Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

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

This is a great, positive way of saying things that I consider to
reflect the long-standing views of the GNOME community and is inclusive
of the diversity of opinions that we have.

Continuing a negatively framed debate like "does the GNOME community
believe that proprietary software is immoral" is not helpful. I hope
Lefty will take a step back and consider whether his survey actually has
a real purpose in guiding the activity of the GNOME project.

We have a lot of software to write, we have a lot of users to get our
message to. I think there's a responsibility on all of us, and
especially those who could be seen (by virtue of holding a position on a
GNOME board) as representing GNOME, not to get sidetracked into argument
for the sake of argument.

- Owen