The community is very important, and that is the reason why it shouldn't blandly (pun intended) accept money from an element which has “bought” its way into the community with "dirty" money, using it as a sort of cheap good-will shop to increase it's leverage in it. This is particularly bad as it is a close partner of a certain monopolist software company which has been trying to kill Free Software for over a decade.
[...]
Instead of making a single effort to calm the ocean waters, by rejecting community-dividing patent agreements, by enticing their top engineers to write community embracing comments instead of further dividing the community with extremely hostile comments (that apparently forget years of bad blood against the Free Software bore by Microsoft and incited upon it's partner networks). Just notice how Novell doesn't do a single action in this direction, but instead keeps announcing more and more Microsoft integration and support. What's wrong with this picture?
In conclusion, please tell us how much do you need the community to help you, with hard cash, in order to replace Novell's sad contribution. I'm sure that given a goal we'll meet it, if not for 2009, then surely for 2010.
Here's to a great FOSDEM'09 without proprietary software sponsors!
Comments
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-09 14:48:37
Lyle Howard Seave
2009-01-09 15:33:27
info@fosdem.org
Rui Seabra
2009-01-09 15:49:58
@Dan O'Brian: no shit, Sherlock!
I'm not proposing to replace Novell's payment with my account's content, but I'm confident that people would gladly contribute enough I resent that "none" you mention there
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-09 15:51:19
Philip Paeps
2009-01-09 22:03:47
Of course, the FOSDEM organization welcomes individual donations.
Baby In The Bath Water
2009-01-09 22:21:23
Note: this comment was posted from Novell's headquarters.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-09 22:29:09
This is a euphoric point of view. You can't just escape issues that apply to your software. Or in the words of RMS, "Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone."
Roy Bixler
2009-01-09 22:31:32
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-09 22:39:53
He posted each and every one of them from 130.57.22.201
Oh, lookie here:
http://ws.arin.net/whois/?queryinput=130.57.22.201
OrgName: Novell, Inc. OrgID: NOVELL-1 Address: 1800 South Novell Place City: Provo StateProv: UT PostalCode: 84606 Country: US
NetRange: 130.57.0.0 - 130.57.255.255 CIDR: 130.57.0.0/16 NetName: NOVELL-WEST NetHandle: NET-130-57-0-0-1 Parent: NET-130-0-0-0-0 NetType: Direct Assignment NameServer: NS.NOVELL.COM NameServer: NS2.NOVELL.COM Comment: RegDate: 1988-06-03 Updated: 2004-05-05
RAbuseHandle: BWA3-ARIN RAbuseName: Wayne, Bruce RAbusePhone: +1-801-861-2222 RAbuseEmail: bwayne@novell.com
RNOCHandle: BWA3-ARIN RNOCName: Wayne, Bruce RNOCPhone: +1-801-861-2222 RNOCEmail: bwayne@novell.com
RTechHandle: BWA3-ARIN RTechName: Wayne, Bruce RTechPhone: +1-801-861-2222 RTechEmail: bwayne@novell.com
OrgTechHandle: DNJ4-ARIN OrgTechName: Johnson, David N. OrgTechPhone: +1-801-861-2561 OrgTechEmail: dnjohnson@novell.com
# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2009-01-08 19:10 # Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.
Yes, we get many trolls from Novell and the vicinity of S.u.S.E. (in Germany)
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-09 23:46:03
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-09 23:56:14
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-09 23:58:53
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-09 23:59:54
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-10 01:40:10
One might add: “Geeks like to think that they can ignore astroturfing, you can leave astroturfers alone, but astroturfers won’t leave you alone.”
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-10 01:43:03
I think that's fair.
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-10 02:00:13
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-10 02:25:14
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-10 02:28:27
So who are /you/ working for, Dan? Any relations to Novell?
It's like the tenth time I ask.
Shane Coyle
2009-01-10 05:11:18
Likewise, what if Roy is actually twitter? Or, better yet, what if Roy is actually an experimental A.I. created by Red Hat running on a beowulf cluster of PS3's - just to attack Novell - would that make the postings more or less credible?
Since we embrace the bazaar development model for postings, especially in regards to releasing early and often, maybe it's better to look at comments more as bug reports that require investigation before suspicion.
Just a thought.
Note: the writer of this comment wants to look cool with one of those ominous-looking disclaimer texts.
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-10 05:14:38
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-10 09:16:44
Should we not mind if Gartner is paid by Microsoft to manipulate bogus studies (more on that to come)?
Dan O'Brian
2009-01-10 12:45:19
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-10 13:01:36
So you endorse "planting" stories and bribing analysts?
Roy Schestowitz
2009-01-13 13:40:34
http://www.paeps.cx/weblog/fosdem/letting_the_community_help.html