Re: proposed speaker guidelines

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

It seems that your perception of my speech is very different from what
I said.

    What made C# users uncomfortable was not this criticism about patents,
    it was the way it was presented as an almost personal attack towards
    mono developers.

It wasn't presented that way by me.  I did not criticize Mono or its
developers.  On the contrary, I said that Mono does a useful job and I
have no objection to it.  I said this to make it absolutely clear
i did not criticize Mono.

     My feeling from the talk was that it was more aimed at
    making us feel bad about using C# than presenting some constructive plan
    on rectifying the situation

My constructive plan for addressing this problem is to refuse to let
C# programs play into an important role in GNOME.  I propose that plan
because I know we can carry it out, if we make an effort.

     (e.g. by working with Microsoft on the issue
    instead of calling them the "avoid enemy" and the situation hopeless).

I don't think we can achieve anything that way.  Microsoft decides its
policy based on strategy, not sentiment.  If Microsoft decides to
change strategy, it will take steps to show us.  Otherwise, efforts to
work with Microsoft will get nowhere.  The one way we MIGHT be able to
change their conduct is by pushing back.

Treating C# programs as dangerous, while developing free
implementations such as Portable.NET and Mono, is pushing back.

That's how I see it.  If you think working with Microsoft could change
its license policy, by all means try.  But that is a long shot, so we
should protect ourselves also, in parallel with those efforts.

    In that sense, I agree with the guidelines. When you're speaking as a
    representative of GNOME, you're fine to bring up any "uncomfortable"
    topic, just keep in mind the viewpoints of the people in the audience
    and keep it constructive.

That proposal is better than what the draft guidelines say, and I
mostly agree with it.  I approached the issue constructively because
my aim was to address the problem.