Re: [Gnome-print] Re: GnomeFont state of affairs

[Wolfgang Sourdeau <wolfgang ultim net>]

La plume légère, à Thu, Jun 29, 2000 at 10:16:06PM -0500, heure d'inpiration,
Ade Lovett écrivait en ces mots:
> As soon as you mention the word "secondary", then you also have to answer
> whether or not this will be done in an active or passive way.  Work to
> produce portable (in every sense of the word) code, and everyone wins,
> since "non-GNU" people are also able to help in debugging, testing etc.

I don't know exactly which difference you make between "active" and "passive".
For example, I didn't mean to make GNOME incompatible with other targets as
a "marketing move". I meant that, IMO, compatibility with GNU is essential,
whereas if people want to port (or simply adapt) it to other architecture, 
let's go with it I have no problem with that. The GNU C Library is based
on many standards and therefore is one of the most portable C library out
there. Gnome could be designed the same way.

> 
> Specifically targetting things to work at their best "on GNU" (whatever
> that is.. I don't see an entire cohesive operating system that can
> simply be called "GNU"), _at_the_expense_of_other_environments_ is
> a lose-lose situation, and one to be avoided at all costs.

GNU does exist, it's the system that a lot of people are using in cunjunction
with Linux.

But IMHO, to make a software run on its best on a platform 
"_at_the_expense_of_other_environments_" means that the software is badly
designed.

But, once more, GNU is particularly flexible and doesn't put limits that other
OS's do. So portability is not a problem.

> Think about it..  if you want to convert someone to "GNU", but all the
> have is <insert-OS-here> boxes, but you have the capability to run GNOME
> on <insert-OS-here> in an identical manner, then you stand a better
> chance of converting them elsewhere.  Or, at least the playing field
> will be level, with "GNU" vs <insert-OS-here>, since GNOME is the same.

I don't plan to convert people to GNU by showing them GNOME.
The main advantage of GNU is that it was designed from the ground to be
a free system (the free BSD's are free, but where designed to be widely used).
So I will tell people that GNU was written to protect their rights and that
GNOME is simply the graphical desktop that GNU people have written so that
freedom could be achieved on the desktop "market" as well.
For me all of this is in the same entity. GNU and GNOME were written for
freedom.

Portability is not per se incompatible with freedom. Therefore let's write
the best portable desktop we can.


Wolfgang
-- 
A chicken is an egg's way of producing more eggs.