Re: [OT] Re: [Fwd: Re: Two 3.10 feature ideas]

["Karen Sandler" <karen gnome org>]

On Fri, April 12, 2013 1:51 pm, ×× ×˜×•×œ×™ ×§×¨×¡× ×¨ wrote:
> I wasn't implying closed-source software succeeds, it was sarcasm.
>
> Anyway, arguing on different believes and priorities is pointless, I'll
> stop here. I got the point, you want a bigger market share. But I don't
> understand why. I mean, why is that the primary goal? It sounds like a
> goal for a commercial company.

I've got to chime in here too - I want to bring free software to more
people as part of our nonprofit charitable mission. I believe that it is
really important to our society that we build free alternatives to the
proprietary systems that are increasingly being relied on for critical
functionality. Free software is the right answer for all software, but we
do have a basic challenge in providing the alternatives that people will
want to use. I want to encourage a move to good online services, but I
also know that providing a way for users to continue to use the services
that they already count on is a pre-requisite for many. It's a complicated
issue, and I think we need to work as hard as possible to build
alternatives and to encourage users towards fully free and ethically built
software and services. But we also must be an immediately viable
alternative.

karen

> Anyway, you do what you believe in and I'll do what I believe in. I
> understand now, why Gnome supplies all those "bad" plugins before it
> tries to offer replacements.
>
> There are enough modules for me to work on, which aren't related to
> Facebook or Google.
>
> See you around
>
> On ו', 2013-04-12 at 19:29 +0200, Andre Klapper wrote:
> > On Fri, 2013-04-12 at 19:40 +0300, ×× ×˜×•×œ×™ ×§×¨×¡× ×¨ wrote:
> > > What does "competing on the market" mean? Do you get a salary for
> > > working on Gnome projects, which depends on how many people use your
> > > software?
> >
> > Primarily, markets are based on interest & attention, not money.
> >
> > > Since when is "increasing the user base" a primary goal? If that's
> > we're
> > > after, let's start writing closed-source software. Microsoft, Google,
> > > Facebook and many others succeed more than Gnome, maybe we should just
> > > follow them and abandon the Free Software idea.
> >
> > You imply that because of being closed-source, other projects are more
> > successful, but it's more likely that they are successful for a number
> > of other reasons while being closed-source. So that's a false cause.
> >
> > But we might differ on defining "success" here, I'm thinking in terms of
> > userbase and marketshare, you might not.
> >
> > > Now seriously, which goal is more important: spreading software
> > freedom
> > > and free-as-in-freedom computing, or just getting more people to use
> > > Gnome (which doesn't increase anyone's salary anyway)?
> >
> > To me both is important. Plus not sure why you mention salaries.
> >
> > > In my opinion, the point is that the developers themselves should care
> > > about software freedom, and make that a high-priority goal, rather
> > than
> > > feeding their ego by having users migrate to Gnome.
> >
> > So "caring about software freedom" does not feed your ego by making you
> > feel more morale compared to closed-source? Good, then.
> >
> > >  You can't spread
> > > freedom if you're not consistent with your own ideas. People will say,
> > > "all that open source/free software thing is bullshit, look at them.
> > > They supply a direct connection to Facebook and GMail and Twitter from
> > > the desktop, before them even bother to give us a free alternative.
> > It's
> > > all bullshit, let's go back to Windows."
> >
> > "People will say" misses a citation, but I can come up with that too:
> > "People will say that the open source/free software thing is bullshit,
> > they don't even offer basic integration with the most common services on
> > the interwebs. Freedom is nice, but I need to get my work done."
> >
> > Anyway, I prefer to make GNOME good, easy, beautiful for everybody, not
> > just for people who already know and care about software freedom.
> >
> > andre
>
>
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