According to a recent posting from Philip Van Hoof, he suggests that Gnome split off from the GNU Project and proposes a vote. He has been informed he will need 5% of members to agree for there to be a vote put forth (10% is the real number). At the same time NON-PERSON (on the Gnome Advisory Board) has agreed on a vote.
This suggestion comes because of Richard Stallman’s recommendation that proprietary applications shouldn’t be given legitimacy by mentioning them on their blogs. These blog posts show up on Planet Gnome and it ends up looking like Gnome is promoting such software. I wrote about this the other day, Stormy Peters and Co Existing with Proprietary.
Stormy Peters claims she doesn’t agree with this but then gives everyone instructions on how to achieve this goal. She mentions that roughly 20 members are needed to agree.
Note: David Neary (who doesn’t agree) brought up the fact that he wanted to have a vote put forth in the past for a different issue and was required to have 10% of members to agree to start a vote. Stormy is only able to find numbers that point to 10% as well.
Gnome Foundation Charger (Mentions 10% Member Agreement for Vote on Referendum)
Update Today:
> An outcome whereby GNOME is no longer a GNU project could cause a lot of
> harm to the free software and open source movements in general – there
> would be massive negative publicity.I agree but we cannot be blind when the leader of the Free Software
Foundation is requesting that the “minimal” thing GNOME should do, is to
support it by, and I quote, “avoiding presenting proprietary software as
legitimate”.I fully understand that ignoring Richard’s request is the easy way. But
his request cannot be ignored any longer. He really wants this as a
“minimal” commitment from GNOME.No matter what feels good for us. We’ve been ignoring this for too long.
Such a commitment is, as far as I understand our community, not entirely
compatible with the current mindset of a lot of its members, so …I think we should be intellectually honest; by doing this vote.
[...] we quoted part of an ongoing discussion which resulted in developments that are described here. According to a recent posting from Philip Van Hoof, he suggests that Gnome split off from the GNU [...]
stormy is the Master of saying one thing and meaning entirely another, as she is a consummate politician. and she is in fact squarely in the camp of de icaza and schesinger, and their corporate overlords. though you can easily miss this by falling for her doublespeak and spin. she has no ethics, she carries whatever agenda is handed her.
[...] the original here: Pwnage.ca » Gnome to Split Off from GNU Project? By admin | category: ca | tags: apm, charlottetown, constitution, gnu, lived-on-pei, [...]
sandala lafoan: [citation needed]
I assume all this talk about proprietary software in GNOME is a reference to the whole Mono issue (possibly Moonlight as well?). I confess that I don’t see any justification for adding that .NET clone to GNOME. If it brought something vital to the table, then perhaps there would be, but I don’t think it does.
When someone like the Redmond boys have publicly said they’re gunning for you, and are just waiting for the right moment for an ambush, I don’t think it makes sense to give them any more bullets than they already have (particularly when they may not have any to begin with) — not when the software in question doesn’t buy you anything for the potential risk. This developer remains unconvinced.
I believe Richard’s request is the proper and prudent course of action, and this fork is a mistake.
You guys are so amazingly self important. GPL “funded/founded” open source has been fueled by ego from the start, and you’re just now realizing that Stallman is a prick?
I believe I’m going to start looking into KDE now. I’m totally sick of the Mono is great mantra. Java is great and is cross platform and open and not controlled by a wolf in sheep’s clothing only interested in further controlling the desktop and web at the expense of everyone else. I am glad I can develop and deploy high quality Java desktop and server applications for free for all platforms.
It’s time for the developers that actually develop anything within gnome to heads off a true free software community with true free software interests. Let GNOME die, as soon as possible.
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ANTI-FSF zealots stirring the pot. That said the request could interpreted a billion different ways or just ignored.
“avoiding presenting proprietary software as
legitimate”
What does this mean? Can someone provide an example?
Thanks,
Daniel
The focus of the article is quite the opposite. I am on Richard’s side.
Maybe it’s time to fork Gnome. Those developers tired of the mono camp should split away. Best possible solution.
Gnome to Split Off from GNU Project?
Great Ideal, we then can get rid of Gnome in Linux.
That exactly what would happen, the Community would kick it out, and $Microsoft will destroy it, and KDE would be the winner in the Linux community.
Of course KDE is the the better Desktop.
[...] source is good for clashes, and the latest is a vote by GNOME on whether to continue as a GNU project. (via) The triggering event appears to be a request from Richard Stallman for GNOME to not [...]
R. Stallman and the FSF have produced alot of software, and done much to promote open source as a viable solution to many peopls problems. That said, the code and documentation quality of said software, typically leads alot to be desired, and I don’t feel RS does anyone any good by smearing the legitamicy of closed source software as potential solutions.
