Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey

[Luis Villa <luis tieguy org>]

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 3:55 PM, Philip Van Hoof <pvanhoof gnome org> wrote:
> On Sun, 2010-01-17 at 22:52 +0000, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
>
> [CUT]
>
>> The last few mails in this thread suggest that people are happy with this
>> aspect of GNOME's philosophy.  So it's something worth maintaining.  How do
>> we ensure that newcomers see the philosophy and the reasons for avoiding or
>> rewriting non-free/non-open-source software?
>
>> Using the term "free software" helps because it leads people to make a
>> connection with a philosophy that answers exactly that question. Other
>> helpful measures can include more prominently displaying the fact that GNOME
>> insists on freedom, and explanations of why software freedom is valuable.
>
> As the GNOME community's values have a strong ethical ground, I question
> the necessity of the FSF's philosophical help.

The FSF is welcome to give their advice; and should be treated with
respect when they do give it, the same as anyone else. This is
particularly true in this area, where we know we are walking a
difficult line between freedom and conciliation with proprietary
software, and we have a lot of influences pushing us in the direction
of proprietary software and not all that many pushing us in the other
direction.

Luis