Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Thanks for adopting the change I proposed. Even if a program is proprietary, we invite its developers to use GNOME as its interface platform. I think it's a bit more negative It has to be -- we must not be positive about proprietary software. However, being more positive about GNOME is better, all else being equal. So how can we make it more positive about GNOME, without making it positive about proprietary software? One simple way is to replace invite with another verb. Encourage? Even if a program is proprietary, we encourage its developers to use GNOME as its interface platform. If we make this even stronger, it starts to be positive by implication about proprietary software too. So we need to block that implication. Here's text that does so in a positive tone. Even if a program is proprietary, we welcome and encourage its use of GNOME as its interface platform. The GNOME libraries necessary for this are licensed so proprietary programs can use them. However, what would really delight us is to see the program liberated. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Your suggestions would probably be better received if they didn't sound so much like orders. I'm sorry if the tone rubbed you the wrong way, but I think it was a misunderstanding. I was politely asking for someone to fix some bugs. Vincent's proposal to explicitly list the acceptable licenses is a good idea. It would make things clearer. If people start to work on it, I'd like to talk with them. But even with that change, it is would still better not to start by giving the reader the wrong idea only to correct it later. Also, changing these words is a way to give needed support to the free software movement. If it is ten years since GNOME stopped doing that, it should still start. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Hi, I'm not a Foundation member, but I would like to do some suggestions: The GNOME Foundation believes in free software and promotes free software but that does not mean that GNOME is anti-proprietary software. We believe, promote, use and write free software. This is a self contradictory statement. Free software was born to replace proprietary software. I.e. GNOME was born to replace KDE when it was dependent by QT. But anti-proprietary is a bad word, it miss the point that is propositive, not negative. I thik that a good statement should be: The GNOME Foundation believes in free software and promotes it as a reliable alternative* to proprietary software. * or a reliable replacement Sometimes those companies are proprietary software companies Most of main software companies are not only-proprietary software companies, i.e. Google, Oracle/SUN, Intel, etc. A statement like this: Sometimes those companies products proprietary software too, and while is more accurate. GUIDO IODICE guido.iod...@gmail.com http://guiodic.wordpress.com http://www.linuxqualityhelp.it signature.asc Description: Questa è una parte del messaggio firmata digitalmente ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 19/01/10 02:49, Emmanuele Bassi wrote: On Mon, 2010-01-18 at 13:08 +0100, Emilio Pozuelo Monfort wrote: On 15/01/10 17:31, Philip Van Hoof wrote: On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 10:47 -0500, john palmieri wrote: You always seem to devolve into ad-hominem, personal attacks. When a person falsely accuses Lefty of putting bias in his surveys THEN you apparently don't need to respond with the ad-hominem bomb??!! Huh? If I say Lefty, you're an idiot, that's ad-hominem, but if I say Lefty, your survey is biased it's not. technically, no; if you were to say Lefty's survey is biased because he's an idiot then *that* would be ad hominem attack; but saying Lefty's survey is biased because ofpoint of bias is *not* an ad hominem attack. I stand corrected. Sorry for the inconvenience. Also, the examples were just that, examples. I should have not put Lefty inside them as that was not necessary. Apologies if it looked like I was attacking Lefty. Emilio ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Jan 19, 2010, at 5:30 AM, Emilio Pozuelo Monfort po...@ubuntu.com wrote: Also, the examples were just that, examples. I should have not put Lefty inside them as that was not necessary. Apologies if it looked like I was attacking Lefty. No worries. I'm pretty used to being accused of things I haven't actually done. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
In response to the first draft, I pointed out that it rejected the ideas of the free software movement, and the only form of support it gave was use of the term free software itself. Your new draft cancels out that little support, by pairing the term with open source. To fit GNOME's position as a GNU package and a part of the free software movement calls for changes in this statement. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 8:01 AM, Richard Stallman r...@gnu.org wrote: In response to the first draft, I pointed out that it rejected the ideas of the free software movement, and the only form of support it gave was use of the term free software itself. Your new draft cancels out that little support, by pairing the term with open source. Sorry, I did not mean to ignore your suggestion. Your first suggestion was: We want GNOME to be used, even in proprietary applications. Thus, if a proprietary program uses GNOME, we are glad GNOME was chosen. However, the word delighted is so strongly positive that the overall effect is to praise and welcome said proprietary software. It implies we are glad that a proprietary program was developed, presuming it uses GNOME -- and we shouldn't be. Personally, I think we are delighted that they decided to use GNOME. We aren't praising the proprietary software but expressing happiness that they have decided to use free software that we have developed. My impression is that the community is delighted when the Nuvo Garmin or Supersonic Imagine use GNOME technologies. I think we gain more by being excited and asking them to join our community, meet us, learn more about free software, etc than if we temper it down. When you praise someone that's learning something, you don't say that's ok but it'd be better if ..., you say that's great! nice job! And then the next time you say how about if you try xyz this time? Your second suggestion was: The statement could express mild support for the ethical idea of free software by replacing the first sentence cited with this GNOME was developed for the sake of computer users' freedom. The GNOME Foundation supports users' freedom and promotes free software. and replacing the second with Even if a program is proprietary, we invite its developers to use GNOME as its interface platform. I'm ok with that. I think it's a bit more negative but I agree that the second sentence in the original doesn't really add anything if you don't think it's promoting free software values. Stormy ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Jan 19, 2010, at 7:20 AM, Stormy Peters stormy.pet...@gmail.com wrote: Personally, I think we are delighted that they decided to use GNOME. We aren't praising the proprietary software but expressing happiness that they have decided to use free software that we have developed. My impression is that the community is delighted when the Nuvo Garmin or Supersonic Imagine use GNOME technologies. I think we gain more by being excited and asking them to join our community, meet us, learn more about free software, etc than if we temper it down. When you praise someone that's learning something, you don't say that's ok but it'd be better if ..., you say that's great! nice job! And then the next time you say how about if you try xyz this time? I strongly agree with all of the above. __ Sent from my Steve-Phone ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Tue, 2010-01-19 at 08:20 -0700, Stormy Peters wrote: I think we gain more by being excited and asking them to join our community, meet us, learn more about free software, etc than if we temper it down. When you praise someone that's learning something, you don't say that's ok but it'd be better if ..., you say that's great! nice job! And then the next time you say how about if you try xyz this time? Thank you Stormy, this is a great point of view. You really understood what people like me and Lefty want to point out. -- 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: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Tue, 2010-01-19 at 08:20 -0700, Stormy Peters wrote: Personally, I think we are delighted that they decided to use GNOME. We aren't praising the proprietary software but expressing happiness that they have decided to use free software that we have developed. My impression is that the community is delighted when the Nuvo Garmin or Supersonic Imagine use GNOME technologies. I think we gain more by being excited and asking them to join our community, meet us, learn more about free software, etc than if we temper it down. When you praise someone that's learning something, you don't say that's ok but it'd be better if ..., you say that's great! nice job! And then the next time you say how about if you try xyz this time? hmm.. I think this position is similar to the rationale on the creation of LGPL, the objetive is the promotion of Free Software. GNOME is a good technology, but there are more popular propietary technologies out there. It's a strategical decision. Well, it's seems that it's no coincidence that LGPL is licence of choice of many GNOME libraries. Cheers, -- Juanjo Marín ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 15/01/10 17:31, Philip Van Hoof wrote: On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 10:47 -0500, john palmieri wrote: You always seem to devolve into ad-hominem, personal attacks. When a person falsely accuses Lefty of putting bias in his surveys THEN you apparently don't need to respond with the ad-hominem bomb??!! Huh? If I say Lefty, you're an idiot, that's ad-hominem, but if I say Lefty, your survey is biased it's not. Emilio ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Hi, Stormy Peters wrote: My apologies for continuing the thread. My personal inbox and IM is still going and it was suggested that I send out the version of the statement that says free and open source. The GNOME Foundation believes in free and open source software but that does not mean that GNOME is anti-proprietary software. We believe, promote, use and write free and open source software. Parse error: We believe... free and open source software should be believe in, presumably. We are excited when companies and individuals use GNOME technologies because we believe it brings us closer to our mission and vision of a free desktop (or mobile interface) accessible to everyone. Sometimes those companies are proprietary software companies and while we would like them to move closer to free and open source software in the future (and that we are helping them do so with the use of GNOME), we are delighted that they have chosen to use GNOME and will help them and their customers. Might I suggest a slight change in focus here, which moves us from passive participants to active participants in a company's choice to move closer to free software development? Something like: Sometimes those companies also produce proprietary software. while we are happy that they have chosen GNOME as a basis for their products, we also work with them to encourage them to release more free and open source software in the future. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
http://live.gnome.org/ProjectPrerequisites The project must be free/open source software. That text ought to say, simply, The project must be free software. Adding open source makes the meaning less clear. There are open source licenses which are not free; /open source introduces uncertainty about whether those licenses are acceptable. Deleting those words would make it clear. The words /open source also create doubt about whether GNOME is aligned with the free software movement. Could you please fix that? The release team goes further for official modules and states: Free-ness: Apps must be under a Free or Open license This is a more serious problem, because those words definitely imply that some non-free licenses (those which are open) are acceptable. It could lead people to think they should be able to include programs which are not free software. Can someone please fix that? ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 5:28 PM, Richard Stallman r...@gnu.org wrote: http://live.gnome.org/ProjectPrerequisites The project must be free/open source software. That text ought to say, simply, The project must be free software. Adding open source makes the meaning less clear. There are open source licenses which are not free; /open source introduces uncertainty about whether those licenses are acceptable. Deleting those words would make it clear. The words /open source also create doubt about whether GNOME is aligned with the free software movement. Could you please fix that? The release team goes further for official modules and states: Free-ness: Apps must be under a Free or Open license This is a more serious problem, because those words definitely imply that some non-free licenses (those which are open) are acceptable. It could lead people to think they should be able to include programs which are not free software. Can someone please fix that? Perhaps it would be sufficient to link to the FSF's list of GPL-compatible licenses and recommended documentation licenses? That would clear up any possible confusion. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/18/10 2:32 PM, Dominic Lachowicz domlachow...@gmail.com wrote: Can someone please fix that? Perhaps it would be sufficient to link to the FSF's list of GPL-compatible licenses and recommended documentation licenses? That would clear up any possible confusion. I gathered from what J5 said that this was a determination which was the responsibility of the release team. It's unclear to me, at least, that there's anything which needs fixing here. Nor am I aware of any particular confusion on anyone's part which needs to be cleared up. Are we aware of anyone's actually being confused by this...? ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Mon, 2010-01-18 at 13:08 +0100, Emilio Pozuelo Monfort wrote: On 15/01/10 17:31, Philip Van Hoof wrote: On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 10:47 -0500, john palmieri wrote: You always seem to devolve into ad-hominem, personal attacks. When a person falsely accuses Lefty of putting bias in his surveys THEN you apparently don't need to respond with the ad-hominem bomb??!! Huh? If I say Lefty, you're an idiot, that's ad-hominem, but if I say Lefty, your survey is biased it's not. technically, no; if you were to say Lefty's survey is biased because he's an idiot then *that* would be ad hominem attack; but saying Lefty's survey is biased because of point of bias is *not* an ad hominem attack. and, though I feel moderately stupid[0] to even have to point this out: in no case an ad hominem attack on a person allows a third one to reply with an ad hominem attack. ciao, Emmanuele. [0] obviously, I would feel entirely stupid doing so in a normal conses of people, but the medium does require some special hand-holding. The medium and some of the subscribers. -- W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.name B: http://blogs.gnome.org/ebassi ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Hey, Le dimanche 17 janvier 2010, à 15:56 -0500, john palmieri a écrit : On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:37 PM, Luis Villa l...@tieguy.org wrote: It has been pointed out that in fact it has been written down: http://live.gnome.org/ProjectPrerequisites Those are prerequisites for project that people want to host on the GNOME infrastructure. This has been written by the sysadmin team. [...] The release team goes further for official modules and states: Free-ness: Apps must be under a Free or Open license and support open standards and protocols. In case of doubt about the module license, send an email to the Release Team and the desktop-devel mailing list. Support of proprietary protocols and closed standards is part of the world we live in, but all applications that support closed protocols should also support open equivalents where those exist, and should default to those if at all possible while still serving their intended purpose. http://live.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning/ModuleProposing#judgement-criteria This comes from the release team, and this is what Luis helped write. It's actually pasted from GEP-10: http://developer.gnome.org/gep/gep-10.html (I prefer to ignore the free vs open source vs free/open source vs free and open source vs... topic for now, until I read all mails and make sure I don't say stuff already mentioned) On a general note, it might make sense to create a page listing the licenses we're usually using in the project, and in which case to use them. And list this license page from those ProjectPrerequisites and ModuleProposing. I'd love to have something like http://techbase.kde.org/Policies/Licensing_Policy for GNOME. Is there anyone who would like to work on this? 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: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Hi Lefty, Le dimanche 17 janvier 2010, à 21:45 -0800, Lefty (石鏡 ) a écrit : On 1/17/10 9:30 PM, Jonathon Jongsma jonat...@quotidian.org wrote: As far as I an tell, there has been essentially no controversy whatsoever about any of this until you and Philip seemingly started trying to drum one up. What exactly are you even trying to change? Is there an official GNOME position statement that you object to? Something on a gnome.org website somewhere? What exactly are we actually talking about here? I'm sorry, Jonathon, I thought that was clear. Stormy proposed the following statement on behalf of GNOME in her message of this past Friday on this thread: I think Jonathon's point [1] is that the initial mail triggered some discussion that (I believe) many people see as off-topic/not-interesting/whatever, even before Stormy proposed a statement. When I read the beginning of the thread again, it's indeed not really clear why all this is being discussed -- especially on foundation-list, instead of private mails. I'm not saying that a potential statement from the Foundation on this topic as a result of this discussion is useless [2], but in general, our community is not a big fan of debating open source vs free since it doesn't really help GNOME move forward. We're a technical community, and such threads are just ignored by most of our community since it's not technical stuff. In the GNOME project, we're usally all happy with both free software and open source contributors as long as their contributions are following our traditions or rules or guidelines or... And don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming anybody who contributed to the discussion, just explaining why people might feel this way about this thread. Vincent [1] Apologies to Jonathon if I misunderstand his point :-) [2] It could clarify things, especially for newcomers who might not know the project history well. -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Hi Richard, Your suggestions would probably be better received if they didn't sound so much like orders. The GNOME project has said free and open source for a long time both on our web pages and in press releases as far back as 2000. Changing it is likely to bring up a long debate like the one we've just seen. Stormy On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 3:28 PM, Richard Stallman r...@gnu.org wrote: http://live.gnome.org/ProjectPrerequisites The project must be free/open source software. That text ought to say, simply, The project must be free software. Adding open source makes the meaning less clear. There are open source licenses which are not free; /open source introduces uncertainty about whether those licenses are acceptable. Deleting those words would make it clear. The words /open source also create doubt about whether GNOME is aligned with the free software movement. Could you please fix that? The release team goes further for official modules and states: Free-ness: Apps must be under a Free or Open license This is a more serious problem, because those words definitely imply that some non-free licenses (those which are open) are acceptable. It could lead people to think they should be able to include programs which are not free software. Can someone please fix that? ___ 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: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 22:58 +0100, Dave Neary wrote: Dave, [CUT] If you're suggesting that _this_ survey is somehow biased, as your example question would appear to, I'd appreciate more specific information. Not at all. I even voted in it. I'm merely pointing out the absurdity of Phillip's suggestion that the only way to respect a survey is to implement whatever results from it. Two times in this thread I clarified what for me respecting the results of a survey means and how the board should deal with it. This quote goes straight to the soul of what I suggest: I would accept that the foundation's board has a decisive role in this. Why else do we elect you guys and don't replace you with surveys? This quote, a reply to Vincent, is more vague but it also illustrates: I don't (didn't) mean any immediate action is needed. I do believe that these results should be kept in mind for future decisions. What is absurd is that you insist on misrepresenting me. It's not the first time in this thread that you, even after I corrected you repeatedly, misinform people about what I said. It's impolite and disrespectful. Absolutely - the results are a useful data point. If nothing gets done with the results, because our leaders adopt a stance on behalf of the project, I hope that the people who voted don't feel disrespected. When the board doesn't use the results then you hope that the members who gave their opinion ignore their feelings about that? I'm not sure what you meant, but if that's it then I disagree. I agree that a board can have a different point of view and that it is elected to do a job on behalf of not just members but the project too. If the board can't justify such a decision or if in future the decision turns out to have been the wrong one, then the members should as soon as possible get the opportunity to vote away or to vote to keep that board. If you can't deal with responsibility, you shouldn't be a board. I think it's fair that in return for being voted as a board, the members get the respect from the board that it takes up its responsibility for their decisions. Especially for the ones when they ignore the opinion of most of its members: they better be right when they do that. Cheers, Philip -- Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer home: me at pvanhoof dot be gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org http://pvanhoof.be/blog http://codeminded.be ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 4:17 PM, Stormy Peters stormy.pet...@gmail.comwrote: You all represent GNOME when you are out in the world. Let me clarify a bit more. I think that we all represent the groups we are a part of all the time, especially when we are the only one from that group present. For example, if I'm attending the Grace Hopper conference, a conference with 95% women attendees, and I start crying, people are likely to attribute my tears to relationship issues, work issues, personal issues, etc. If I'm attending GUADEC, a conference with less than 5% women attendees and I start crying, many people are likely to contribute it to me being a woman. The same with being an American. If I'm at a US conference with mostly US attendees, and I'm rude to someone, they'll likely just think I'm rude. Or perhaps, if it's not a software conference, they'll think all software people are rude. Or if I'm one of two women, they'll think women are rude. Do that same rude thing at a European conference, and they are likely to think Americans are rude. So I think we all represent GNOME all of the time unless you specifically state otherwise. That's probably not a big deal in a GNOME dominated group like this list or GUADEC (it's like being a woman at Grace Hopper), but when you are at a conference or meeting where most people are not part of GNOME and you've clearly stated that you are, then I think it highly likely your views, behavior and attitude will reflect on GNOME. Luckily, I think we have a great community and are well represented. Stormy P.S. And don't forget! [1] And if you'd like to formally represent GNOME at a conference, please, please do. See http://live.gnome.org/GnomeEvents/Speakers for opportunities. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org writes: a statement which represents the Foundation (which is, as Stormy has pointed out, no more than its members) This doesn't mean that the Foundation speaks for each of its members. The Foundation speaks for itself and GNOME. GNOME has a policy (written or not) that prohibits importing non-free software into its repositories. How can users and potential contributors be informed of this policy? One way (not the only way, but maybe the best way) is by GNOME's self identification as a free software project. Open source doesn't imply any reason or policy for rejecting proprietary software, so free and open source is a less clear statement about what GNOME is. This doesn't imply that all the members personally have the philosophy of refusing to contribute to any non-free project. It just means that GNOME is a project that doesn't develop non-free software (if the current description doesn't communicate that clearly enough, it could be made more explicit). In practice, we can clearly see (by the survey and other means) that no change is needed in GNOME's description in order to attract contributors who have other philosophies. A quick comment on the survey. I think the main flaw is that it tests for word-for-word agreement with one person (RMS). I have views very similar to Richard, but Illegitimate is a word I wouldn't use, and I'd usually avoid immoral. That's not philosophical disagreement, it's just different ways of expressing ideas. When you focus on words, you'll massively magnify differences, but they can't be read as implying disagreement. If you focus on philosophies, that could be different. And to do that right, the focus should be on general agreement rather than idea-for-idea exact agreement. I'd need time to formulate it sufficiently clearly, but consider this question: Do you use exclusively free software *or* wish that all the software you used could be freely modified and maintained by the user community? This wouldn't tell is if everyone agrees with RMS or not, but that shouldn't be the goal anyway. The results of this question would probably support the suggestion that GNOME strengthen it's description of it's goals of giving/protecting freedom. -- Ciarán O'Riordan, +32 487 64 17 54, http://ciaran.compsoc.com Please help build the software patents wiki: http://en.swpat.org http://www.EndSoftwarePatents.org Donate: http://endsoftwarepatents.org/donate List: http://campaigns.fsf.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/esp-action-alert ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/17/10 6:52 AM, Ciaran O'Riordan cia...