much they have given to > > the project, hence showing their possible employer that they surely > > rock. > > Although the company that I work for surely employs a few rock stars, > more often a project team or company is just looking for someone who > knows how to use GTK+ widgets (think bellcurve). I believe the objective > here would be to make it easier for commercial companies to develop > solutions based on GNOME and part of the problem that such companies > face is finding developers that are familiar with the technology. Exactly. > Reducing that hurdle will help to make the technology more popular. I > don't think the Foundation should offer certification itself but maybe > it could work together with an existing institute on expanding its > training offerings around Gnome technology. Just my 2 ct. Indeed. -- 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: Money spending, questions for the candidates
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 00:43 -0800, Bastian, Waldo wrote: > > > o. What is your opinion on an examination that could carry the > title: > > >"GNOME Mobile certified software developer exam" > > > > > > > If the examination is offered by a third party, then I would say they > > are violating the trademark guidelines :). > > But if you suggest that GNOME via the Foundation could offer a > > certification, I wouldn't like to see that, sadly certifications tend > > to mean nothing with time due to people taking them "just to pass the > > test". I think it would be more healthy to have easier ways for > > contributors to show their work and prove how much they have given to > > the project, hence showing their possible employer that they surely > > rock. > > Although the company that I work for surely employs a few rock stars, > more often a project team or company is just looking for someone who > knows how to use GTK+ widgets (think bellcurve). I believe the objective > here would be to make it easier for commercial companies to develop > solutions based on GNOME and part of the problem that such companies > face is finding developers that are familiar with the technology. > Reducing that hurdle will help to make the technology more popular. I > don't think the Foundation should offer certification itself but maybe > it could work together with an existing institute on expanding its > training offerings around Gnome technology. Just my 2 ct. > > Cheers, > Waldo Waldo, this was a very astute observation. Thanks. -- John (J5) Palmieri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Money spending, questions for the candidates
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 02:51 +0100, Philip Van Hoof wrote: > 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 So your questions come from the false notion that the Foundation has "plenty of money". While we are better off than years past we are in no way flush with resources. We are looking at hiring a full time administrator and perhaps an admin at some point but doing so will be scrutinized to make sure we are properly allocating our resources. For the above scenarios Philip presents, I don't think these types of spending are in the Foundation's interest in "funding" as he puts it. Helping out when asked by a developer with hardware, contacts with relevant companies or funding to attend conferences are more in-line with how we should allocate resources. Even then a developer would have to come with a detailed proposal which shows the benefits of such expenditures. There are a million things we can put resources into but we only have a limited amount to go around so we need to carefully select which expenditures will give us the most bang for the buck as they say. > - Pay people to travel to schools and universities to educate > students about GNOME (serious educating, not just doing cheap > presentations) Again we should fund peoples travels but creating jobs can lead to major issues. First and foremost is we don't have the money to do this. The second is, jobs, outside of the day to day administration of the Foundation would create conflict with people in the community who don't get payed. Even the job of system administration could cause conflict and the benefits need to be weighed in light of these issues. In other words leave most of the hiring up to the various companies that use GNOME and only hire within the Foundation after careful consideration of the issues. > - ... (for making these decisions we need people who'll make real > and hard decisions) And even hard decisions some may not like to hear. > o. What is your opinion on an examination that could carry the title: >"GNOME Mobile certified software developer exam" It is hard to have an opinion on a title. Who is going to make this exam? What does it certify? Does it conflict with our partners programs or favor one partner over another? > o. How are you planning to help the GNOME community overcome the fact >that we have relatively few technical leadership? I think we have huge technical leadership. I think leaders pop up every day in different areas. I think the Board's role in developing leaders in general is to identify potential leaders and help them contribute to GNOME through resources like travel and conference sponsorship, by delegating tasks to them and by providing other resources such as hardware/hosting to those who can not procure it themselves. >- By waiting for the integration our softwares to turn into > something that looks a lot like that O.S. called CHA-OS? I have no idea what you are asking here. >- By letting companies like Nokia, Novell, ... set our goals? > I think this is what's happening right now. Might be fine imo. Well it is individuals within those companies along with individuals who don't have corporate ties who set direction. Add into the mix the wider Free/Open communities which sets various norms and a more dynamic picture emerges on how GNOME direction is set. > 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) Some people will think what they want to think and you will never be able to change their views however we could be more transparent than press releases and meeting notes. >o. Too late announcing of GNOME developers joining the OOXML > discussions (I think it's great that we are among the people > defining
RE: Money spending, questions for the candidates
> > o. What is your opinion on an examination that could carry the title: > >"GNOME Mobile certified software developer exam" > > > > If the examination is offered by a third party, then I would say they > are violating the trademark guidelines :). > But if you suggest that GNOME via the Foundation could offer a > certification, I wouldn't like to see that, sadly certifications tend > to mean nothing with time due to people taking them "just to pass the > test". I think it would be more healthy to have easier ways for > contributors to show their work and prove how much they have given to > the project, hence showing their possible employer that they surely > rock. Although the company that I work for surely employs a few rock stars, more often a project team or company is just looking for someone who knows how to use GTK+ widgets (think bellcurve). I believe the objective here would be to make it easier for commercial companies to develop solutions based on GNOME and part of the problem that such companies face is finding developers that are familiar with the technology. Reducing that hurdle will help to make the technology more popular. I don't think the Foundation should offer certification itself but maybe it could work together with an existing institute on expanding its training offerings around Gnome technology. Just my 2 ct. Cheers, Waldo ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
The patent danger to Mono comes from patents we know Microsoft has, on libraries which are outside the C# spec and thus not covered by any promise not to sue. In effect, Microsoft has designed in boobytraps for us. Indeed, every large program implements lots of ideas that are patented. Indeed, there's no way to avoid this danger. But that's no reason to put our head inside Microsoft's jaws. The FSF is organizing a campaign for the total abolition of software patents in the US. Mere reform is a distraction. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/patent-reform-is-not-enough.html ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
And for as much threatening as Microsoft does around IP, they're not particularly active in litigating on it. When the issue is about patent law, saying "intellectual property" instead of "patents" only tends to confuse the issue, by spuriously extending it to copyrights, trademarks, and other totally different laws. The same is true for issues about any other law. The term "intellectual property" may give you a feeling of deeper understanding, but it is a spurious feeling because that understanding is mistaken. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
