Re: Builder crowdsourcing banner on PGO

[Magdalen Berns <m berns thismagpie com>]

Oh dear.

On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 1:39 AM, Fabiano Fidêncio <fabiano fidencio org> wrote:

On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 2:24 AM, Alexandre Franke
<alexandre franke gmail com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 1:59 AM, Fabiano Fidêncio <fabiano fidencio org> wrote:
>>> Can you be more explicit about what you mean with "tools used to do
>>> your/the bank transactions run nonfree software"
>>
>> AFAIU, when you do a bank transfer, the job responsible for your
>> transaction will be executed in the next scheduled period.
>> There are people monitoring and scheduling it (most likely not using
>> free software for this), there is a system on where it is being
>> running (same here ...).
>
> According to the GNU/FSF advocacy, in the case of a service it is ok
> not to have access to the source code since you're not the one running
> the software. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/network-services-arent-free-or-nonfree.fr.html

Thanks for the link.

You also run the non-free software when you use online banking, ebay, paypal, amazon, google and pretty much everything that most of us regularly use...

Are we considering not linking to this fundraiser because it is hosted on a website that uses non-free software? I hate to break it to you all, but it's entirely likely that GNOME servers have already linked to a website that uses non-free software before, probably like a lot of times... A quick site search seems to agree with my hypothesis.

In my view, there are more effective ways to demonstrate that we care about free software than this and in any case, it seems a bit hypocritical of us to get all shirty about a single link to promote the fundraiser of the development project of GNOME builder, with all things considered.

>> And I'm really wondering how much these random comments about "not
>> good, not free software" coming from and with no real suggestions can
>> help instead of just generate noise and silly discussions like this
>> one.
>
> You're mislead about the intentions of people caring about software
> freedom. Your stance is that they should not be so focused on their
> cause, but maybe you should be a bit more open as well and consider
> their points and reasoning rather than just outright claiming it is
> noise.

Many of us were already aware his fundraiser would be hosted on indiGoGo before it was published including you (Alexandre). Nobody from GNOME seemed to object to indiGoGo as a fundraiser platform when the idea was being thrashed out and nobody objecting here has suggested any alternative or offered to help support Christian in setting something up either. Fabiano makes a very valid point about that. If there are people among us who really want to make it a policy not to do this sort of thing then that seems like a valid discussion to have for the future but I really don't see why this issue should affect the community's willingness to promote builder fundraiser on the GNOME server when is already well in motion and there's no alternative solution to the problem we seek to solve for builder. On that basis I have to agree with Fabiano, that the objections against this are not being argued in a constructive way. 

Here we are discussing the project lead by Christian who has already invested so much of his time, energy and effort into putting it all together, hacking away. He has placed a lot of trust and good faith into the community who have given him positive feedback to nurture the investment. The project is for a GNOME specific development tool which we are all likely to benefit from. If we don't choose to support it, who else is going to do that?

Personally I feel that for us to collectively refuse to help with the builder fundraiser this late in the day would be an utterly disrespectful way to undervalue the time, energy and hard work contributed by the Builder team's contributors who are working on something that is specifically designed with the GNOME community in mind.

Ultimately, the take home point I want to make is that we don't have a policy on linking to non-free software. Maybe we should but right now: we don't. On that basis, we should get behind members of our community at the times when it most matters to them, which is for builder is right now.

Yeah, I've checked a proper dictionary before, that's the reason I've
asked you what did you mean, because it was still not clear to me.

I can't be sure but I believe he meant the point was "moot" because he felt he'd proved himself right on the issue already, in an earlier paragraph.

Happy 2015,

Magdalen