Re: foundation-list Digest, Vol 68, Issue 13

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

If there is enough people to do a vote, that's great.

My vote: -1

I do not think that people should be discouraged from suggesting rules
for the GNOME community, and a reaction like leaving the GNU community
because Richard made a suggestion could be interpreted that way, I
think.  We can always say "no".

Richard Stallman said:

 There are many ways to implement such a rule, of which "block the whole
 blog" is about the toughest one we might consider.  I'd suggest rather
 to try a mild approach; I'm sure that can do the job.

Richard's suggestion that a "mild approach" may be appropriate does not
seem over-the-top to me.  Perhaps a "mild approach" could be something
simple like a disclaimer on planet that highlights that "some
information on planet may advertise non-free software, and we want to
make clear that GNOME does not endorse non-free software and instead
encourages people to consider free alternatives." might be a reasonably
mild and acceptable solution?  I would prefer to see such a disclaimer,
actually.

Perhaps we should also make the disclaimer say something about hunting.

Brian


> Such a vote, whatever the outcome, would have little effect on the GNOME
> project.
>
> The debate during the vote could cause a lot of harm & discord for the
> GNOME community.
>
> 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.
>
> 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?