Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
On Tue, 2009-07-21 at 21:43 -0400, Richard Stallman wrote: Another problem with trying to find an issue here is that, depending on the point of view, Amazon acted within their own Terms (point iii under Subscriptions). Legally, that would make a difference; ethically, it is beside the point. Some people are willing to sign away their freedom for some sort of convenience. I don't see it as signing your freedom away. I see it as receiving a convenience in exchange for an agreement. Surely ain't every agreement 'ethical'. The implicit agreement of your opponent's knight that is going to take either a rook or your queen, and you having the option, means that you don't really have an option. You have to pick the least evil one (wrt your strategy). But you still had the option to play or not to play chess (with that opponent). Just like you had the option to buy, or not to buy, an Amazon Kindle. There are similar devices that have similar functionality that don't come with 'evil' knights (if you prefer a different opponent). Is it really bad when people get punished for making the wrong choices? Is it really true that we must shield all people from every imaginable danger? Ain't this part of learning? I think that choice is a freedom that people ought to have. Freedom of choice is in fact more important than having access to source code. For me, these two don't conflict. And yes, having access to source code hypothetically creates more choice. But that's just a goal. Goals aren't very interesting once reached, the path towards it was more interesting. Besides, I want opensource developers to feel competition. Competition is the best thing that has ever happened to us. In societies where appreciation of freedom is weak, many people may be willing to do this -- especially when unjust laws such as the DMCA and the EU Copyright Directive forbid the existence of an equally convenient alternsative, We cannot accept proprietary software as legitimate merely because users at some point said yes to the license agreement. I guess this is where you and me differ on opinion. I think this is a black and white point of view. The reality of it is gray. -- Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer home: me at pvanhoof dot be gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org http://pvanhoof.be/blog http://codeminded.be ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.org writes: I see it as receiving a convenience in exchange for an agreement. More specifically, it's receiving a percentage of sales money in return for helping to promote Amazon. Another way of seeing it: the opposite of a boycott. Ignoring Amazon for a minute, but staying on the general subject of recommending online book sellers, I know one online book seller that financially supports free software: bookzilla.de. Maybe there are others. For regions where such book sellers exist, recommending that people use them would make sense. -- Ciarán O'Riordan, +32 487 64 17 54, http://ciaran.compsoc.com Please help build the software patents wiki: http://en.swpat.org http://www.EndSoftwarePatents.org Donate: http://endsoftwarepatents.org/donate List: http://campaigns.fsf.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/esp-action-alert ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
On Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:20:22 +0200 Philip Van Hoof pvanh...@gnome.org wrote: On Tue, 2009-07-21 at 21:43 -0400, Richard Stallman wrote: Another problem with trying to find an issue here is that, depending on the point of view, Amazon acted within their own Terms (point iii under Subscriptions). Legally, that would make a difference; ethically, it is beside the point. Some people are willing to sign away their freedom for some sort of convenience. I don't see it as signing your freedom away. I see it as receiving a convenience in exchange for an agreement. That is because you think only of yourself perhaps. I could equally characterise things such as spying on your neighbours and reporting them to a corrupt state as receiving a convenience [no hassle, better housing etc] in exchange for an agreement Neither looks at the full picture. I am not sure however the list is the right place to debate ethics. I strongly agree with Ciaran about instead working with sellers such as bookzilla.de ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
