Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership

[Philip Van Hoof <pvanhoof gnome org>]

On Fri, 2009-12-11 at 17:40 +0100, Dave Neary wrote:

Hi Dave!

(Are you coming to FOSDEM? We need another of those IRL chats, no?)

> Philip Van Hoof wrote:
> > I propose to have a vote on GNOME's membership to the GNU project.
> 
> Such a vote, whatever the outcome, would have little effect on the GNOME
> project.

I'd agree.

> The debate during the vote could cause a lot of harm & discord for the
> GNOME community.

I actually do agree, yes.

I don't think being afraid of that is sufficient reason to sidestep this
issue We're an intelligent group of people. We can deal with this.

> An outcome whereby GNOME is no longer a GNU project could cause a lot of
> harm to the free software and open source movements in general - there
> would be massive negative publicity.

I agree but we cannot be blind when the leader of the Free Software
Foundation is requesting that the "minimal" thing GNOME should do, is to
support it by, and I quote, "avoiding presenting proprietary software as
legitimate".

I fully understand that ignoring Richard's request is the easy way. But
his request cannot be ignored any longer. He really wants this as a
"minimal" commitment from GNOME.

No matter what feels good for us. We've been ignoring this for too long.

Such a commitment is, as far as I understand our community, not entirely
compatible with the current mindset of a lot of its members, so ...

I think we should be intellectually honest; by doing this vote.

> Since there is very little up-side and substantial down-side, both real
> and in terms of image (which is an important consideration, I think), I
> do not think that we should vote on this issue.
> 
> Don't we have more concrete issues to address?

I ask the same about the apparent necessity to address certain moral
issues like policing the behaviour of our members and introducing a set
of punishments for bad behaviour.

That doesn't mean it can't be discussed. It can.


Cheers,


Philip

-- 
Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer
home: me at pvanhoof dot be 
gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org 
http://pvanhoof.be/blog
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