Stallman loves source code. He doesnt appear to love the people who produce the source code. He wants us all to work for free, and give all our work to him, while at the same time, paying him to speak to us about the glorious new world he has created for us. Given the fact that this all plays out in a world where to own a house, and raise a family, in order to survive, we must pay taxes, in cash … Stallman all too often seems to be chopping off the wee wee of all the programmers out there.
Im not going to ever pay Stallman, to give a talk, about his open source utopia. It doesnt solve my problems, although it does certainly pay his bills. I write code for a living. It’s closed source code. It’s going to stay closed source code, whether its ever published or not. Why ? Am I anti-open source ? No. Not at all. What I am is … pro survival. Same as Stallman is. Same as everyone else is … because the laws of the land concerning money, property, and family demand it.
If GNOME wants to release itself from the tyrannical new world of open source rants Stallman regularly attempts to impose on everyone … then that is the GNOME organizations choice and business. That is freedom. And chooseing GNU or not GNU … IN NO WAY DETRACTS FROM THE QUALITY OR USEFULLNESS of the code to solve a real world problem. A real world problem that is typically related to makeing money in order to pay taxes in order to survive.
Good job on the excellent work GNOME peoples. And if you decide to tell Stallman to go pack sand … then go forth, tell him to pack sand, and enjoy it. He has nothing to do with the work you do.
They don’t really care about Stallman at all. What they are after is undermining and weakening the GPL, and the only way to get at it is by getting FSF out of the equation by putting Stallman at rest.
That has been a game going on for quite some time now. Gnome has been picked as a battleground by Novell and Mono – i.e. those who feeds from the hands of Microsoft.
Ubuntu is at play too. They cannot get success for Mono without Ubuntu – SLES/SLED/Opensuse(gnome edition) are not capable of penetrating the market as Ubuntu can. Without Ubuntu Mono will fail.
Much can be said about Stallman, but FSF remains the insurance opensource and (gnu)/Linux needs to prevail. So – anyone who has taken the bate (it is well poundered by now) – If you are prepared to dump Stallman you are also ditching FSF and you will ruin GPL.
That is a huge responsibility you are taking on, and if you choose to devaluate GPL by such actions you will also be the ones responsible for a successful campaign by Microsoft to kill Opensource and Linux.
You will find me on FSF/FSFE side of the trenches, and I’m prepared to stay for as long as it takes.
“Of course KDE is the the better Desktop.”
Yes, and apples are better than oranges.
The best thing the open source people still left in Gnome could do is fork it. Right now Gnome looks like its been taken over by corporate interests, mainly Novells and Microsofts.
Microsoft wants to transform open source into something it can control and Novell is doing all they can to help. The only thing that will happen is that Gnome will be dropped from every single distribution out there except perhaps SUSE but thats not really set in stone either.
A benefit of a fork would also be that the “MS is teh stuff” people would side with Miquel and the other side would consist of pragmatists. Those people are the ones that does the real job and are most important.
Jim said: 2009.12.12 15:19
Gnome to Split Off from GNU Project?
Great Ideal, we then can get rid of Gnome in Linux.
That exactly what would happen, the Community would kick it out, and $Microsoft will destroy it, and KDE would be the winner in the Linux community.
Of course KDE is the the better Desktop.
– KDE being the better desktop is a matter of opinion. It certainly does hog more resources in my experience. IMO it looks like a 3 year old with a fat crayon drew it. I enjoy using Gnome myself. I never understand why people ever gave a crap about what Richard Stallman has to say.
While you’re at it, let’s vote to ditch the GPL as well.
FreeBSD is becoming more attractive every day.
Damn the Judean People’s Front! Long live the People’s Front of Judea!
What a sad waste of time, energy and bits.
I agree with this split 100%. Stallman is showing his ignorance in the extreme by putting forth the notion that all proprietary software and its producers should be shunned. Is it really that bad if someone wants to pay for software? Is it so bad to pay for software or use software that you paid for?
Why should we completely ignore someone that does a good job in software just because they sell it? It is ridiculous in the extreme. You would have to be pretty conceded in the extreme to think that no noteworthy software could be developed proprietorially.
The fact of the matter is, the only way GNU software can be legitimized is if they play nice. Taking the “Its only good if we make it” attitude is just screaming for punishment. There is some pretty high quality software that is exclusively available for proprietary operating systems that will probably never be replicated by the GNU community. Our hope shouldn’t be to make cheap knockoffs of every commercial piece of software, our hope should be to entice them to use our system so that more people have a reason to switch to it.
