12.10.09

Richard Stallman on [GNOME] Code of Conduct and Foundation Membership

Posted in FSF, GNOME, GNU/Linux, GPL, VMware at 7:35 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Proprietary software in Free software arena

Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership

From: Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>
To: Philip Van Hoof <pvanhoof gnome org>
Cc: foundation-list gnome org
Subject: Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
Date: Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:38:07 -0500

The people who work at VmWare also very often posted (and still post)
about their work and appear on Planet GNOME.

They should not do this, unless VmWare becomes free software. GNOME
should not provide proprietary software developers with a platform to
present non-free software as a good or legitimate thing.

Perhaps the statement of Planet GNOME's philosophy should be
interpreted differently. It should not invite people to talk about
their proprietary software projects just because they are also GNOME
contributors.

Source

Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership

From: Stormy Peters <stormy peters gmail com>

To: rms gnu org

Cc: Philip Van Hoof <pvanhoof gnome org>, foundation-list gnome org

Subject: Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership

Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:46:37 -0700

Planet GNOME is about people and we display everyone's full blog feed as it represents them. There are people that work on proprietary software as well as GNOME and that's who they are. I don't think we should reject people because they don't agree with us 100% of the time.

My post on hunting comes to mind. I self censor now because I didn't like the negative comments directed at my kids. But would you block my whole blog because a vocal portion of the community is anti-hunting and people in my family hunt?

Now, if they aren't doing any GNOME work and all they talk about it non-free, non-GNOME software, that's different.

Stormy

Source

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5 Comments

dyfet said,

December 10, 2009 at 9:59 pm

Well GNOME is not a pro or anti-hunting organization. It is however supposed to be about free as in freedom software.
your_friend said,

December 11, 2009 at 1:20 am

It is sad to see Stormy turn the issue of promotion of non free software on it’s head. Non free software is always anti-social and divisive. Non disclosure agreements divide non free software members from the rest of the world and promoters of non free software are always promoters of this division. Banning promotion of non free software should be no more controversial than banning other forms of offensive language, intimidation and insult. It’s not so much an effort to drive out people out as it is a focusing of scarce resources and avoidance of abuse. Gnome is not in a position to sponsor non free software spam.

Reasonable Gnome members will understand. Non free software companies have plenty of money and publications to provide an outlet for those in need. I’m sure the good people at VMWare, for example, would not mind sponsoring Gnome members travel and lodging so they can promote Gnome at VMware conferences or on Vmware blogs. Anyone who’s interested in that kind of thing can find it and, shocker, belong to more than one community.

A clear set of guidelines will prevent non free software companies from abusing Gnome blogs. It will be interesting to see what the community comes up with.
ElDiablo said,

December 13, 2009 at 12:21 pm

I agree with both of the prior comments but I think a clarification is in order, with regard to Stormy’s analogy: it is false. As dyfet said, GNOME is unrelated to hunting and is about free software (which is the solution to proprietary software).

Because free software is the cure and non-free software is the disease, one can see the appropriate analogy: imagine GNOME is PETA and that some people who contributed to PETA’s work were also hunters (!), and they blogged about their hunting activities on their PETA blogs. I hope this helps people understand/compensate for Stormy’s incorrect perception of the issue.

Ultimately, one cannot simultaneously contribute to and solve a problem and that is the ‘deeper’ issue at stake here. If the open source cowards want to destroy the community they are helping to build, what can be done?

dyfet Reply:
December 13th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Yes, that is the kind of analogy I was looking for, and precisely my point about Stormy’s false argument. PETA hunters indeed. Thank you.

Roy Schestowitz Reply:
December 13th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I don’t think she intended to deceive or deflect. I would give her the benefit of the doubt.

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