@member.fsf.org wrote: GNOME has a policy (written or not) that prohibits importing non-free software into its repositories. I'm not personally aware of a written policy to this effect. If there's an unwritten policy, I'd encourage the Board to write it down in clear and explicit terms and get it agreed to by the membership, since there's not necessarily any actual common understanding of what such a policy says or means, if that's the case. Open source doesn't imply any reason or policy for rejecting proprietary software... I'm afraid I really have to disagree here: open source software is software which is made available under a license which satisfies the Open Source Definition which can be found at http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php Clause 1 of that definition states, in part, that The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale. Clause 2 states that The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form. Clause 3 states, in part, that The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software. I could go on, but I think this demonstrates that there's no actual basis for your claim, Ciaran, unless you're using the term proprietary in some unusual sense. If you can give me a concrete example of software which is proprietary, in the usual sense of the term, while still being available under a valid open source license, I'd be very interested in hearing about it. ...GNOME is a project that doesn't develop non-free software... In your preferred terminology. I'd say is doesn't develop non-open-source software in mine. We'd both be correct. I would never suggest that your view was invalid, should be unrepresented, or that you weren't entirely entitled to hold it. I'm only asking the same. As I've said--and I think there's general agreement--there's no consensus on which term is correct among the membership. Plenty of GNOME members use the term open source, myself included. Why should their choice of terminology be denigrated in a statement that purports to represent them as well as you? I'm a member, you're a member, Philip's a member, and RMS is a member. We have differing views here, and the statement should treat all parties fairly. I'm not asking that the term free software not be used, in spite of _my_ not using it, nor do I believe is Philip. I'm simply asking that, since the terminology _is_ debatable--and there has been no shortage of debates about it, none of them terribly productive, and certainly none of them decisive--a statement which represents us all not settle the matter by fiat. A quick comment on the survey. I think the main flaw is that it tests for word-for-word agreement with one person (RMS). A somewhat less-quick response: I had intended the survey to test the positions of the free software movement as expressed by the FSF on the one hand, versus the actual attitudes of the community at large on the other. I have to believe that RMS' statements on proprietary software can be taken as being representative of, and authoritative with respect to, that organization. If that's not the case, I'd appreciate some concrete details of where I've missed the actual views of the FSF, and how they differ from what I understand them to be. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:31 PM, Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org wrote: On 1/17/10 6:52 AM, Ciaran O'Riordan cia...@member.fsf.org wrote: GNOME has a policy (written or not) that prohibits importing non-free software into its repositories. I'm not personally aware of a written policy to this effect. If there's an unwritten policy, I'd encourage the Board to write it down in clear and explicit terms and get it agreed to by the membership, since there's not necessarily any actual common understanding of what such a policy says or means, if that's the case. To the best of my knowledge, that policy has never been written down. That is because there is and always has been a very, very, very clear and common understanding that this is the policy. It takes almost willful ignorance of our history, culture and policy to suggest otherwise. Luis ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Sun, 2010-01-17 at 12:37 -0800, Luis Villa wrote: On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:31 PM, Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org wrote: On 1/17/10 6:52 AM, Ciaran O'Riordan cia...@member.fsf.org wrote: GNOME has a policy (written or not) that prohibits importing non-free software into its repositories. I'm not personally aware of a written policy to this effect. If there's an unwritten policy, I'd encourage the Board to write it down in clear and explicit terms and get it agreed to by the membership, since there's not necessarily any actual common understanding of what such a policy says or means, if that's the case. To the best of my knowledge, that policy has never been written down. That is because there is and always has been a very, very, very clear and common understanding that this is the policy. It takes almost willful ignorance of our history, culture and policy to suggest otherwise. Perhaps less official because it's just on the wiki, but: http://live.gnome.org/ProjectPrerequisites The project must be free/open source software. But yes, Luis, I wholly agree with you. I can't imagine why anybody would ever think it's OK to host non-free software on gnome.org. -- Shaun McCance http://syllogist.net/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:37 PM, Luis Villa l...@tieguy.org wrote: On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:31 PM, Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org wrote: On 1/17/10 6:52 AM, Ciaran O'Riordan cia...@member.fsf.org wrote: GNOME has a policy (written or not) that prohibits importing non-free software into its repositories. I'm not personally aware of a written policy to this effect. If there's an unwritten policy, I'd encourage the Board to write it down in clear and explicit terms and get it agreed to by the membership, since there's not necessarily any actual common understanding of what such a policy says or means, if that's the case. To the best of my knowledge, that policy has never been written down. It has been pointed out that in fact it has been written down: http://live.gnome.org/ProjectPrerequisites and in fact I think I probably helped write it down; I'm looking through my email to see when we had that discussion, but I'm pretty sure that when we wrote it it was so non-controversial that it was not discussed very much, so it won't leave much trail in my inbox. Luis ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/17/10 12:48 PM, Shaun McCance sha...@gnome.org wrote: To the best of my knowledge, that policy has never been written down. That is because there is and always has been a very, very, very clear and common understanding that this is the policy. It takes almost willful ignorance of our history, culture and policy to suggest otherwise. Perhaps less official because it's just on the wiki, but: http://live.gnome.org/ProjectPrerequisites The project must be free/open source software. Ah. That's fine. Free/open source software. I have no issue with this, and it would, in fact, seem to support what I've been saying. But yes, Luis, I wholly agree with you. I can't imagine why anybody would ever think it's OK to host non-free software on gnome.org. Did anyone say that they thought it was OK to host non-free software on gnome.org? I'm pretty sure I never suggested anything like that. Please let me know where I might have inadvertently created such an impression, if indeed I did. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:53 PM, Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org wrote: On 1/17/10 12:48 PM, Shaun McCance sha...@gnome.org wrote: To the best of my knowledge, that policy has never been written down. That is because there is and always has been a very, very, very clear and common understanding that this is the policy. It takes almost willful ignorance of our history, culture and policy to suggest otherwise. Perhaps less official because it's just on the wiki, but: http://live.gnome.org/ProjectPrerequisites The project must be free/open source software. Ah. That's fine. Free/open source software. I have no issue with this, and it would, in fact, seem to support what I've been saying. But yes, Luis, I wholly agree with you. I can't imagine why anybody would ever think it's OK to host non-free software on gnome.org. Did anyone say that they thought it was OK to host non-free software on gnome.org? I'm pretty sure I never suggested anything like that. Please let me know where I might have inadvertently created such an impression, if indeed I did. You suggested that there might be doubt or controversy about such a thing, or that such a position might not reflect community consensus. As best as the rest of us can tell, you're the only one who doubts that this is the community consensus, which strongly suggests that you might have some doubts yourself. Luis ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 3:51 PM, Luis Villa l...@tieguy.org wrote: On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:37 PM, Luis Villa l...@tieguy.org wrote: On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:31 PM, Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org wrote: On 1/17/10 6:52 AM, Ciaran O'Riordan cia...@member.fsf.org wrote: GNOME has a policy (written or not) that prohibits importing non-free software into its repositories. I'm not personally aware of a written policy to this effect. If there's an unwritten policy, I'd encourage the Board to write it down in clear and explicit terms and get it agreed to by the membership, since there's not necessarily any actual common understanding of what such a policy says or means, if that's the case. To the best of my knowledge, that policy has never been written down. It has been pointed out that in fact it has been written down: http://live.gnome.org/ProjectPrerequisites and in fact I think I probably helped write it down; I'm looking through my email to see when we had that discussion, but I'm pretty sure that when we wrote it it was so non-controversial that it was not discussed very much, so it won't leave much trail in my inbox. Luis The release team goes further for official modules and states: Free-ness: Apps must be under a Free or Open license and support open standards and protocols. In case of doubt about the module license, send an email to the Release Team and the desktop-devel mailing list. Support of proprietary protocols and closed standards is part of the world we live in, but all applications that support closed protocols should also support open equivalents where those exist, and should default to those if at all possible while still serving their intended purpose. http://live.gnome.org/ReleasePlanning/ModuleProposing#judgement-criteria Of course I don't think Lefty was suggesting we host proprietary software only that non-free would seem to exclude open source. I'm not sure that is the case but for all intents and purposes, historically we have mostly accepted LGPL into the core with perhaps some BSD and MIT licensed code residing inside those modules as is legal. It would be a problem to accept any non GPL compatible license regardless if it is open or not. The release team pretty much holds the keys on what is accepted and what is not. -- John (J5) Palmieri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/17/10 12:37 PM, Luis Villa l...@tieguy.org wrote: To the best of my knowledge, that policy has never been written down. That is because there is and always has been a very, very, very clear and common understanding that this is the policy. It takes almost willful ignorance of our history, culture and policy to suggest otherwise. I don't believe that I actually _did_ suggest otherwise, Luis. If I somehow created an impression that I believe that non-free/non-open source software would be acceptable as a GNOME project, that was certainly not my intention. Can you point out where I might have done so, if you feel that I did? As the page that Shaun points out agrees--and thank you for that reference, Shaun--a component must be free/open source software to be eligible. If we're willing to use the term open source in our policy, why should there any controversy about using it in a statement which describes what we are? I'd certainly have referenced that page earlier, had I been aware of it. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org writes: Open source doesn't imply any reason or policy for rejecting proprietary software... I'm afraid I really have to disagree here: open source software is software which is made available under a license which satisfies the Open Source Definition The Open Source Definition gives criteria for categorising software as open source or not, but it doesn't suggest why someone might avoid or replace non-open-source software. The categorisation (which, in practice, is pretty much identical to The Free Software Definition which predates it) can be made use of by GNOME, but only because GNOME already has a philosophy of what to do with software categorised as non-free/non-open-source: reject it from the repositories. This philosphy comes from GNOME itself and its roots in the free software movement. It doesn't and couldn't come from the Open Source Definition. The last few mails in this thread suggest that people are happy with this aspect of GNOME's philosophy. So it's something worth maintaining. How do we ensure that newcomers see the philosophy and the reasons for avoiding or rewriting non-free/non-open-source software? Using the term free software helps because it leads people to make a connection with a philosophy that answers exactly that question. Other helpful measures can include more prominently displaying the fact that GNOME insists on freedom, and explanations of why software freedom is valuable. Adding open source makes the goal somewhat harder because it will redirect some attention from a definition+philosophy(FSD) to just a definition(OSD). If this is done, then the helpful measures mentioned above become even more important. -- Ciarán O'Riordan, +32 487 64 17 54, http://ciaran.compsoc.com Please help build the software patents wiki: http://en.swpat.org http://www.EndSoftwarePatents.org Donate: http://endsoftwarepatents.org/donate List: http://campaigns.fsf.