I can’t tell you how many people won’t use Openoffice because it isn’t MS office, or even Firefox because it isn’t *gasp* IE. These are the type people that would never start to use a GNU system, because it is MS. These are the people who Stallman is specifically spiting in their faces and giving them the bird.
Well Stallman, you can have your exclusive community of free software. For me, I believe we get more done by befriending our corporate friends rather then giving them the bird and telling them how stupid they are.
I hope they fork Gnome so we all can say good riddance to it. I can’t wait until distros start to switch to KDE after the Gnome 3.0 debacle.
Knee-jerk criticism of Stallman and the GPL is politically naive. You can “play nice” with the proprietary world all you want, but it will not “play nice” in return. The point of Free Software is not to have a huge user base; it’s to preserve a truly free platform for people who want control over their data and software. Perhaps this is a waning ideal in a world where most everyone hands over their data to Google?
> Why should we completely ignore someone that does a good job in software just because they sell it?
You obviously have no idea of Stallman’s stance on this. He says to sell software if you can, and even survived himself by selling tapes of Emacs. How about you really read what he has to say rather than spouting inaccuracies.
FSF is business-friendly provided that business is also user-friendly (giving the users the FSF freedoms).
I myself make a living by writing systems built *on* Free Software. I get paid for my services, and it is a good living too.
I also disagree with the other Anonymous Coward (why is it they’re always anonymous, are they paid shills?) who said Free Software only pays Richard Stallman’s bills. It pays my mortgage too. I couldn’t do the work I do without Free Software as it requires less capital to get started building software (see the “Broken Windows Fallacy” on why Free Software is a good thing.
Agree – a split will trigger a fork which will stick to GNU.
That will most likely result in Novell and Mono gaining the desired control over Gnome. It will destroy Novell SLES/SLED’s credibility which in turn will render Novell useless for Microsoft. The funds will vanish. Gnome and Mono will die on Codeplex.
Microsoft will need 2 versions of .net for what?
I do not exactly believe that the KDE 2/3 of the OpenSuse community is happy about the Gnome focus from Novell as it is.
Ubuntu has already stated that they will treat KDE as equal to Gnome and this new polarised situation will reinforce that position.
The fork will need funding – Count me in.
FSF is business-friendly provided that business is also user-friendly (giving the users the FSF freedoms).
Not it isn’t because for the vast majority of software opening the source means devaluing it. You allow your competitors to sell your software at the same price (or less) without doing any of the work. Stallman knows this and that is really his intent. He wants to destroy the proprietary business model.
http://www.jfplayhouse.com/2009/08/gpl-ideology-is-joke.html
<>
That is nonsense. No business that needs software pays for the code. That pay for the support.
Pure fantasy
@john donson:
Programmers paid for their services, (that is to say, actual work) rather than the results of it.
That is the free software business model.
Want feature ? Pay a programmer to add it, preferably in a manner that would get it upstream, but if it’s for in-house use, you don’t even have to bother with that.
Shit, programmers _always_ get paid _to_ code, not _for_ code.
People that write closed software get paid by a company that sells the results of their work forever, and they generally don’t get residuals. There was a time that any code written by a programmer employed by company while they were under contract would be the property of . That sounds a bit like Little Richard’s record contract.
It’s a fine, financially(if you’ve got the skillz) ethically and morally sound way to make money.
I have huge respect for hired/session musicians. They’re really good at what they do, they do what they’re told, and they make good money to do it.
If they’re really good, they’ll find regular work and make _bank_.
When The Doobie Brothers broke up the majority of them spent about a decade as Eikichi Yazawa’s backup band. They made money, had a good time, and weren’t making residuals on anything but _maybe_ live recordings.
I’ve digressed a bit, but the point is that I think working for money is fine. I’m annoyed that people think the only way to make money from a copyrighted work is to sell the result, rather than get payed to work on it.
note, the financially, morally sound blahblah was referring to free software, not proprietary.
misplaced, unclear, yeah.
oops.
[...] El post con la historia completa, aqui. [...]
To every anti-FSF in Gnome Project:
If you feel poor, if you need money to survive, if you think gnome should be forked because of Richard Stallman’s recommendation …. then leave your Job title to some one else from a millions of Freedom lovers, that they can do better then you.
The Login Screen configuration tool has been removed in 9.10!!! things are getting worse with your actions …. what a Joke!!!
If you think proprietary software should be added and encourage… so why you still holding any Position in Gnome Project? leave it to some one else.
Now if you want a simple small explanation about FSF goal is:
If you think that “XYXY” is a proprietary software and it’s needed to be added to the Desktop, then all you have to do is: write a Free one that dose the same Job. You simply can’t see whats inside the code of a Closed Source applications.
