Re: On gifts, clean money and dirty money

[Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net>]

On Thu, 20 Nov 1997, Ian Jackson wrote:

> When we are given a gift of money from someone either in connection
> with CD sales or from someone else, should they generally expect
> some specific consideration from us, other than things we were going
> to do anyway ?
> 
> I think that the answer is clearly no.  We should not allow donations
> of money to warp our aims and actions.
> 
> If a gift is clean money - from a source with similar objectives to
> ours who are giving out of gratitude and a desire to help the project
> - then they will be quite happy with our own objectives and we should
> not feel obliged in return to act in way we would not have done
> anyway.
> 
> If a gift is dirty money - from a source whose goals conflict with
> ours and given to us to influence our behaviour - then we should
> either take it and run - ie, do what we want anyway, and risk
> upsetting the giver - or not accept it at all.
> 
> What we _say_ to people is one thing, but it would be bad to accept
> money and then worry about our obligations to the giver not to (for
> example) support their competitors.
> 
> The next thing we know we'll be accepting favours from smooth-talking
> people whose associates have extremely pretty and deadly spidery black
> spaceships and it will be the end of the world as we knew it ...
> 
So that's how your get them to come down? I go outside every night and
stick my (HHG) thumb out at the sky and nobody comes to give me a lift! It
is very disapointing, and could lead a less committed person to believe
that they aren't out there, black or white.

On a less facetious note, I agree completely with everything Ian has said
here (with the possible exception of the "deadly spidery black
spaceships").

I see no ethical conflict with accepting donations from anyone who cares
to give and spending it according to our desires and goals.

I have seen nothing that Bruce has said in public about KDE to be
offensive or nasty. He has never stated anything beyond the bare facts
that KDE uses a proprietary library and thus can not be considered free by
us.

I personally have no problems with KDE using Debian as its base OS,
although I appreciate Bruce's dilemma over the timing of announcements and
such. This is exactly that we have been looking for...use of Debian as a
foundation for other, possibly proprietary, offerings.

A Free Desk Top Environment is a desirable thing for Debian. If KDE isn't
going to be such an environment, I see no reason to support it. This
doesn't mean that I think that the KDE folks, or their software is EVIL.
It simply means that they do not meet my personal criterion for useful
software. My definition goes beyond pure functionallity to include
re-usablility in the Free Software sense.

While I understand that these are my personal criterion, it is my
understanding that these are Debian's criterion as well. I also understand
that there are going to be folks who wish to contribute to Debian but do
not wish to hold this position. I have no problems accepting help with
Debian from such folks. I do have problems when those folks try to put
there personal oppinions into opposition with the Debian goals, as stated
in our "Contract" and "Guidelines". Discussing possible points of change
is one thing, but taking a completely different position and insisting
that it is the correct one only creates friction and reduces the fun level
of our task.

Waiting is,

Dwarf
-- 
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aka   Dale Scheetz                   Phone:   1 (904) 656-9769
      Flexible Software              11000 McCrackin Road
      e-mail:  dwarf@polaris.net     Tallahassee, FL  32308

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