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/esp-action-alert ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Sun, 2010-01-17 at 22:52 +, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote: [CUT] The last few mails in this thread suggest that people are happy with this aspect of GNOME's philosophy. So it's something worth maintaining. How do we ensure that newcomers see the philosophy and the reasons for avoiding or rewriting non-free/non-open-source software? Using the term free software helps because it leads people to make a connection with a philosophy that answers exactly that question. Other helpful measures can include more prominently displaying the fact that GNOME insists on freedom, and explanations of why software freedom is valuable. As the GNOME community's values have a strong ethical ground, I question the necessity of the FSF's philosophical help. I believe the insinuation that we do is misplaced. [CUT] -- 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: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 4:55 PM, Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.org wrote: Using the term free software helps because it leads people to make a connection with a philosophy that answers exactly that question. Other helpful measures can include more prominently displaying the fact that GNOME insists on freedom, and explanations of why software freedom is valuable. As the GNOME community's values have a strong ethical ground, I question the necessity of the FSF's philosophical help. I believe the insinuation that we do is misplaced. Support for free software != FSF philosophical help. The FSF supports free software just like GNOME does. Stormy ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 3:55 PM, Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.org wrote: On Sun, 2010-01-17 at 22:52 +, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote: [CUT] The last few mails in this thread suggest that people are happy with this aspect of GNOME's philosophy. So it's something worth maintaining. How do we ensure that newcomers see the philosophy and the reasons for avoiding or rewriting non-free/non-open-source software? Using the term free software helps because it leads people to make a connection with a philosophy that answers exactly that question. Other helpful measures can include more prominently displaying the fact that GNOME insists on freedom, and explanations of why software freedom is valuable. As the GNOME community's values have a strong ethical ground, I question the necessity of the FSF's philosophical help. The FSF is welcome to give their advice; and should be treated with respect when they do give it, the same as anyone else. This is particularly true in this area, where we know we are walking a difficult line between freedom and conciliation with proprietary software, and we have a lot of influences pushing us in the direction of proprietary software and not all that many pushing us in the other direction. Luis ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/17/10 5:20 PM, Luis Villa l...@tieguy.org wrote: The FSF is welcome to give their advice; and should be treated with respect when they do give it, the same as anyone else. This is particularly true in this area, where we know we are walking a difficult line between freedom and conciliation with proprietary software, and we have a lot of influences pushing us in the direction of proprietary software and not all that many pushing us in the other direction. If anyone feels that I've been less than respectful in this particular discussion, please let me know; I'll certainly apologize if that seems to be the case. Again, that hasn't been my intention. I don't disagree with what you say, Luis. However, I don't see the term open source as pushing us in the direction of proprietary software in any way: the Open Source Definition wouldn't support that. It's a neutral term, in my view, and in the view of others. We use the terms open and open source elsewhere, and it hasn't created particular controversy, or visibly pushed us in the direction of proprietary software, as far as I can tell. Why is it controversial here in particular? ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Sun, 2010-01-17 at 17:55 -0800, Lefty (石鏡 ) wrote: We use the terms open and open source elsewhere, and it hasn't created particular controversy, or visibly pushed us in the direction of proprietary software, as far as I can tell. Why is it controversial here in particular? As far as I an tell, there has been essentially no controversy whatsoever about any of this until you and Philip seemingly started trying to drum one up. What exactly are you even trying to change? Is there an official GNOME position statement that you object to? Something on a gnome.org website somewhere? What exactly are we actually talking about here? jonner ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/17/10 9:30 PM, Jonathon Jongsma jonat...@quotidian.org wrote: As far as I an tell, there has been essentially no controversy whatsoever about any of this until you and Philip seemingly started trying to drum one up. What exactly are you even trying to change? Is there an official GNOME position statement that you object to? Something on a gnome.org website somewhere? What exactly are we actually talking about here? I'm sorry, Jonathon, I thought that was clear. Stormy proposed the following statement on behalf of GNOME in her message of this past Friday on this thread: The GNOME Foundation believes in free software and promotes free software but that does not mean that GNOME is anti-proprietary software. We believe, promote, use and write free software. We are excited when companies and individuals use GNOME technologies because we believe it brings us closer to our mission and vision of a free desktop (or mobile interface) accessible to everyone. Sometimes those companies are proprietary software companies and while we hope that they move closer to free software in the future (and that we are helping them do so with the use of GNOME), we are delighted that they have chosen to use GNOME and will help them and their customers. I've suggested that the first sentence should instead read something like The GNOME Foundation believes in and promotes free/open source software... Hope this clarifies things. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
It is clear that GNOME needs to do more to educate its community, including the Foundation members, about the importance of freedom; that is, to communicate and support the ideas of the free software movement. The draft statement posted uses the term free software, but it does not support the ethical idea of free software. The GNOME Foundation believes in free software and promotes free software but that does not mean that GNOME is anti-proprietary software. The basic ethical idea of free software is that proprietary software denies its users the freedom they deserve. To support the free software idea in some degree is to be, in that degree, critical of proprietary software, even if one doesn't emphasize that aspect. Thus, the sentence cited above has the effect of refusing to support the free software idea. Sometimes those companies are proprietary software companies and while we hope that they move closer to free software in the future (and that we are helping them do so with the use of GNOME), we are delighted that they have chosen to use GNOME and will help them and their customers. We want GNOME to be used, even in proprietary applications. Thus, if a proprietary program uses GNOME, we are glad GNOME was chosen. However, the word delighted is so strongly positive that the overall effect is to praise and welcome said proprietary software. It implies we are glad that a proprietary program was developed, presuming it uses GNOME -- and we shouldn't be. The statement could express mild support for the ethical idea of free software by replacing the first sentence cited with this GNOME was developed for the sake of computer users' freedom. The GNOME Foundation supports users' freedom and promotes free software. and replacing the second with Even if a program is proprietary, we invite its developers to use GNOME as its interface platform. Introducing the term open source into the statement, along with the open source position that it already endorses, would reject the free software idea even more strongly. This is not the way to express support. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Anyway - as I say, for me they're essentially synonyms. For others, including RMS, they're not. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html for an explanation of the difference in philosophy between free software and open source. GNOME is a GNU package, and was founded specifically to fight for users' freedom. It is on the free software side. However, people are welcome to contribute to GNOME regardless of their views on this or any subject. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/16/10 1:10 PM, Richard Stallman r...@gnu.org wrote: See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html for an explanation of the difference in philosophy between free software and open source. I'm pretty sure most people on the list have read the essay and understand your view. Any who might not have certainly should. GNOME is a GNU package, and was founded specifically to fight for users' freedom. It is on the free software side. However, people are welcome to contribute to GNOME regardless of their views on this or any subject. You use one term exclusively, and see a distinction between the two; I use another, and see a somewhat different distinction, perhaps; some, as Dave, see them as synonymous, and might use either one. We're all members, and we hold a variety of viewpoints. Since there's evidently no settled view of the matter, and no likelihood of there being one soon, it seems to me that a statement which represents the Foundation (which is, as Stormy has pointed out, no more than its members) should not affirm only one of the two viewpoints to the exclusion of the other. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Le vendredi 15 janvier 2010, à 13:02 +0100, Philip Van Hoof a écrit : I also hope the foundation board will respect the results of these surveys. What do you mean? 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: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 13:11 +0100, Vincent Untz wrote: Hi Vincent, Le vendredi 15 janvier 2010, à 13:02 +0100, Philip Van Hoof a écrit : I also hope the foundation board will respect the results of these surveys. What do you mean? I don't (didn't) mean any immediate action is needed. I do believe that these results should be kept in mind for future decisions. Cheers, Philip -- Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer home: me at pvanhoof dot be gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org http://pvanhoof.be/blog http://codeminded.be ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 13:02 +0100, Philip Van Hoof wrote: They sharply illustrate that open source developers are far more pragmatic than certain people in the audience would like us to be. The results show 38 % of people non involved with free software, there should be a way to temporary remove their answer for analysis and see the difference. I hope that the foundation board will learn from your surveys and will conduct them for most of the future foundation-board decisions too. I also hope the foundation board will respect the results of these surveys. The results are invaluable. The board should listen to the foundation members, without being blind to the external world. For them to get a better view, I am sure there could be more statistically interesting ways to present the data (such as coupling answers: is the answer to question View on Floss/1 different per age group? per region of the world? per first language?). As far as I remember from my stats classes, for surveys to be most valuable, have to have a representative set of people filling it in. Being an open form on the web, I believe it is hard to determine if the people who completed the survey are the people we really want an opinion from and if they are representative of the community. Surveys can be useful, let's make sure they are done properly (if not already). Anyone with a maths degree here to set me right? :) Pierre-Luc signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Hi Philip, On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 13:02 +0100, Philip Van Hoof wrote: I disrespect people who claim that this last survey has intentional bias. For me they are being intellectually dishonest. Giving one definition of a word, then asking if someone else's sentence containing that word is true is at best partial. Feel free to disrespect me. Xav ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 14:38 +0100, Xavier Bestel wrote: Hi Xavier, On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 13:02 +0100, Philip Van Hoof wrote: I disrespect people who claim that this last survey has intentional bias. For me they are being intellectually dishonest. Giving one definition of a word, Lefty gave accurate definitions for the words he used. For example the word illegitimate: Richard clearly questioned the legitimacy of proprietary software and asked us to mirror this statement. This is archived if you don't believe me. Firstly: The only person who here might have intentionally created the ambiguity is the person who first used the word to describe proprietary: Richard. I use might wisely, I'm not saying this was the intention. Pointing to Lefty for being guilty of intentionally creating ambiguity is nothing more than either being a moron, or being so disinterested that you don't know who said what first. Moron: 1. a person who is (notably stupid or) lacking in good judgment. Secondly: Lefty's last survey's exact words: Legitimate means both not contrary to existing law and in accordance with recognized or accepted standards or principles. Do you believe that proprietary software is illegitimate? Possible meanings according to an English dictionary: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/illegitimate 1. born of parents who are not married to each other; born out of wedlock: an illegitimate child. - Not relevant here 2. not legitimate; not sanctioned by law or custom. 