Re: Agenda for board meeting on July 7th
Hi Richard, Yes, there is no support for GNOME, although they don't seem to have talked about working with upstream. My concern of course is that if this is a scam, the visual design is enough that those who feel they have been cheated would wrongfully associated that product with GNOME. If anything I would prefer to ask them to change their visual design so that it is reasonably differentiated from ours. (sorry for top posting, for some reason I can't seem to get this webmail thing to do quoting) On Sat, Jul 11, 2015 at 2:32 AM Richard Stallman wrote: > The joke is on me. I naively assumed they must be asking for GNOME > support. > > -- > Dr Richard Stallman > President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org) > Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org) > Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html. > > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Agenda for board meeting on July 7th
The joke is on me. I naively assumed they must be asking for GNOME support. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org) Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Agenda for board meeting on July 7th
> The license we've chosen clearly allows people to sell products with the > code included, so I'm assuming this is strictly a trademark issues. > Jeff initially raised some concern about whether source code was being included as they don't seem to indicate either way. > As far as I can tell this is about figuring out if this is a scam (which > could hurt the GNOME brand) or just a bunch of enthusiastic youngsters > giving things a try. > I still can't really see how that being a scam could specifically hurt our brand (other names seem to be dropped). As far as I can tell, neither the project nor its website appear to claim to have any special endorsement from us or any association with us though, which could be significant. From looking over the trademark regulations anyway, it seems like (as has been suggested) we could perhaps speak to them about GNOME instead of Gnome (and have a word about GNU/Linux)[1] I should emphasise that I am really no expert when it comes to licensing and trademark issues, so I hope someone who actually is one, can clarify where we are on that front! In the meantime, getting in touch with the project organiser directly to discuss any concerns seems like a constructive suggestion, though I it seems like it's probably worth our making sure that we have a clearer idea of what specifics we are legitimately concerned about, beforehand. Basically, they're taking advantage of people who don't know enough > about Linux to realize they are just a clone of much more serious > operating systems shipping GNOME that are already available for free. > Probably, but if we [GNOME] were to decide to actively challenge these sorts of project crowdfunder/whatevers *purely* on the basis that we [GNOME] in principle feel that charging money for a product which uses a fork of GNOME is cheating people or otherwise "taking advantage", then we would seriously need to consider what our promotion of that message could say to the world about how we value our own work (since we're worried most about potential harm to our brand and its associated products). Magdalen [1] https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Resources/LicensingGuidelines ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Agenda for board meeting on July 7th
On Thu, 2015-07-09 at 19:17 -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: > I'm much less concerned about whether they want GNOME's *support* (as > it > seems rather unlikely either that they'd seek such support or that > we'd > offer it), and more concerned about whether they're actually acting > in > good faith or whether they might be doing something that will > actively > damage the reputations of Linux, GNU, GNOME, and other Free Software > projects. Basically, they're taking advantage of people who don't know enough about Linux to realize they are just a clone of much more serious operating systems shipping GNOME that are already available for free. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Agenda for board meeting on July 7th
My other 2 cents: The license we've chosen clearly allows people to sell products with the code included, so I'm assuming this is strictly a trademark issues. As far as I can tell this is about figuring out if this is a scam (which could hurt the GNOME brand) or just a bunch of enthusiastic youngsters giving things a try. It'd be really sad if we enforced the trademark and then turned out that it was just the latter case. I'd suggest we approach them and tried to study the situation. 2015-07-09 15:16 GMT+01:00 Jeff Fortin Tam : > Le mardi 07 juillet 2015 à 09:46 +0200, Jens Georg a écrit : > > > * https://kickstarter.com/projects/technoruninc/stratos/ > > > > Apart from the massive annoying marketing speech in the kickstarter, > what's the exact purpose of this point? > > > > No particular purpose other than to bring it up for discussion in the > meeting and simultaneously bring its existence to the attention of > foundation members if they wanted to comment on it. For the record, this > did not actually end up being discussed in the meeting, as we were already > running half an hour overtime. > > My 2¢ on the matter: it seems just a little fishy for this thing to show > up out of blue and try to raise 150K, with no visible community around the > "product", no downloads (and no source code provided?) to verify its > existence, and a claim to support Windows and Android applications in the > "StratOS Pro" version. So I was wondering if anyone had heard of them > before. > > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > > -- Cheers, Alberto Ruiz ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Agenda for board meeting on July 7th
