Re: Formation of Gnome-user-foundation

[Philip Van Hoof <pvanhoof gnome org>]

On Mon, 2005-03-14 at 11:16 -0500, Daniel Veillard wrote: 
> On Mon, Mar 14, 2005 at 04:01:22PM +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> > On Llu, 2005-03-14 at 13:11, Daniel Veillard wrote:
> > >     "If you have a high level of income, then your bugs matters"
> > >     "If you are part of our club, then your bugs matters"
> > 
> > IMHO Its just a variant on the bounties. If Novell can do bounties why
> > can't 50 users get together and issue a bounty on a matter that annoys
> > them. Is it any different to a business saying to Red Hat or Novell "We
> > need XYZ then we could do 5000 desktops."
> 
> I think there was an agreement on "no more bounties", je are just 
> finishing to ventilate the existing bounty fund, but not accept new
> bounties funding.

If the GNOME Foundation plays an important role in these bounties, it
can also steer to what type of contributions they will be spend.

So my personal opinion is that the GNOME Foundation shouldn't turn it's
back on the bounties

Most companies who are going to give money to opensource developers in
the form of bounties, are Western companies. Western people will most
likely benefit most from the feature they propose. Simply because
they'll not always target non-Western regions in this world.

(Feel free to replace Western with any other rich region in this world)

I'm not saying a company can't be humanitarian. And I do feel that we
should be very thankful for the contributions of the GNOME developing
companies and their previous and future bounties. What I'm trying to say
is that the decision to turn our back to those bounties will imply that
we'll have to trust the humanitarian aspect of these companies.

Because using bounties they can decide how, in the future, the GNOME
desktop will be.

I really like the slogan of Ubuntu: "Humanity to others". It gives me a
valid reason for doing opensource development. An important reason.

Therefor, and because I see that they are actually developing towards
their slogan, I trust Ubuntu. I do trust most of the current companies
who are doing opensource development. And I'm thankful for their
contributions.


-- 
Philip Van Hoof, Software Developer @ Cronos
home: me at freax dot org
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http://www.freax.be, http://www.freax.eu.org