3. unlawful; illegal: an illegitimate action. - Relevant, Richard used illegitimate within the context of laws and legality. When talking about the proprietary nature of a work, you are discussing legal aspects of its license. 4. irregular; not in good usage. - Somewhat relevant, it's clear that proprietary sets the context firmly to law systems and legality. Richard could have used less ambiguity if he meant this. He didn't. 5. Logic. not in accordance with the principles of valid inference. - Logic is not relevant here. 6. Obsolete a. of or pertaining to stage plays in which musical numbers were inserted because of laws that gave only a few theaters the exclusive right to produce straight dramas. b. acting in or producing such productions. - Not relevant, it's not about music, dramas or theaters. Also like point #4 is it clear that proprietary sets the context firmly to law systems and legality in case you insist on skewing #6 until it suits you. I know people claimed that with illegitimate Richard meant unethical. To be honest doesn't illegitimate mean unethical. Not according to the English dictionaries that I own, nor the online ones that I know about. Nonetheless has Lefty, being unbiased, added morality to his surveys' questions. The results for those questions aren't ambiguous either. then asking if someone else's sentence containing that word is true is at best partial. Feel free to disrespect me. You didn't illustrate Lefty's intent to put a bias in the survey, nor are you intellectually proving that there is any in it. If that's your claim then I indeed feel myself free to disrespect you for it. I don't see why I need to respect people who falsely accuse others. -- 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: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 7:02 AM, Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.org wrote: On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 02:01 -0800, Lefty (石鏡 ) wrote: Hi Lefty, Thanks to Bruno and the rest of the Membership team. It pleases me for some reason to be on the same list of new members as my friend, Jim Vasile. On a different matter, I am currently conducting a brief ( 5 minute) survey on attitudes and viewpoints on FLOSS and proprietary software and I invite all to participate in it. We have on the order to 400 respondents so far, but I’d like to get as broad a level of coverage as possible. Thanks a lot for taking the time to conduct these surveys! The results are more than enlightening to me. The surveys definitely are useful and insightful. They sharply illustrate that open source developers are far more pragmatic than certain people in the audience would like us to be. Thanks for relegating the opposing view to certain people. It is certainly intelectually honest of you to put them in all in the same bucket and then crap in it. As for the survey, we have always known GNOME developers to be pretty practical and pragmatic as evidenced by the selection the LGPL for most of our code. The surveys in question have been adjenda driven as a need to de-legitimize the GPL and Free Software in general and RMSs manifesto in particular. While not many of us would say we 100% follow every word that comes out of RMSs mouth, many of us still believe in the notion behind Free Software as a better, and yes more moral way to develop. It is sad thet the FOSS economy is still in its infancy and can not support all of the developers out there yet but that is one of the goals. So, when a survey asks, is proprietary software immoral, illegitimate or antisocial, you are really asking if people who use or develop proprietary software are immoral, illegitimate or antisocial. It isn't really an interesting question. The original issue that brought this all up is whether GNOME should drop people from the planet for endorsing proprietary applications. I don't think there was anyone in any position to do so who agreed (short of some coordinated advertising campaign). I however do agree that GNOME itself should not help promote proprietary software if part of our goal is to spread FOSS software. That means simply that we don't official endorse any proprietary software other than to say it uses GNOME technologies, or a howto get GNOME technology working under some piece of software (Windows, VMWare, etc.). We should never provide links to download proprietary software on official, non-aggregated sites (including the wiki) unless there are no other equivalent FOSS alternatives. Unfortunately the survey doesn't really address that, nor could it. -- John (J5) Palmieri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 10:37 -0500, john palmieri wrote: On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 7:02 AM, Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.org wrote: The results are more than enlightening to me. The surveys definitely are useful and insightful. They sharply illustrate that open source developers are far more pragmatic than certain people in the audience would like us to be. Thanks for relegating the opposing view to certain people. It is certainly intelectually honest of you to put them in all in the same bucket and then crap in it. These people aren't who I refer to as certain people. In the next section I clarify that certain people means the people who are very disruptive. Cutting it away doesn't change that I wrote exactly that. Let me be helpful and put it back for you: Given that some of those people have been very disruptive, it for me absolutely was needed to confront them with numerical reality. I'll [cut] the rest of your E-mail away now, because this renders it all not relevant to what I wrote. Cheers, Philip -- Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer home: me at pvanhoof dot be gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org http://pvanhoof.be/blog http://codeminded.be ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/15/10 5:38 AM, Xavier Bestel xavier.bes...@free.fr wrote: Giving one definition of a word, then asking if someone else's sentence containing that word is true is at best partial. Xavier, without defining the term beforehand, I'd be open instead to accusations that I wasn't being fair somehow by not defining what I meant clearly. Feel free to disrespect me. Well, if people are inclined to find fault beforehand, they'll usually discover that they've found it at the end of things. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 10:05 AM, Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.orgwrote: On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 14:38 +0100, Xavier Bestel wrote: Hi Xavier, On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 13:02 +0100, Philip Van Hoof wrote: I disrespect people who claim that this last survey has intentional bias. For me they are being intellectually dishonest. Giving one definition of a word, Lefty gave accurate definitions for the words he used. For example the word illegitimate: Richard clearly questioned the legitimacy of proprietary software and asked us to mirror this statement. This is archived if you don't believe me. Firstly: The only person who here might have intentionally created the ambiguity is the person who first used the word to describe proprietary: Richard. I use might wisely, I'm not saying this was the intention. Have you ever read his manifesto? While you might not agree with his conclusions, his logic would pass most any scrutiny. Pointing to Lefty for being guilty of intentionally creating ambiguity is nothing more than either being a moron, or being so disinterested that you don't know who said what first. Moron: 1. a person who is (notably stupid or) lacking in good judgment. You always seem to devolve into ad-hominem, personal attacks. -- John (J5) Palmieri ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 09:34 -0700, Stormy Peters wrote: Hi Stormy! I believe we can state it this way ... The GNOME Foundation believes in free software and promotes free software but that does not mean that GNOME is anti-proprietary software. We believe, promote, use and write free software. I fully agree with this statement if you replace free software with open source. We are excited when companies and individuals use GNOME technologies because we believe it brings us closer to our mission and vision of a free desktop (or mobile interface) accessible to everyone. Awesome (the use of the word free is fine if above you use open source). Sometimes those companies are proprietary software companies and while we hope that they move closer to free software in the future (and that s/free software/open source/g we are helping them do so with the use of GNOME), we are delighted that they have chosen to use GNOME and will help them and their customers. Fantastic. In my opinion we can only reconsider to use of the word free software in a text like this when the free-software foundation comes to its senses. This is an excerpt of a private E-mail that Lefty sent me. The survey's results are open for everybody so this ain't a secret anyway: There's about twice the uptake for the term open source software as there is for free software. If the board respects the results of the survey, which I think it should do, it takes this into account. -- 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: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Hi Philip, Please refrain from calling people crazy or disruptive. Please keep the discussion on the actions not people's characters. By labelling people with negative terms, these debates turn into arguments instead of productive discussions. Stormy On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.org wrote: On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 11:05 -0500, john palmieri wrote: On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 10:41 AM, Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.org wrote: On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 10:37 -0500, john palmieri wrote: You are still implying that those who are in opposition are the disruptive people. It is a blanket, emotional statement. You could have simply left it with open source developers are far more pragmatic than some give credit for. No because the survey's importance for me is to illustrate to the disruptive people that they are crazy. The opposition contains intelligent people too. I'm not referring to them. You are trying to skew my words because it would suit you if I would have said that. But I didn't. I think it's clear for everybody who I mean with disruptive people. Because you are pretty disrespectful in how you deal with debate, this is the last time I am replying to you on this thread. Yes that's easy. I disagree with him so I'm going to reply disrespectfully by trying to skew his words and cut away the most important part of his E-mail ... And then I will claim that HE was disrespectful and that I don't want to talk with him anymore, that way framing the debate with misinformation. Sorry John, but it's not because you use a cleaner writing style than I do, that you aren't being disrespectful. You did cut context-relevant sentences and you are misrepresenting what I said. You didn't even had the respect to write a [CUT], which is netiquette. Cheers, -- 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: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/15/10 8:34 AM, Stormy Peters stormy.pet...@gmail.com wrote: The GNOME Foundation believes in free software and promotes free software but that does not mean that GNOME is anti-proprietary software. We believe, promote, use and write free software. We are excited when companies and individuals use GNOME technologies because we believe it brings us closer to our mission and vision of a free desktop (or mobile interface) accessible to everyone. Sometimes those companies are proprietary software companies and while we hope that they move closer to free software in the future (and that we are helping them do so with the use of GNOME), we are delighted that they have chosen to use GNOME and will help them and their customers. That certainly strikes me as a lot more sensible than an unqualified, blanket statement that proprietary software is ³illegitimate², etc. I very much do not want to see GNOME sending out, standing behind, or otherwise subscribing to statements that would effectively create a group of ³second class citizens² within the community, or create a context where people felt they somehow less valued (or valid) members of the community based on their own use of proprietary software (and again, 2 out of 3 respondents to the survey used proprietary software on their own time.) I likewise very much do not want to see an impression created the GNOME is hostile to organizations that earn some portion of their revenues from the sale or use of proprietary software, or that it views them as somehow criminal or ³unethical² or whatever. As Voltaire advised: ³Never let the best become the enemy of the good.² ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/15/10 8:49 AM, Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.org wrote: I fully agree with this statement if you replace free software with open source. I have some sympathy with this view. Open source is my preference as well and (based on the survey data) seems to have broader uptake among the respondents. That said, I can personally live with free (in spite of it not being the terminology I personally use) if that's the consensus among the members here. