Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap

[Rui Miguel Silva Seabra <rms 1407 org>]

Em 24-02-2010 10:16, Dave Neary escreveu:
> Richard Stallman wrote:
>>     Software freedom is a means to furthering our vision of providing
>>     technology to all, regardless of means, physical and technical
>>     capability or culture.
>>
>> Freedom can lead to more available technology, but it is vital in its
>> own right.  It is little benefit to have technology available
>> if the price of using it is your freedom.  That is why we write
>> free replacements for existing proprietary software.
> 
> To draw a parallel with slavery (hyperbole, I know, but humour me): Is
> it enough to say "you're free now" for a society to be just? Is the goal
> of freedom for all a sufficient vision, especially when that goal is
> (more or less) accomplished today? Freedom from slavery is a means to an
> end, the "end" being a just society with no racial discrimination and
> equal opportunity for all.

Freedom is "a mean" means that it could be replaced by "another mean",
which means that you'd have a society that "is" just if you consider
freedom an injustice.

Since freedom is quite the opposite of an injustice, then said society
simply can't be considered just.

As a consequence, a society needs to include Freedom in order to be
called just.

Corolary: freedom is a cornerstone mean for a "just society"

> If a computer user can be free, but will end up with an inferior
> computing environment because of it, he may welcome returning to a
> proprietary environment, as many Mac OS X users & free software
> developers have.

Every day I look at a Nokia N900 I feel exactly like that, tempted to
return to a proprietary environment because it has a way superior
computing environment than my OpenMoko Neo Freerunner.

I have been strong, fortunately. Even though this phone is not 100%
free, it's the next best thing for a free phone (or tracking device).

> I'm just saying, that while user freedom is vital, it is insufficient as
> a vision for the GNOME project.

Assuming (which I doubt) that it is insufficient, "open access" is way
more undefined and subject to conclusions which frequently lead to "no
freedom", so I don't view it as an interesting definition.

Perhaps this can be a middle ground: "a superior computing environment
that gives you full freedom".

Rui