Created some Amazon affiliate accounts in US, UK, Canada and Germany so tha= t Jaap can set up stores and a Firefox widget that will enable people to direct Amazon referral fees for their purchase to GNOME. It is not a good thing for the GNOME Foundation to support Amazon in this way. Amazon is one of the main perpetrators of DRM (see http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/07/orwell-2009-dystopia). ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 10:41 AM, Richard Stallmanr...@gnu.org wrote: Created some Amazon affiliate accounts in US, UK, Canada and Germany so tha= t Jaap can set up stores and a Firefox widget that will enable people to direct Amazon referral fees for their purchase to GNOME. It is not a good thing for the GNOME Foundation to support Amazon in this way. Amazon is one of the main perpetrators of DRM (see http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/07/orwell-2009-dystopia). Amazon was also the first significant provider of mainstream commercial music to offer a 100% DRM-free music store, and also the first (as far as I know) to offer a GNU/Linux client (albeit a non-libre client) for their music store. So their record contains significant strengths as well as significant weaknesses- certainly glaring weaknesses, but probably more strengths (from our perspective) than any other purveyor of commercial mainstream culture. This is not to say I'm rushing out to buy a Kindle; I really want one but haven't pulled the trigger exactly because of the DRM. But using Amazon affiliate codes to raise revenue for the Foundation is a world apart from endorsing Kindle's DRM. Luis ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:41:36 -0400 Richard Stallman r...@gnu.org wrote: Created some Amazon affiliate accounts in US, UK, Canada and Germany so tha= t Jaap can set up stores and a Firefox widget that will enable people to direct Amazon referral fees for their purchase to GNOME. It is not a good thing for the GNOME Foundation to support Amazon in this way. Amazon is one of the main perpetrators of DRM (see http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/07/orwell-2009-dystopia). And stupid patents ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 10:53 AM, Luis Villal...@tieguy.org wrote: On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 10:41 AM, Richard Stallmanr...@gnu.org wrote: Created some Amazon affiliate accounts in US, UK, Canada and Germany so tha= t Jaap can set up stores and a Firefox widget that will enable people to direct Amazon referral fees for their purchase to GNOME. It is not a good thing for the GNOME Foundation to support Amazon in this way. Amazon is one of the main perpetrators of DRM (see http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/07/orwell-2009-dystopia). Amazon was also the first significant provider of mainstream commercial music to offer a 100% DRM-free music store, and also the first (as far as I know) to offer a GNU/Linux client (albeit a non-libre client) for their music store. So their record contains significant strengths as well as significant weaknesses- certainly glaring weaknesses, but probably more strengths (from our perspective) than any other purveyor of commercial mainstream culture. And I think this goes without saying, but it may bear repeating: because our goal is a desktop for average users as well as lovers of freedom, GNOME can't exist in a cultural vacuum. We should do everything we can to work against DRM, to support sources of Free culture, and to educate users about Free culture, DRM, and non-patent-encumbered media formats.[1] But we also have to make compromises sometimes, so that users of our desktop can still access and interact with the broader culture they live in. On the grand scale of these compromises, this seems like a particularly small and easily acceptable one. Luis [1] I imagine we'd welcome continued suggestions on how to better educate users about these compromises, as usual? ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
Dear Richard, An organizations like GNOME is free to decide for themselves which of the online services they will use. There are two things you can do here. o. First is to set up a business that operates the way you want and that allows an organization like GNOME to sell the kind of things it wants to sell. This means offering competition for Amazon and then convince groups like GNOME to use your service instead. I personally think this is the best option for you. Perhaps sit together with people like Stormy Peters to get an idea of the requirements that GNOME has? o. Second is to try and get yourself elected on the GNOME foundation board, and that way have a more direct influence in such decisions. When I read the article that you referred to it seems to be mostly about Amazon's Kindle device. I fail to see much relevance with what GNOME wants to do with Amazon. Besides (and a bit off topic here), the terms[1] referred to in the article state this under Subscriptions: (iii) if we terminate a subscription in advance of the end of its term, we will give you a prorated refund; (iv) we reserve the right to change subscription terms and fees from time to time, effective as of the beginning of the next term; Interestingly failed the EFF.org author to mention this. If people don't agree with such terms, then why do they buy a Kindle device? Although I'm not sure whether this would hold in a European court. As it seems to go in conflict with a previous statement in the Use of Digital Content section. It's up to the people who bought a Kindle, and had content that is affected, to settle this with Amazon. This isn't GNOME's responsibility. We're not the Internet police. --- [1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200144530 On Tue, 2009-07-21 at 10:41 -0400, Richard Stallman wrote: Created some Amazon affiliate accounts in US, UK, Canada and Germany so tha= t Jaap can set up stores and a Firefox widget that will enable people to direct Amazon referral fees for their purchase to GNOME. It is not a good thing for the GNOME Foundation to support Amazon in this way. Amazon is one of the main perpetrators of DRM (see http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/07/orwell-2009-dystopia). -- Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer home: me at pvanhoof dot be gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org http://pvanhoof.be/blog http://codeminded.be ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 11:13 AM, Philip Van Hoofpvanh...