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 08:58 -0800, Lefty (石鏡 ) wrote: On 1/15/10 8:49 AM, Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.org wrote: Hi Stormy! I fully agree with this statement if you replace free software with open source. I have some sympathy with this view. Open source is my preference as well and (based on the survey data) seems to have broader uptake among the respondents. That said, I can personally live with free (in spite of it not being the terminology I personally use) if that's the consensus among the members here. Like you say, the survey's data seems to suggest a broader uptake among the respondents for open source. I don't know but I'm inclined to believe that the consensus among the members is open source, not free software then. Because we can't be sure it might be wise to do a survey at some point in future to find out what the actual consensus on this is. Although I would accept that the foundation board has a decisive role in this. Why else do we elect you guys and don't replace you with surveys? Free software vs. open source isn't a matter of just picking words, in my opinion. I think we should get this right. /opinions -- 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: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 09:50 -0700, Stormy Peters wrote: Hi Stormy, Please refrain from calling people crazy or disruptive. Please keep the discussion on the actions not people's characters. By labelling people with negative terms, these debates turn into arguments instead of productive discussions. I agree, apologizes for the labelling. -- 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: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 18:05 +0100, Philip Van Hoof wrote: On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 08:58 -0800, Lefty (石鏡 ) wrote: On 1/15/10 8:49 AM, Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.org wrote: Hi Stormy! Mistake, I was replying to Lefty. Sorry Lefty. You know I like your féminin side ;) I fully agree with this statement if you replace free software with open source. I have some sympathy with this view. Open source is my preference as well and (based on the survey data) seems to have broader uptake among the respondents. That said, I can personally live with free (in spite of it not being the terminology I personally use) if that's the consensus among the members here. Like you say, the survey's data seems to suggest a broader uptake among the respondents for open source. I don't know but I'm inclined to believe that the consensus among the members is open source, not free software then. Because we can't be sure it might be wise to do a survey at some point in future to find out what the actual consensus on this is. Although I would accept that the foundation board has a decisive role in this. Why else do we elect you guys and don't replace you with surveys? Free software vs. open source isn't a matter of just picking words, in my opinion. I think we should get this right. /opinions -- 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: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
I too usually prefer to use the term open source software. However, in this context, I think the term free software is more appropriate. To me, open source software is any software that meets the OSI definition, http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd. It is also the way most companies talk about free and open source software. Free software, to me, also meets the same definition but in addition shows a preference for free software and support for free software in general. I think the GNOME Foundation definitely prefers free software - see the statement. (And that does not mean it is anti-proprietary software.) The GNOME Foundation believes in free software and promotes free software but that does not mean that GNOME is anti-proprietary software. We believe, promote, use and write free software. We are excited when companies and individuals use GNOME technologies because we believe it brings us closer to our mission and vision of a free desktop (or mobile interface) accessible to everyone. Sometimes those companies are proprietary software companies and while we hope that they move closer to free software in the future (and that we are helping them do so with the use of GNOME), we are delighted that they have chosen to use GNOME and will help them and their customers. That said, I don't have any objections to companies or individuals referring to GNOME as open source software. I actually consciously try to decide whether I mean free software or open source software whenever I use either term now. You'll see me use both in the same paragraph - intentionally - as I think they have different meanings and connotations. We could also amend the statement to say free and open source software but it gets awkward. Stormy On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org wrote: On 1/15/10 8:49 AM, Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.org wrote: I fully agree with this statement if you replace free software with open source. I have some sympathy with this view. Open source is my preference as well and (based on the survey data) seems to have broader uptake among the respondents. That said, I can personally live with free (in spite of it not being the terminology I personally use) if that's the consensus among the members here. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 10:37 -0700, Stormy Peters wrote: [CUT] We could also amend the statement to say free and open source software but it gets awkward. I think it's a great idea to (at least) use both. Free software isn't a synonym for open source, and by only using 'free software' you aren't including all the OSI definitions which GNOME also endorses. What about the companies and people, like me, who don't feel attached to free software ideology and yet develop for and with GNOME technologies? If anything I think this debate and the survey's data legitimizes the claim that GNOME is far from only a free software community. This the GNOME foundation should be unambiguously clear about in its statements and texts. In my opinion. Cheers, -- 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: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/15/10 9:45 AM, Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.org wrote: I think it's a great idea to (at least) use both. I'd favor this as well. What it gains in possible awkwardness (which doesn't bother me, I used to say free and open source software all the time) it also gains in clarity, I think. Free software isn't a synonym for open source, and by only using 'free software' you aren't including all the OSI definitions which GNOME also endorses. This is actually an excellent, and an important, point. What about the companies and people, like me, who don't feel attached to free software ideology and yet develop for and with GNOME technologies? Also an important point. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org wrote: On 1/15/10 9:45 AM, Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.org wrote: I think it's a great idea to (at least) use both. I'd favor this as well. What it gains in possible awkwardness (which doesn't bother me, I used to say free and open source software all the time) it also gains in clarity, I think. I have no objections to free and open source other than it's awkwardness. (I too have used it quite a bit.) Stormy ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Hi, Philip Van Hoof wrote: Lefty gave accurate definitions for the words he used. For example the word illegitimate: Richard clearly questioned the legitimacy of proprietary software and asked us to mirror this statement. This is archived if you don't believe me. illegitimate is not a synonym for illegal. The way Stallman uses sthe word, it is more accurate to consider it a synonym of immoral. Secondly: Lefty's last survey's exact words: Legitimate means both not contrary to existing law and in accordance with recognized or accepted standards or principles. Do you believe that proprietary software is illegitimate? Possible meanings according to an English dictionary: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/illegitimate 1. born of parents who are not married to each other; born out of wedlock: an illegitimate child. - Not relevant here 2. not legitimate; not sanctioned by law or custom. 3. unlawful; illegal: an illegitimate action. - Relevant, Richard used illegitimate within the context of laws and legality. When talking about the proprietary nature of a work, you are discussing legal aspects of its license. 4. irregular; not in good usage. - Somewhat relevant, it's clear that proprietary sets the context firmly to law systems and legality. Richard could have used less ambiguity if he meant this. He didn't. It appears to me that RMS is using illegitimate in the sense not sanctioned by custom perhaps - or more likely, irregular; not in good usage. From the two options Lefty lists, not in accordance with recognized or accepted standards or principles Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 09:34 -0700, Stormy Peters wrote: I believe we can state it this way ... The GNOME Foundation believes in free software and promotes free software but that does not mean that GNOME is anti-proprietary software. We believe, promote, use and write free software. We are excited when companies and individuals use GNOME technologies because we believe it brings us closer to our mission and vision of a free desktop (or mobile interface) accessible to everyone. Sometimes those companies are proprietary software companies and while we hope that they move closer to free software in the future (and that we are helping them do so with the use of GNOME), we are delighted that they have chosen to use GNOME and will help them and their customers. This is a great, positive way of saying things that I consider to reflect the long-standing views of the GNOME community and is inclusive of the diversity of opinions that we have. Continuing a negatively framed debate like does the GNOME community believe that proprietary software is immoral is not helpful. I hope Lefty will take a step back and consider whether his survey actually has a real purpose in guiding the activity of the GNOME project. We have a lot of software to write, we have a lot of users to get our message to. I think there's a responsibility on all of us, and especially those who could be seen (by virtue of holding a position on a GNOME board) as representing GNOME, not to get sidetracked into argument for the sake of argument. - Owen ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/15/10 10:01 AM, David Schlesinger le...@shugendo.org wrote: Free software isn't a synonym for open source, and by only using 'free software' you aren't including all the OSI definitions which GNOME also endorses. This is actually an excellent, and an important, point. Having poked around a little bit, I think this needs to be stated more strongly. We certainly have software in GNOME that's being made available under the Apache license. (The keyring is an example a little Google'ing turned up...) With respect to the v2 GPLand we still don't accept v3 GPL software as GNOME components, last I heardsoftware under the Apache license can't be reasonably described as free software, since it is incompatible with what is uncontrovertibly a free software license, i.e. the v2 GPL. It is, regardless, unequivocally open source software. Given this, we cannot legitimately simply use the term free software to describe what's included under the GNOME umbrella. Doing so would exclude any software which is licensed under terms which the FSF says are incompatible with the GPL. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/15/10 10:10 AM, Stormy Peters stormy.pet...@gmail.com wrote: I have no objections to free and open source other than it's awkwardness. (I too have used it quite a bit.) As I point out in my previous message, I¹d say we have to use it, awkward or not. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
