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

[Philip Van Hoof <pvanhoof gnome org>]

(I'm replying the two of you at the same time in an attempt at reducing
the thread's size)

On Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:20:50 -0600 Brian Cameron wrote:

> 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...

I don't think Richard is suggesting that as "mild approach" we should
"just" put such a disclaimer on the planet while still allowing planet
contributors to talk about proprietary software. Let's take a look at
one of Richard's quotes:

On Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:38:07 -0500 Richard Stallman wrote:

> They should not do this, unless VmWare becomes free software.  GNOME
> should not provide proprietary software developers with a platform to
> present non-free software as a good or legitimate thing.

This goes a lot further than the "mild approach" disclaimer 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."

What Richard is asking for, is a "rule":

> Perhaps the statement of Planet GNOME's philosophy should be
> interpreted differently. It should not invite people to talk about
> their proprietary software projects just because they are also GNOME
> contributors.

And here he writes about that "rule":

> The most minimal support for the free software movement is
> to refrain from going directly against it; that is, to avoid
> presenting proprietary software as legitimate.
> 
> I think Planet GNOME should have a rule to this effect.
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^            

On Sat, 2009-12-12 at 09:51 +0000, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:

> I have a personal blog and when I asked planet.openmoko.org to add my 
> posts, I gave them the RSS feed corresponding to posts under the tag 
> OpenMoko.
> 
> Perhaps it would be a simpler suggestion to pass on the aggregated 
> bloggers that after date X only posts with the tag GNOME will be aggregated?

This is what Stormy replied in the thread:

> From: 
> Stormy Peters
> <stormy peters gmail com>
> Date: 
> 12/10/2009 03:46:37 PM (Thu, 10 Dec
> 2009 07:46:37 -0700)

> Planet GNOME is about people and we display everyone's full blog feed
> as it represents them.                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> There are people that work on proprietary software as well as GNOME
> and that's who they are. I don't think we should reject people because
> they don't agree with us 100% of the time. 

[CUT about hunting]

> Now, if they aren't doing any GNOME work and all they talk about it
> non-free, non-GNOME software, that's different.
> 
> Stormy

I agree with Stormy here:

People can choose to have a tag on "english", which is what I did
because some people complained about my Dutch posts and this was
proposed by the planet maintainers as resolution.

But for example Lionel Dricot, a French speaking Belgian, told us in
this thread that he enjoys reading Reinhout's Dutch posts (Reinhout is
from the Netherlands) to practice his Dutch knowledge.

This is just to illustrate what going "full monty" on "gnome" tags will
have as impact. It would change the entire philosophy of the planet. The
same philosophy that made it a success would be changed into a cold one.

I'm against the proposal because the planet is doing just fine. Why is
that so hard for some people to accept?



Cheers,


Philip

-- 
Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer
home: me at pvanhoof dot be 
gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org 
http://pvanhoof.be/blog
http://codeminded.be