@gnome.org wrote: Dear Richard, An organizations like GNOME is free to decide for themselves which of the online services they will use. And as Richard is a member of GNOME (honorary if not in fact) he's certainly welcome to politely share his opinion of the move with other members, as he has done. You certainly have not shied away from sharing your opinions without getting elected to the board; Richard should be no different. [Mind you, I think Richard has crossed many lines in the past, and I don't condone that (I will have more to say about that in August), but when he is behaving he's entitled to his opinion.] We're not the Internet police. No, but we're an organization with moral goals as well as practical ones, and we should continually question our motivations and strategies to make sure we're doing the best possible job of balancing those ends. Richard and I have loudly disagreed about how to strike that balance in the past, we disagree on this issue, and I assume we will again in the future. But the day we don't at least take into account moral considerations is the day I write a very large check at the Apple store. Luis ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
On Tue, 2009-07-21 at 11:22 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: Hey Luis! On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 11:13 AM, Philip Van Hoofpvanh...@gnome.org wrote: An organizations like GNOME is free to decide for themselves which of the online services they will use. And as Richard is a member of GNOME (honorary if not in fact) he's certainly welcome to politely share his opinion of the move with other members, as he has done. You certainly have not shied away from sharing your opinions without getting elected to the board; Richard should be no different. No worries, I obviously agree. The two possibilities that I gave Richard clarify that position. [Mind you, I think Richard has crossed many lines in the past, and I don't condone that (I will have more to say about that in August), but when he is behaving he's entitled to his opinion.] ok We're not the Internet police. No, but we're an organization with moral goals as well as practical ones, and we should continually question our motivations and strategies to make sure we're doing the best possible job of balancing those ends. Richard and I have loudly disagreed about how to strike that balance in the past, we disagree on this issue, and I assume we will again in the future. But the day we don't at least take into account moral considerations is the day I write a very large check at the Apple store. Problem is that Amazon's Kindle story has little relevance to GNOME's Amazon plans. I wont say an issue with little relevance is never a reason to stay away from a company. But when it is, the 'problem' should in my opinion be a large one (like a human rights violation or something). Else we make it a black white thing. This is something GNOME should never do: nothing in life is b w (except some people's ideas). Another problem with trying to find an issue here is that, depending on the point of view, Amazon acted within their own Terms (point iii under Subscriptions). This makes the 'problem' even smaller and the article, that Richard referred to, less relevant. That's why in my opinion it's not GNOME's responsibility. I think this is a sufficient amount of morality checking. -- Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer home: me at pvanhoof dot be gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org http://pvanhoof.be/blog http://codeminded.be ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
I think is good that people remind us these issues in order to make good or, at least, meditated and informed decisions. Thanks for that:) -- Juanjo Marín PS: I'm not a GNOME member, just a GNOME user and humble contributor. El mar, 21-07-2009 a las 16:04 +0100, Alan Cox escribió: On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:41:36 -0400 Richard Stallman r...@gnu.org wrote: Created some Amazon affiliate accounts in US, UK, Canada and Germany so tha= t Jaap can set up stores and a Firefox widget that will enable people to direct Amazon referral fees for their purchase to GNOME. It is not a good thing for the GNOME Foundation to support Amazon in this way. Amazon is one of the main perpetrators of DRM (see http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/07/orwell-2009-dystopia). And stupid patents ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
