Re: GNOME: lack of strategic roadmap

[Philip Van Hoof <pvanhoof gnome org>]

On Thu, 2010-02-25 at 09:27 -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:

I tried to keep myself out of the philosophical debate this time, but
it's reaching new levels of purism with zero regard for pragmatism.

[CUT]

> I don't think anyone suggested that we should not bother trying to
> make GNOME convenient to use.  To remember freedom as a value
> does not imply forgetting about practical convenience.

> But we don't need to make an effort to remind ourselves to value the
> practical qualities of our software, because there is no chance we
> would forget that. 

> The general tendency in the world around us is to judge software on
> practical qualities alone.  We as users appreciate convenience as
> well as freedom.  We could hardly forget to think about the practical
> qualities.The values that programmers often forget are the ethical 
> values such as freedom.

Your insinuation that GNOME programmers forget about the necessity of
ethical values, is misplaced.

The GNOME community getting used to that insinuation doesn't mean that
it isn't an insult.

Please try to be less ambiguous if that insinuation isn't your intent.

> These are the ones that go against the usual current.  So these are
> the ones we need to make efforts to remind ourselves about.

A general point of view on philosophic ethics:

I mentioned in an earlier discussion thread that "as our community's
values have a strong ethical ground, I question the necessity of the
FSF's philosophical help.

That I believe the insinuation that we do is misplaced."

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2010-January/msg00081.html


Furthermore. This "freedom" and "ethics" debate finished a month ago. 

I don't see what it has to do with GNOME's strategic roadmap. GNOME
already is the most "free" desktop environment that exists.



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