I will amend to say free and open source in the least awkward way I can. Stormy On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 11:16 AM, Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org wrote: On 1/15/10 10:10 AM, Stormy Peters stormy.pet...@gmail.com wrote: I have no objections to free and open source other than it's awkwardness. (I too have used it quite a bit.) As I point out in my previous message, I’d say we *have* to use it, awkward or not. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 10:14 AM, Owen Taylor otay...@redhat.com wrote: On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 09:34 -0700, Stormy Peters wrote: I believe we can state it this way ... The GNOME Foundation believes in free software and promotes free software but that does not mean that GNOME is anti-proprietary software. We believe, promote, use and write free software. We are excited when companies and individuals use GNOME technologies because we believe it brings us closer to our mission and vision of a free desktop (or mobile interface) accessible to everyone. Sometimes those companies are proprietary software companies and while we hope that they move closer to free software in the future (and that we are helping them do so with the use of GNOME), we are delighted that they have chosen to use GNOME and will help them and their customers. This is a great, positive way of saying things that I consider to reflect the long-standing views of the GNOME community and is inclusive of the diversity of opinions that we have. Continuing a negatively framed debate like does the GNOME community believe that proprietary software is immoral is not helpful. I hope Lefty will take a step back and consider whether his survey actually has a real purpose in guiding the activity of the GNOME project. We have a lot of software to write, we have a lot of users to get our message to. I think there's a responsibility on all of us, and especially those who could be seen (by virtue of holding a position on a GNOME board) as representing GNOME, not to get sidetracked into argument for the sake of argument. +1 to both Owen and Stormy's statements. Luis ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 10:15 -0800, Lefty (石鏡 ) wrote: On 1/15/10 10:01 AM, David Schlesinger le...@shugendo.org wrote: Free software isn't a synonym for open source, and by only using 'free software' you aren't including all the OSI definitions which GNOME also endorses. This is actually an excellent, and an important, point. Having poked around a little bit, I think this needs to be stated more strongly. We certainly have software in GNOME that's being made available under the Apache license. (The keyring is an example a little Google'ing turned up...) With respect to the v2 GPLand we still don't accept v3 GPL software as GNOME components, last I heardsoftware under the Apache license can't be reasonably described as free software, since it is incompatible with what is uncontrovertibly a free software license, i.e. the v2 GPL. It is, regardless, unequivocally open source software. It's practically speaking a problem if GNOME ships any code under a GPL incompatible license. This is something that should be red-flagged by the release team, because it will cause problems in effectively sharing and moving code between GNOME components. But it has very little to do with Free Software vs. Open Source Software. E.g. the FSF page on licensing has a section called: GPL-Incompatible Free Software Licenses http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses Including the Apache license. Given this, we cannot legitimately simply use the term free software to describe what's included under the GNOME umbrella. Doing so would exclude any software which is licensed under terms which the FSF says are incompatible with the GPL. GNOME has strong historical ties to the Free Software movement and believes in Free Software/Open Source Software as a positive societal good, and not just a convenient business strategy. For this reason, I think Free Software should be our preferred term. There are of course, audiences for which Free Software can be a confusing and unfamiliar term and in communicating with these audiences we may want to refer to Open Source Software additionally or even alternatively. - Owen ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Lefty, you don't go to an organization of iphone developers and use a survey to try to convert them to be Android developers. What you are doing is kind of like that here. 2010/1/15 Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org Thanks to Bruno and the rest of the Membership team. It pleases me for some reason to be on the same list of new members as my friend, Jim Vasile. On a different matter, I am currently conducting a brief ( 5 minute) survey on attitudes and viewpoints on FLOSS and proprietary software and I invite all to participate in it. We have on the order to 400 respondents so far, but I’d like to get as broad a level of coverage as possible. The survey can be found at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/F8DG25Q A summary of the responses received so far can be found at http://bit.ly/74WQBI Thanks in advance for your participation. I’ll be making a formal report of the results in a few weeks. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list -- Andy Tai, a...@atai.org Happy New Year 2010 民國99年 自動的精神力是信仰與覺悟 自動的行為力是勞動與技能 ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
I think what Lefty was trying to do was show that the list/community/group has lots of different opinions and we all make lots of assumptions whenever we talk about the community. That said, I believe surveys are a very hard way to make definitive statements. Stormy 2010/1/15 Andy Tai a...@atai.org Lefty, you don't go to an organization of iphone developers and use a survey to try to convert them to be Android developers. What you are doing is kind of like that here. 2010/1/15 Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org Thanks to Bruno and the rest of the Membership team. It pleases me for some reason to be on the same list of new members as my friend, Jim Vasile. On a different matter, I am currently conducting a brief ( 5 minute) survey on attitudes and viewpoints on FLOSS and proprietary software and I invite all to participate in it. We have on the order to 400 respondents so far, but I’d like to get as broad a level of coverage as possible. The survey can be found at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/F8DG25Q A summary of the responses received so far can be found at http://bit.ly/74WQBI Thanks in advance for your participation. I’ll be making a formal report of the results in a few weeks. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list -- Andy Tai, a...@atai.org Happy New Year 2010 民國99年 自動的精神力是信仰與覺悟 自動的行為力是勞動與技能 ___ 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: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/15/10 9:57 AM, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: Please stop trolling. Dave, I think this is unhelpful. If you must, maybe you should do it privately, rather than publicly. How about I do a poll whether people think PCs should run Windows or another desktop environment? If we respect the results we should stop developing GNOME. This survey is not specifically related to GNOME, as I've said. I mentioned it here mainly in order to ensure getting the broadest participation. I am conducting it mainly for my own interest, in order to see how well expressed beliefs reflect actual realities. If you're suggesting that _this_ survey is somehow biased, as your example question would appear to, I'd appreciate more specific information. Isn't leading by survey one of the issues you had with the Bush Blair administrations? I'm most certainly not proposing that the Board necessarily do or not do anything based on the results. I do, however, think they're worthy of consideration. Note that I have not suggested that anyone respect the results. I do think that people should consider them, but that's entirely up to them. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/15/10 11:10 AM, Owen Taylor otay...@redhat.com wrote: We certainly all know that RMS believes that. Some other GNOME community members may as well, though probably not a large number. It, is however, your choice to focus on it, and I don't understand what you are trying to achieve by doing that. - Are you trying to argue down RMS? I've certainly never seen that work in 15 years. No, that would be futile, I suspect. I _am_ trying to discern how well RMS' views reflect the views of the free software/open source software/FLOSS/FOSS community at large, an effort I believe to be completely legitimate. - Are you trying to create a split between the Free Software Foundation and GNOME? How would that be helpful to GNOME? No, I don't have the power to do that, nor is it up to me. - Are you trying to get some change made in how the GNOME project does business? What? No, as I said, I'm trying to see how the community views these issues. By posting something on foundation-list, I feel that you are pretty explicitly saying it is related to GNOME. I can't help how you feel, Owen. I _can_ assure that its only relation to GNOME is that members of GNOME are most certainly members of the target audience I'm seeking. I would point out, again, that given the construction of the survey, there's no way to pull out response from Foundation members as opposed to the public at large. Given that there's no possible cross-tabulation on that factor, it's flatly impossible to draw conclusions regarding GNOME on the basis of these particular survey results. That was, as I mentioned, fairly deliberate. That said, if some future survey were to demonstrate that the views expressed by the FSF represented the views of only a minority of the members of the Foundation or the GNOME community at large, then that would represent data to which the Foundation and the Board should give serious consideration, in my view. I am NOT claiming that this is the case, by any means, see the preceding paragraph. Now, I've similarly posted announcements of this survey on Twitter, identi.ca, Facebook, the FOSDEM general mailing list, the FSF-Europe's Legal Licensing Network mailing list, and I forwarded the information on the survey to Simon Bridge, one of the moderators of the FSF Community Response Team list. I am, similarly, not trying to create splits between FOSDEM, FSF-Europe, or the FSF Community Response Team and the FSF, nor am I trying to change how any of them do business. I am simply seeking a broad cross-section of respondents. I think you may be reading quite a bit more into this than I'd intended. Do you have an objection to the questions in the survey simply being _asked_, Owen...? If anyone wants to put notice of this survey out anywhere where it'll get uptake from members of the free software/open source software/FLOSS/FOSS community, I'd appreciate their doing so. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Le ven. 15 janv. 2010 à 18:57:52 (+0100), Dave Neary a écrit: Philip Van Hoof wrote: I fully agree with this statement if you replace free software with open source. Please stop trolling. This is not going to lead to anything productive (again). Thanks Dave. I am coming late into this, but I feel you should be seconded. Philip, this a new year and I think it would be nice if you could make an effort to not be part of at least ONE troll on foundation-list, just one. Of course, you are not obliged to be nice. It's your call. Dodji ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
2. not legitimate; not sanctioned by law or custom. I don't see what the fuss is about. Not sanctioned by custom precisely describes Richard Stallman's belief that Free Software as a concept does not include considering proprietary software as acceptable in most cases. Whether that is true of the majority use of the term today is open to debate, but it was his term in the first place 8) The EU uses Free, Libre and Open Source Software when it wants to talk about the general space and ensure that the usual misinterpretations of 'free' do not occur and that nobody is offended, mislabeled or wastes all their meeting time with stupid arguments. A bit cumbersome but a good deal more all embracing. Given GNOME has always tended to keep core libraries LGPL that's perhaps also more descriptive too. Alan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/15/10 1:05 PM, Alan Cox a...@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk wrote: 2. not legitimate; not sanctioned by law or custom. I don't see what the fuss is about. I don't know that there _is_ a fuss. That's one of the things I hope to determine via the survey. Not sanctioned by custom precisely describes Richard Stallman's belief that Free Software as a concept does not include considering proprietary software as acceptable in most cases. I understand that. What I'm interested in, however, is the degree to which that belief is reflected in the community. It's an open question, in my mind, whether this view is, in fact, customary in the broader community. Early results would seem to suggest otherwise. If, in factas the survey results apparently showamong the virtually 100% of respondents who use free/etc. software on their own time, about two-thirds also use proprietary software on their own time (i.e. by their own choice), this would seem to suggest that the actual custom may be rather different than what it's being represented to be. The EU uses Free, Libre and Open Source Software when it wants to talk about the general space and ensure that the usual misinterpretations of 'free' do not occur and that nobody is offended, mislabeled or wastes all their meeting time with stupid arguments. I provided FLOSS as a choice, as well as FOSS and Other, with a comments box. I don't want anyone to feel as though they're unrepresented. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 11:31 -0800, Lefty (石鏡 ) wrote: On 1/15/10 11:10 AM, Owen Taylor otay...@redhat.com wrote: We certainly all know that RMS believes that. Some other GNOME community members may as well, though probably not a large number. It, is however, your choice to focus on it, and I don't understand what you are trying to achieve by doing that. - Are you trying to argue down RMS? I've certainly never seen that work in 15 years. [ I apologize if this implies any disrespect to RMS; if I was writing for public consumption, I would certainly have added that I've known RMS to be very reasonable when presented with new information or a strong argument about how some goal should be accomplished. He just doesn't compromise on his principles. It's always good to be reminded never to say anything in private email that you would phrase differently in public, since these mistakes do happen. :-) ] [...] By posting something on foundation-list, I feel that you are pretty explicitly saying it is related to GNOME. I can't help how you feel, Owen. I _can_ assure that its only relation to GNOME is that members of GNOME are most certainly members of the target audience I'm seeking. [...] I think you may be reading quite a bit more into this than I'd intended. Do you have an objection to the questions in the survey simply being _asked_, Owen...? It's very hard not to take the survey as a continuation of the recent discussions on this list, which I felt at the time to be highly unproductive. It was long and acrimonious discussion largely about changes to planet.gnome.org policy that hadn't actually been proposed. I don't think I'm at all alone in taking the survey that way. The purpose of the survey seems to be to collect data to support (or possibly refute) your position. I also feel that the survey is quite flawed, and after going through most of it decided not to submit my answers because by submitting it I would be misrepresenting my opinion on proprietary software. Imagine that somebody wrote an article based on the results of your survey. The results would show that: Many FOSS developers don't consider proprietary software immoral, or illegitimate. Many FOSS developers sometimes use proprietary software. And in fact I'd up in both of those categories. And somebody reading the article would get the impression that FOSS developers don't think there is a moral dimension to Free Software. Yet I strongly believe: - That picking Free Software over proprietary software is the right thing to do even when there is a cost to me such as less functionality. - That a world where a task can't be done with Free Software is a worse world. And that wouldn't be represented at all. In that way, it felt a bit like the sort of surveys you see taken by political action groups with an agenda. That may well not have been your intent - but I think we have to be aware that survey construction is hard, and the very construction of a survey and reporting of survey results is not a neutral activity; it's a form of public relations. And none of us can escape the fact that by being a GNOME member, by speaking on GNOME forums like foundation-list and planet.gnome.org, and by being part of GNOME bodies, whether the sysadmin team, or the advisory board, we speak as part of GNOME. That doesn't mean self-censorship, but it does mean that we have to watch what sort of conversation we are part of, and whether they are productive, or entertaining at the cost of being damaging to GNOME's image. Here, if there are specific changes that you think should be made to GNOME's policies, I think those should be the things we should be discussing, rather than abstract attitudes toward proprietary software. - Owen ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/15/10 1:22 PM, Owen Taylor otay...