Re: Draining the Swamp: A Technical User's Experience

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

    Some people are contributing to Gnome, because they care about freedom;
    some others are related because they liked the Gimp and liked to do
    pretty graphics;

That's not a special situation; it's normal for a GNU package.  When a
person offers to contribute to a GNU package, we don't ask what his
motives are.  If someone offers a useful contribution, we accept it.
When someone offers a practical contribution, the only questions we
have to ask are practical ones about making use of the contribution.

As a consequence, it is normal that a GNU package has contributors
with various motives.  Some are concerned with making GNU a better
system, and some are not.  Some are concerned with spreading freedom
and community for computer users, and some are not.  I say that this
is normal, but that statement is based on extrapolation, because most
of the time we don't actually know what their motives are--we never
asked them.

We accept contributions from people who don't share our overall goals,
but that doesn't mean we invite them to redefine the goals of the
project.  We have to keep the goals in mind and keep progress going in
the right direction.  When people offer contributions that take the
package in the right direction, we accept them; when they propose to
take the package in the wrong direction, we say no thanks.

When you started GNOME, under the auspices of the GNU Project, you
were strongly motivated to defend the users' freedom from the threat
posed by Qt.  I am disappointed that you have changed your mind about
the importance of freedom, but that remains a central part of the
purpose of GNOME.