12.14.09
Push-Polling Against the “G” in GNOME
Summary: Richard Stallman and what seems like “Jobs’ mob”/Mono mob in a debate over GNOME’s views on Free(dom) software
THE unnecessary tension between GNU and a few people in GNOME was mentioned earlier today and the issue will hopefully be resolved now that provocateurs are being cornered. Here is a message from Dave Neary:
Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
- From: Dave Neary <dneary gnome org>
- To: “Lefty (石鏡 )” <lefty shugendo org>
- Cc: pvanhoof gnome org, rms gnu org, foundation-list gnome org
- Subject: Re: Code of Conduct and Foundation membership
- Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:35:02 +0100
Hi, Lefty (石鏡 ) wrote: > As a specific example, to the question, "Do you agree that viewing > proprietary software as 'illegitimate', 'immoral', 'antisocial' and/or > 'unethical' should be a pre-condition for syndication on Planet GNOME?", so > far 151 respondents have answered "No", only 19 have answered "Yes". That's > about an 8-to-1 ratio. I'm no statistician (well, not any more at any rate), but I know that you can construct surveys to say anything. If you ask someone "Do you want to bring our boys home?" in the US, people are anti-war - if you ask "Should we surrender in Iraq?" they're pro-war. Leading questions prove nothing. Your survey, in particular, is not particularly impartial. I would say that it is somewhere between leading and "push polling". It's the type of thing you rightly criticise when it is used by Boycott Novell. Quite honestly, like others, I would just like to see this discussion end. As I said before the weekend (50 emails ago), no opinions are being changed, no new information of interest to GNOME Foundation members has surfaced. I'd like to ask both Lefty & Richard to refrain from mailing to this thread again. Thank you, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dneary gnome org
That’s what may happen when Apple fans enter the GNOME Foundation (people who don’t care about Freedom and expect others to feel the same way). The Inquirer likes to tease Apple fans for their attitude and in this latest article it even calls them “Jobs’ Mob”.
FRUITY PURVEYOR of cracked Imacs, Apple has decided not to ship any more of the machines for a couple of weeks.
On its webgroup, Jobs’ Mob said sorry to customers amid reports of shipping delays affecting its recently introduced Imac computers.
Well, it seems like “Jobs’ Mob” is also busy defaming Richard Stallman and the FSF (by distortion). Regarding those who are responsible for damaging hostility and friction, The Source wrote the following this morning:
Do you remember the last controversy around Richard Stallman and Mono? Well, surprise surprise: the players are same! Imagine that! Quite the coincidence.
It just so happens that the person calling for the vote is the same person that created the whole “I am not afraid of people writing code” slur-meme.
It just so happens that the person seconding the call for the vote is the same person that crafted “open letters”, published private correspondance and called for Stallman to be banned from speaking at future conferences.
(The irony of calling for someone to be banned from speaking while later pretending outrage at that same person for calling into question how appropriate some topics are is quite delicious.)
Again, read the posts to the mailing list and on the blogs. Stallman is calm and composed while being called a “fascistic extremist“, and subjected to push polling. His critics as usual are condescending, twist his words, and resort to childish rhetoric at every opportunity.
The beauty of the mailing list is that it is all laid out there for anyone to see.
Miguel de Icaza’s response goes like this:
Hello,
> GNOME is not connected with the anti-hunting movement; there’s no
> reason it should have any position on the question. But GNOME is part
> of the GNU Project, and it ought to support the free software
> movement. The most minimal support for the free software movement is
> to refrain from going directly against it; that is, to avoid
> presenting proprietary software as legitimate.Gnome supports both the free software movement as well as proprietary developers, and that is why Gnome for years has encouraged the use of the LGPL license for all of its libraries.
Gnome is a general purpose desktop, but it also recognizes the need for proprietary applications to use these libraries and to build and integrate properly with it.
Miguel.
According to Sam Varghese, this whole issue actually arose because Miguel de Icaza had been promoting proprietary Microsoft software. There is no reason to do that (let alone promotion of Mono, which the FSF is against). Gnote is still moving forward and as Clair Ching points out:
If you’re looking for an alternative to Tomboy which is faster and uses less memory, then GNote is the way to go.
She leaves out the part about Mono being troublesome; for practical reasons too, Gnote cannot be ignored. █
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your_friend said,
December 14, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Push polling in Boycott Novell? Where? not here, maybe here, but that’s not BN. In fact, I don’t think there are any polls at BN, much less push polls. BN is passionate and partisan but honest. It is a shame that the mail list moderator slurred BN this way.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
December 15th, 2009 at 3:50 am
We had two polls back in 2006. I don’t think they were biased.
NotZed said,
December 15, 2009 at 3:07 am
IIRC `Jobs Mob’ is just Inquirer for `Apple Inc.’, not the rabid apple fanboys and girls.
That `fascist extremist’ line is really telling (and shows a very poor command of the language and an embarrassingly overt bias). We’ll all be labeled `insurgents’ next for removing mono (or Microsoft Windows) from our own computers! One person’s `free software advocate’ another’s `cyber-terrorist’!
I simply cannot fathom the logic behind that slur. The guy is one man against a world of proprietary interests who are trying to completely control what we can do with our own data and our own property, and yet he is picked on incessantly for holding those humanistic views so strongly. I really wonder about people’s state of mind who see increasingly powerful corporations as being worth more than individuals, to the point of defending them in such objectionable ways.
GNOME is still a GNU project (even if they keep claiming the ‘acronym is now meaningless’), and RMS has every right to comment on it. And like any other branding exercise, being under the GNU brand does require certain obligations as well – even if some of these people are ignorant of them or wish they weren’t there.
To be honest, it just looks like a simple query/request got blown out of all proportion just because some ning-nong who doesn’t like RMS personally wanted to blow it out of all proportion (like that virgin joke, which was clearly a piss-take on a fictional character known as The Virgin Mary, who last time I checked was a girl).
Personally although I think there are a few nice apps in there, GNOME is irrelevant anyway. A bloated `file manager’ and too many disparate libraries slammed together. I used to think it was worth it but I’ve changed my mind – core GNOME mostly just gets in my way.
I think Miguel would do better starting his own `desktop’ rather than undermining GNOME to force mono into it. He can drop all the baggage and political issues and take those who agree with him along for the ride. He would probably do quite well and enjoy himself a lot more, as would his followers. Of course Novell and Redhat might not be so happy with all their investment in GNOME, but that’s the risk they took.