Re: Questions

[Xavier Bestel <n0made free fr>]

le mar 27-11-2001 à 07:03, Linas Vepstas a écrit :
> On Mon, Nov 26, 2001 at 04:49:02PM -0500, Daniel Veillard was heard to remark:
> > 
> >   The GNOME Project is part
> > of the GNU project, sure, but I'm sorry I don't see any strong dependancy
> > to the GNU project, 
> 
> I think a bit of history is in order.  In the begining was the Kool
> Desktop Environment, aka KDE.   But KDE was built on the not-quite-free
> Qt library.  For many developers, the 'non-purists', let us call them, 
> this situation was good enough.  (I admit, I felt rather agnostic at the
> time, myself).  Qt was free for personal use, and if corporations had to 
> pay big bucks to get Qt, well who cares. Its was free for personal,
> non-commercial use.
> 
> But this was not good enough for some people.  They beleived in true
> Freedom.  They wanted a desktop that was free for corporations as well
> as for individuals.  They beleived in the principles of GNU and the 
> incarnation of FSF as the One True Way, and they beleived in this 
> *so* strongly that they started a development project that was Pure,
> untainted by the Qt License.   Now, unless you were a True Beleiver,
> this seemd to be a collosal waste of time: after all, KDE was well
> established, and already had a year or two of development effort
> under its belt.  It had a lead.  It was a rising star.  Who would
> be stupid enough to array themselves against KDE over something
> so trivial and unimportant as a licensing issue?  Well, the Gnome
> people would.  Thus, Gnome was born.

May I add that, without RMS 'lauching' the GNOME project and harassing
TrollTech, Qt would probably never have been licenced under the GPL ?

Personnally I don't use GNOME & Linux because they are technically
superior, but because they are FREE, like in "free speech" or "libre". I
wouldn't like GNOME to change its goal, which is for me to provide a
totally free desktop environment. I have not voted for RMS, because I
think the board has a position which is more administrative than
political, but now that I see that none of the candidates I votes for
seem interested in defending the freedom side of GNOME, I really have
regrets.

Please ask yourself what GNOME stands for, and don't forget it.

Regards,
	Xav