Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey

["Lefty (石鏡 )" <lefty shugendo org>]

Title: Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey

On 1/15/10 8:34 AM, "Stormy Peters" <stormy peters gmail com> wrote:
> 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.
>
> 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. Sometimes those companies are proprietary software companies and while we hope that they move closer to free software in the future (and that 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.
That certainly strikes me as a lot more sensible than an unqualified, blanket statement that proprietary software is “illegitimate”, etc.

I very much do not want to see GNOME sending out, standing behind, or otherwise subscribing to statements that would effectively create a group of “second class citizens” within the community, or create a context where people felt they somehow less valued (or valid) members of the community based on their own use of proprietary software (and again, 2 out of 3 respondents to the survey used proprietary software on their own time.)

I likewise very much do not want to see an impression created the GNOME is hostile to organizations that earn some portion of their revenues from the sale or use of proprietary software, or that it views them as somehow criminal or “unethical” or whatever.

As Voltaire advised: “Never let the best become the enemy of the good.”