And if you think FSF is wrong then USE WINDOWS and let every Freedom lover to be Free, because of FSF, we are able to buy a hardware and run GNU on it here in Africa where the majority think that to Buy a Computer (hardware) + XXX$$ for OS is a joke and not possible, they use that money to feed them selves, if FSF didn’t exist the poor population wont have the rights to know or own a Computer, people are learning to stop using Pirated Windows and switch to GNU, I can see the change on my community in Algeria for an example, slowly bu surely.
FSF helped advancing the Software, the more people contribute the fast development and better software we get.
My Congratulations, Thanks and respect to all of you that spent their own free time just to make this happening.
Free World With Free Software.
“then leave your Job title to some one else from a millions of Freedom lovers, that they can do better then you.”
Totally agree. They can be good BSD comitters or they can implement it in Ajax and sell it.
“Stallman knows this and that is really his intent. He wants to destroy the proprietary business model. ”
Totally agree with Stalman. Corporates are detrimental to the humankind in every possible way.
“FSF is business-friendly provided that business is also user-friendly (giving the users the FSF freedoms).”
A compromise but a good one.
“Great Ideal, we then can get rid of Gnome in Linux. …. Of course KDE is the the better Desktop.”
It is indeed very good, but you are in the wrong forum. Personally I like gnome and Bolognese spaghetti, should we ditch it if you like Napolitain?
“While you’re at it, let’s vote to ditch the GPL as well.
FreeBSD is becoming more attractive every day.”
You are in the wrong forum.
“You guys are so amazingly self important. GPL “funded/founded” open source has been fueled by ego from the start, and you’re just now realizing that Stallman is a prick?”
What is the relation with the forum discussion?
“Java is great and is cross platform and open and not controlled by a wolf in sheep’s clothing only interested in further controlling the desktop and web at the expense of everyone else”
I use java gnome and I like it. I wish JiGS was also ready.
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Some time ago, I uninstalled all Gnome stuff. So, for me, it doesn’t matter what Gnome will do.
>You obviously have no idea of Stallman’s stance on this. He says to sell software if you can, and even survived himself by selling tapes of Emacs. How about you really read what he has to say rather than spouting inaccuracies.
Stallman’s stance is “If we don’t have the source, we don’t care about it”. It is a software model the 90% of businesses don’t have. When I say selling software, I mean proprietary closed source software. I realize that some businesses sell opensource software, most don’t.
> FSF is business-friendly provided that business is also user-friendly (giving the users the FSF freedoms).
Lol, thanks, that’s the best laugh I’ve had all day. Tell me, how is a startup software company supposed to survive if it takes an opensource stance? Answer, it can’t. Most buisnesses with opensource models are ones where the developers started with their free time and then one day someone got the idea “Hey, we could sell our services with this!”
Go read the freaking GPL. The very idea of it is that all code that someone develops is able to be freely distributed by the customer. So yeah, you get one customer that pays for your software, and then a bunch of leaches that just use it. And after a while, someone forks your software that you are developing to add some feature and bam. You’re out of business.
Sounds like an excellent business model to me. This is the only “Stallman” friendly business model that Stallman supports. Great, your bills are payed because you use free software. 90% of developers bills are paid because they make proprietary software.
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¿Están seguros en Gnome que desligarse de GNU no le generará un cisma al proyecto Gnome?
[...] [...]
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[...] source is good for clashes, and the latest is a vote by GNOME on whether to continue as a GNU project. (via) The triggering event appears to be a request from Richard Stallman for GNOME to not [...]
gnome is useful and should be
Gnome developers i suggest you to make gnome proprietary and closed source the gpl sucks!
[...] El desarrollador de GNOME, Philip Van Hoof, ha sugerido mediante un mensaje a la Fundación GNOME, someter a votación la separación de GNOME del proyecto GNU. [...]
That is nonsense. No business that needs software pays for the code.
So if Adobe gave out the source to photoshop and a forked GPL version emerged businesses wouldn’t use it? Do your really believe that? What about businesses that use OpenOffice without support?
Do people buy games for the support?
People and businesses will take free and unsupported. They want software that takes them from point A to B. Only a minority care about support especially when it is software like OpenOffice that is well established and unlikely to need technical support.
The NYTimes actually went over the issue recently:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/technology/business-computing/30open.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimestech&pagewanted=all
then leave your Job title to some one else from a millions of Freedom lovers, that they can do better then you
The million man FSF coder army is a myth. There is actually a shortage of volunteer developers. Telling available talent to go screw themselves is a bad idea.
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