@redhat.com wrote: I think you may be reading quite a bit more into this than I'd intended. Do you have an objection to the questions in the survey simply being _asked_, Owen...? It's very hard not to take the survey as a continuation of the recent discussions on this list, which I felt at the time to be highly unproductive. It was long and acrimonious discussion largely about changes to planet.gnome.org policy that hadn't actually been proposed. That may be, but I can only encourage try not to take it in that fashion. I don't think I'm at all alone in taking the survey that way. The purpose of the survey seems to be to collect data to support (or possibly refute) your position. I have an _opinion_, but since the other matter was, in fact, fairly well-settled by the editors, I'm not staking out any position here. Assertions were made which I don't personally happen to believe are actually the case. My goal with this survey is to test my hypothesis. If people feel that reporting the results would be unhelpful here, I certainly won't report them. I find them quite interesting, myself. I also feel that the survey is quite flawed, and after going through most of it decided not to submit my answers because by submitting it I would be misrepresenting my opinion on proprietary software. I'd be interested in knowing how a less flawed survey to get some concrete data on these issues would be constructed. I got feedback in comments that an Other was needed on the illegitimate/immoral/antisocial questions, so I added one. Imagine that somebody wrote an article based on the results of your survey. The results would show that: Many FOSS developers don't consider proprietary software immoral, or illegitimate. Many FOSS developers sometimes use proprietary software. All I've pointed out so far is that, apparently, many FOSS _users_ also use proprietary software, by choice. I've done no cross-tabulations on developers, and I won't for a while yet. Now, if in fact, the survey _were_ to show that, say, many FOSS developers actually _don't_ consider proprietary software to be immoral and use it by choice, that's significant, I'd say. Facts are facts. If they're _inconvenient_ facts, I can't really help that, but to proffer fictions instead is simply deceitful. You would seem to be suggesting here that I should not conduct the survey for fear someone might report the results. I may be misunderstanding you. And in fact I'd up in both of those categories. And somebody reading the article would get the impression that FOSS developers don't think there is a moral dimension to Free Software. Yet I strongly believe: - That picking Free Software over proprietary software is the right thing to do even when there is a cost to me such as less functionality. - That a world where a task can't be done with Free Software is a worse world. Then you can choose Other and say precisely that. And that wouldn't be represented at all. See immediately above. Problem solved. Go; be represented, please. In that way, it felt a bit like the sort of surveys you see taken by political action groups with an agenda. That may well not have been your intent - but I think we have to be aware that survey construction is hard, and the very construction of a survey and reporting of survey results is not a neutral activity; it's a form of public relations. Again, I'm open to suggestions as to how it could be improved; none have been forthcoming here. If the suggestion is, Don't _do_ that!, then I'm afraid I'm disinclined to acquiesce to your request. And none of us can escape the fact that by being a GNOME member, by speaking on GNOME forums like foundation-list and planet.gnome.org, and by being part of GNOME bodies, whether the sysadmin team, or the advisory board, we speak as part of GNOME. I speak as part of GNOME, perhaps, but I don't speak _for_ GNOME. The distinction is critically important. Speaking _for_ GNOME is a job for Stormy and the Board, and those to whom they might choose to delegate that responsibility. My opinions don't reflect the views of anyone other than myself. The notion that one should have to change or hide one's own opinions because one is speaking as part of GNOME seems to me to run directly counter to the goal of GNOME to encompass a diversity of views, approaches and opinions. That doesn't mean self-censorship, but it does mean that we have to watch what sort of conversation we are part of, and whether they are productive, or entertaining at the cost of being damaging to GNOME's image. I have to disagree, Owen. If the conversation does not run afoul of the Code of Conduct, then that's all that's required as far as I'm concerned. Anything beyond that _is_ self-censorship. If you feel someoneand that includes meis damaging GNOME's image, you should take it up with the Board and either get the situation
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/15/10 1:58 PM, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: So proposing that GNOME as a project adopt one or the other amounts to a troll, in that it will create an endless discussion with no result. Well, I'll be sure not to propose that, then. Again, my impression has been that there are unquestioned and unexamined beliefs about the attitudes and views of the FLOSS community at large; I happen not to think that those beliefs are true. I'm attempting to test that hypothesis, and I went to some pains to try to do so even-handedly. If you're suggesting that _this_ survey is somehow biased, as your example question would appear to, I'd appreciate more specific information. Not at all. I even voted in it. I'm merely pointing out the absurdity of Phillip's suggestion that the only way to respect a survey is to implement whatever results from it. Okay, that was unclear to me. I personally haven't asked anyone to implement anything. I've limited myself to saying (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong) that I found the results interesting and worth thinking about. As I said to Owen, there's no way to single out GNOME respondents from any other respondents in this particular survey. Thus, I'd personally hesitate to say that any particular results were indicative of anything have to do specifically with GNOME: without a relevant cross-tabulation, the data won't support that. If we _want_ to survey GNOME members, we certainly can. But let's be clear that this isn't what I'm doing here, not to the exclusion of KDE members, NetBSD advocates, Microsoft employees or Bronx zookeepers (should any members of the latter two groups choose to participate: they're more than welcome to). I'm most certainly not proposing that the Board necessarily do or not do anything based on the results. I do, however, think they're worthy of consideration. Note that I have not suggested that anyone respect the results. I do think that people should consider them, but that's entirely up to them. Absolutely - the results are a useful data point. If nothing gets done with the results, because our leaders adopt a stance on behalf of the project, I hope that the people who voted don't feel disrespected. I certainly hope not, especially since the survey was never intended by me to lead to any specific action on the part of anyone in particular. I certainly haven't represented it as having that intention. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/15/10 1:58 PM, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: Having gone through 10 years of Open Source vs Free Software debates, I know that (like emacs vs vim, bsd vs linux, gnome vs kde, bsd vs gpl, reply-to for mailing lists, code indentation styles, and other religious debates) that nothing will come of it. One further comment on this: I stand by my view that Stormy's mission statement should not use the terminology free software to the exclusion of the term open source software. In fact, in light of what you've said, I believe I feel even a little more strongly about it: Since it _is_ a debate, as we agree, there must be a minimum of two sides to it. To simply use free software in that statement would constitute an endorsement of one of the two opinions to the detriment of the other(s). (I'd note in passing that, from the point of view of an open source developer, free software is a subset of open source software; to a free software developer, they're mutually exclusive sets.) ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
Hi, Lefty (石鏡 ) wrote: One further comment on this: I stand by my view that Stormy's mission statement should not use the terminology free software to the exclusion of the term open source software. In fact, in light of what you've said, I believe I feel even a little more strongly about it: FWIW, when I was on the board, my summary of board policy at that time was: * When I speak for myself, I use free software * When speaking for GNOME, use free and open source software - avoid abbreviations FOSS and FLOSS * Avoid using either Linux (except when talking about the kernel) or GNU/Linux if possible - talk about GNOME itself. It was always tricky to start talking about OSes - if you say GNOME is a desktop environment for Linux, you have some requests asking that you say GNU/Linux, other requests to mention BSD, Solaris and other unices, making the phrase awkward long, and reducing its impact. So we tend to avoid that particular discussion in writing. (I'd note in passing that, from the point of view of an open source developer, free software is a subset of open source software; to a free software developer, they're mutually exclusive sets.) As a free software developer, I see them as synonyms. I identify the freedom that we give to users as the key attribute of the software, so I call it free software. Other people call the same software open source, perhaps because the availability of the source is the key attribute for them? Perhaps because it is a better known less ambiguous phrase in English? Anyway - as I say, for me they're essentially synonyms. For others, including RMS, they're not. There are very few (I think 2 or 3) OSI approved licences which are not free software licences also. And there are none in the other direction - all free software licences are open source licences. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 2:58 PM, Lefty (石鏡 ) le...@shugendo.org wrote: I speak as part of GNOME, perhaps, but I don't speak _for_ GNOME. The distinction is critically important. Speaking _for_ GNOME is a job for Stormy and the Board, and those to whom they might choose to delegate that responsibility. My opinions don't reflect the views of anyone other than myself. I disagree quite strongly. All of you can speak for GNOME. All of you should represent and speak for GNOME.[1] You all represent GNOME when you are out in the world. Please go and spread the word and do a good job representing GNOME. Stormy [1] And if you'd like to formally represent GNOME at a conference, please, please do. See http://live.gnome.org/GnomeEvents/Speakers for opportunities. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey
On 1/15/10 3:17 PM, Stormy Peters stormy.pet...@gmail.com wrote: I disagree quite strongly. Fair enough, let me be clearer: my stated views do not necessarily represent the views of the GNOME Foundation or the GNOME community. GNOME comprises a variety of viewpoints, of which mine is one; there are plenty of others. This is one of its strengths. I have a bit of a concern, however, that on the strength of this statement, one might find oneself confronted with the suggestion that one is ³damaging GNOME² somehow by simply expressing a point of view: in fact, such a suggestion has been made in this thread at one point. Again, thisto meseems to demand a sort of self-censorship. Who¹s to make the judgment of what constitutes a ³good job representing GNOME²? Am I doing a ³good job representing GNOME²? (This is intended as a completely rhetorical question, lest anyone misunderstand me here; I am not requesting a ³performance review², and I¹ll look askance at anyone who tries to deliver one on this list.) Some may feel so, but I¹d bet any amount of money that you¹d get some distinct disagreement to that suggestion if you asked around. Not that this bothers me, especially. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