Hi, On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 3:17 AM, Josh Triplett wrote: > On Thu, Jul 09, 2015 at 09:04:52PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote: > >> * https://kickstarter.com/projects/technoruninc/stratos/ > > > > What is the relationship between this and GNOME? > > None whatsoever, other than that their mockups appear to depict GNOME, > which is part of why it needs investigation. > The bottom of the page says"StratOS is based and built upon a modified Linux Kernel and sports a modified version of the Gnome Desktop Environment." so that would explain why the screenshots look familiar. I guess that would not have to necessarily mean that licensing or trademarks were being violated but hopefully the licensing experts among us can clarify any concerns there might be on that front. > I see two problems in the kickstarter page. The smaller, superficial > > problem is that it says "Linux" and means GNU. If they would like our > > support, we should insist they change that. > I'm much less concerned about whether they want GNOME's *support* (as it > seems rather unlikely either that they'd seek such support or that we'd > offer it), and more concerned about whether they're actually acting in > good faith or whether they might be doing something that will actively > damage the reputations of Linux, GNU, GNOME, and other Free Software > projects. > I just can't see how anyone who really was already familiar with free software projects like GNOME, GNU et al would consider donating to this kickstarter so, I am not sure how in practical terms this kickstarter could damage our reputation. Even at face value, the project looks like a kid trying to flog a product he "took" from projects like ours and maybe modified a bit. Personally, the main thing that makes me most curious/suspicious about this is that the project has actually managed to raise a 5 figure sum towards its total already and it's not even been well marketed (imho), but that's just me. Ultimately, if we find that neither our licensing nor trademark is being violated is there really anything we can or should do to try control what people want to do with our software? Magdalen ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Agenda for board meeting on July 7th
On Thu, Jul 09, 2015 at 09:04:52PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote: >> * https://kickstarter.com/projects/technoruninc/stratos/ > > What is the relationship between this and GNOME? None whatsoever, other than that their mockups appear to depict GNOME, which is part of why it needs investigation. > I see two problems in the kickstarter page. The smaller, superficial > problem is that it says "Linux" and means GNU. If they would like our > support, we should insist they change that. I'm much less concerned about whether they want GNOME's *support* (as it seems rather unlikely either that they'd seek such support or that we'd offer it), and more concerned about whether they're actually acting in good faith or whether they might be doing something that will actively damage the reputations of Linux, GNU, GNOME, and other Free Software projects. - Josh Triplett ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Agenda for board meeting on July 7th
> * https://kickstarter.com/projects/technoruninc/stratos/ What is the relationship between this and GNOME? I see two problems in the kickstarter page. The smaller, superficial problem is that it says "Linux" and means GNU. If they would like our support, we should insist they change that. The substantive problem is that kickstarter requires running nonfree software to donate. Since we should not ask people to run a nonfree program, we should not ask people to donate to a project on kickstarter. There is a crowdfunding site, crowdsupply.com, which permits donation without running nonfree software -- and they are willing to host a project when the FSF asks. So this problem has a solution which is not very difficult. I asked someone to check the distro's own web site. He reported that it isn't clear whether the distro will be free or not. Which means it probably won't be free. Is there anything we should do with it? -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org) Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Agenda for board meeting on July 7th
On Thu, Jul 9, 2015 at 3:16 PM, Jeff Fortin Tam wrote: > Le mardi 07 juillet 2015 à 09:46 +0200, Jens Georg a écrit : > > > * https://kickstarter.com/projects/technoruninc/stratos/ > > > > Apart from the massive annoying marketing speech in the kickstarter, > what's the exact purpose of this point? > > > > No particular purpose other than to bring it up for discussion in the > meeting and simultaneously bring its existence to the attention of > foundation members if they wanted to comment on it. For the record, this > did not actually end up being discussed in the meeting, as we were already > running half an hour overtime. > > My 2¢ on the matter: it seems just a little fishy for this thing to show > up out of blue and try to raise 150K, with no visible community around the > "product", no downloads (and no source code provided?) to verify its > existence, and a claim to support Windows and Android applications in the > "StratOS Pro" version. So I was wondering if anyone had heard of them > before. > I can see why this seems fishy, especially with the "most secure operating system in the world" claim. The start up seem to be based in Iraq which also strikes me as a little odd given what's going on there right now. Magdalen > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > > ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Agenda for board meeting on July 7th
Le mardi 07 juillet 2015 à 09:46 +0200, Jens Georg a écrit : > > > > * https://kickstarter.com/projects/technoruninc/stratos/ > > Apart from the massive annoying marketing speech in the kickstarter, > what's the exact purpose of this point? No particular purpose other than to bring it up for discussion in the meeting and simultaneously bring its existence to the attention of foundation members if they wanted to comment on it. For the record, this did not actually end up being discussed in the meeting, as we were already running half an hour overtime. My 2¢ on the matter: it seems just a little fishy for this thing to show up out of blue and try to raise 150K, with no visible community around the "product", no downloads (and no source code provided?) to verify its existence, and a claim to support Windows and Android applications in the "StratOS Pro" version. So I was wondering if anyone had heard of them before.___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Agenda for board meeting on July 7th
* https://kickstarter.com/projects/technoruninc/stratos/ Apart from the massive annoying marketing speech in the kickstarter, what's the exact purpose of this point? ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Agenda for board meeting on July 7th
Hello Foundation members! The board will be having a meeting this Tuesday at 16h UTC. Here's an overview of some of the topics for this meeting: * Desktop Summit 2011 taxes * Travel committee budget & applications status update * Vote on a travel subsidy for keynote at Open Source Hong Kong * General Foundation budget update? * https://kickstarter.com/projects/technoruninc/stratos/ * New standard meeting time (for the new board) * GUADEC, varia (as time allows) (Other topics may be brewing in the backlog but not included in the meeting agenda until they have reached the required threshold of information or discussion on the board list) If you would like the board to discuss any particular issues at the next meeting, you are welcome to request additions to the agenda here. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
