Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey

[Philip Van Hoof <pvanhoof gnome org>]

On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 09:34 -0700, Stormy Peters wrote:

Hi Stormy!

> I believe we can state it this way ...
> 
> The GNOME Foundation believes in free software and promotes free
> software but that does not mean that GNOME is anti-proprietary
> software. We believe, promote, use and write free software.

I fully agree with this statement if you replace free software with open
source.

> We are excited when companies and individuals use GNOME technologies
> because we believe it brings us closer to our mission and vision of a
> free desktop (or mobile interface) accessible to everyone.

Awesome (the use of the word free is fine if above you use open source).

> Sometimes those companies are proprietary software companies and while
> we hope that they move closer to free software in the future (and that

s/free software/open source/g

> we are helping them do so with the use of GNOME), we are delighted
> that they have chosen to use GNOME and will help them and their
> customers.

Fantastic.

In my opinion we can only reconsider to use of the word free software in
a text like this when the free-software foundation comes to its senses.

This is an excerpt of a private E-mail that Lefty sent me. The survey's
results are open for everybody so this ain't a secret anyway:

"There's about twice the uptake for the term "open source software" as 
 there is for "free software"."

If the board respects the results of the survey, which I think it should
do, it takes this into account.


-- 
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