Comments on: Corporate Funding FSF vs GNOME http://www.pwnage.ca/?p=501 The home of a hacker blog Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:05:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Why GNOME Funding is Equivalent to Lobbying and Why Novell is Likely Against GPL Enforcement | Boycott Novell http://www.pwnage.ca/?p=501&cpage=1#comment-390 Why GNOME Funding is Equivalent to Lobbying and Why Novell is Likely Against GPL Enforcement | Boycott Novell Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:40:45 +0000 http://www.pwnage.ca/?p=501#comment-390 [...] such as what leads to the backlash against GNU [1, 2, 3, 4]. We quoted Brandon, who now has this well-structured explanation with links. First of all I don’t believe there is anything wrong with accepting corporate [...] [...] such as what leads to the backlash against GNU [1, 2, 3, 4]. We quoted Brandon, who now has this well-structured explanation with links. First of all I don’t believe there is anything wrong with accepting corporate [...]

]]> By: sandylaphon http://www.pwnage.ca/?p=501&cpage=1#comment-388 sandylaphon Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:46:42 +0000 http://www.pwnage.ca/?p=501#comment-388 There is a hug difference between the two groups. The Gnome Foundation is a steering committee that controls the direction of GNOME. The KDE League is simply a single source PR organization (essentially) to promote KDE itself, there is absolutely no control over KDE development. http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2000-November/msg00123.html Now we have been asked "Will KDE ever create a KDE Foundation in the same sense as the GNOME Foundation?" The answer to this is no, absolutely not. KDE has always been and always will be controlled by the developers that work on it and are willing to do the code. We will resist any and all attempts to change this. Gnome is controlled by the Gnome Foundation, not by the developers The Gnome Foundation membership is open to every gnome contributor. But the reason it exists is to make sure companies like Ximian, Eazel, Sun and others can make themselves heard and can influence where the project is going. If it wasn't a problem of money, the project could still be controlled by the core developers. But now, the goal of the project is decided by the Gnome Foundation members. Free Software is not only about freely writing software, sharing, modifying and distributing code. It is also about keeping your projects free from influences and controlling what happens to them. Free software is made and controlled by individuals, as opposed to commercial software which is controlled by companies and boards of directors. The most successful free software projects are usually controlled by one or very few individuals (Linux, emacs, gcc, ...). Boards tend to produce drafts, discussions, reports, talks, ... Small teams of core developers tend to produce simply code. And this is what Free Software is about. KDE makes its own decisions freely ! KDE has issued a statement on this : Now we have been asked "Will KDE ever create a KDE Foundation in the same sense as the GNOME Foundation?" The answer to this is no, absolutely not. KDE has always been and always will be controlled by the developers that work on it and are willing to do the code. We will resist any and all attempts to change this. Update:: KDE has now created the KDE League to support promotions and distributions of KDE, as explained in this article. One could easily draw parallels between the Gnome Foundation and the KDE league, and argue they are the same things. But this is not the case. Both associations have common goals (promote a desktop, help establish a standard), but the Gnome Foundation has a steering comitee and an advisory board for the Gnome development. KDE keeps its bazaar model ans is still lead by its core developers. Eazel spent $13 million in a file manager! Well, there is not much more to say about it. Eazel had great plans, a lot of money but in my opinion a very poor Business Plan. They spent their $13 million venture capital in a beautiful file manager, with more than 60 people working on it. Now Eazel is no more but Gnome has a file manager, at the cost of the bankrupt of one company. Cool! But if we have a look at KDE, we see Konqueror, a very good file manager that can certainly competes with the best browser and file managers available. Konqueror is developed by a team of approximatively 10 people, from which one only (David Faure) is a full time paid developer. http://phil.freehackers.org/kde/troll_facts.html#gnome_foundation There is a hug difference between the two groups. The Gnome Foundation is a steering committee that controls the direction of GNOME. The KDE League is simply a single source PR organization (essentially) to promote KDE itself, there is absolutely no control over KDE development.

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2000-November/msg00123.html

Now we have been asked “Will KDE ever create a KDE Foundation in the same sense as the GNOME Foundation?” The answer to this is no, absolutely not. KDE has always been and always will be controlled by the developers that work on it and are willing to do the code. We will resist any and all attempts to change this.

Gnome is controlled by the Gnome Foundation, not by the developers
The Gnome Foundation membership is open to every gnome contributor. But the reason it exists is to make sure companies like Ximian, Eazel, Sun and others can make themselves heard and can influence where the project is going. If it wasn’t a problem of money, the project could still be controlled by the core developers. But now, the goal of the project is decided by the Gnome Foundation members.

Free Software is not only about freely writing software, sharing, modifying and distributing code. It is also about keeping your projects free from influences and controlling what happens to them. Free software is made and controlled by individuals, as opposed to commercial software which is controlled by companies and boards of directors.
The most successful free software projects are usually controlled by one or very few individuals (Linux, emacs, gcc, …). Boards tend to produce drafts, discussions, reports, talks, … Small teams of core developers tend to produce simply code. And this is what Free Software is about.

KDE makes its own decisions freely ! KDE has issued a statement on this :
Now we have been asked “Will KDE ever create a KDE Foundation in the same sense as the GNOME Foundation?” The answer to this is no, absolutely not. KDE has always been and always will be controlled by the developers that work on it and are willing to do the code. We will resist any and all attempts to change this.

Update:: KDE has now created the KDE League to support promotions and distributions of KDE, as explained in this article. One could easily draw parallels between the Gnome Foundation and the KDE league, and argue they are the same things. But this is not the case. Both associations have common goals (promote a desktop, help establish a standard), but the Gnome Foundation has a steering comitee and an advisory board for the Gnome development. KDE keeps its bazaar model ans is still lead by its core developers.

Eazel spent $13 million in a file manager!
Well, there is not much more to say about it. Eazel had great plans, a lot of money but in my opinion a very poor Business Plan. They spent their $13 million venture capital in a beautiful file manager, with more than 60 people working on it. Now Eazel is no more but Gnome has a file manager, at the cost of the bankrupt of one company. Cool!

But if we have a look at KDE, we see Konqueror, a very good file manager that can certainly competes with the best browser and file managers available. Konqueror is developed by a team of approximatively 10 people, from which one only (David Faure) is a full time paid developer.

http://phil.freehackers.org/kde/troll_facts.html#gnome_foundation

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