GNOME can't exist in a cultural vacuum. We should do everything we can to work against DRM, to support sources of Free culture, and to educate users about Free culture, DRM, and non-patent-encumbered media formats.[1] But we also have to make compromises sometimes, so that users of our desktop can still access and interact with the broader culture they live in. I am not suggesting that GNOME should exist in a cultural vacuum, merely that it should refrain from promoting Amazon. Amazon might wish to be the only gateway to culture, but it isn't. Some compromises are necessary; and many others are useful and harmless. Others undermine the moral foundation of what we are doing. (See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.html.) This is one of the latter. To promote a company which the FSF is asking people to protest is a particularly bad kind of compromise. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
And stupid patents Many companies get absurd patents -- which does not excuse them -- so in this regard there is no point singling out Amazon. However, Amazon is one of the few that has actually sued using a software patent. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
Amazon was also the first significant provider of mainstream commercial music to offer a 100% DRM-free music store, and also the first (as far as I know) to offer a GNU/Linux client (albeit a non-libre client) for their music store. Distributing a non-libre program means mistreating the users. We cannot ever consider that a good thing. Distributing music without DRM was a good thing, but now even the RIAA says that DRM is dead -- _on music_. But Amazon is trying to impose DRM on reading books. Whatever good Amazon has done has to be compared with the great harm it is now trying to do. This is not to say I'm rushing out to buy a Kindle; I really want one but haven't pulled the trigger exactly because of the DRM. But using Amazon affiliate codes to raise revenue for the Foundation is a world apart from endorsing Kindle's DRM. Advertising Amazon is a very strong form of promotion. Amazon set up this affiliate system because it expects to profit more this way -- so unless Amazon is mistaken in this expectation, the participation of such organizations contributes substantially to its business. It also says that GNOME thinks there is nothing really bad about Amazon. (People presume we would not promote a company we condemn.) If the intention is to convey a message like this: If you are going to buy from Amazon, please mention us so as to give us some of the money. But please don't choose Amazon because of us! then how about saying it explicitly? For instance, we could say If you are going to buy from Amazon, please use our affiliate code. That way, a part of what you pay will go to the GNOME Foundation. But please don't let this influence you to choose Amazon. Remember, Amazon wamts to impose DRM on books [link there to DefectiveByDesign.org] The best thing you can do is buy direct from the publisher. This will succeed in raising some of the funds without appearing to endorse Amazon. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
Another problem with trying to find an issue here is that, depending on the point of view, Amazon acted within their own Terms (point iii under Subscriptions). Legally, that would make a difference; ethically, it is beside the point. Some people are willing to sign away their freedom for some sort of convenience. In societies where appreciation of freedom is weak, many people may be willing to do this -- especially when unjust laws such as the DMCA and the EU Copyright Directive forbid the existence of an equally convenient alternsative, We cannot accept proprietary software as legitimate merely because users at some point said yes to the license agreement. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Stormy's update: Week of July 13th
http://blogs.gnome.org/foundation/2009/07/20/stormys-update-week-of-july-13th/ First thing Monday morning I went to the doctor who determined that I had a sinus infection. (For fellow travelers, if your cheekbones ache and your teeth feel like they are going to fall out every time the plane takes off and lands, you may have a sinus infection. Not only did I have the scheduled 3 takeoffs and landings on my trip home from the Desktop Summit but when our plane got hit by lightening, they threw in a bonus landing and takeoff in Wyoming!) Followed up on some Desktop Summit stuff: - Sent co-locating survey results to both KDE and GNOME boards. Attended GNOME Board decision meeting about co-locating in the future. (You’ll have to wait for them to say what the decision was …) - Pinged sponsor companies about banners that were left behind. - Helped draft co-located press release. Pinged attorney about 401K plan. (Our attorney did meet with the plan’s attorney.) Trying to help figure out a board meeting time - with seven board members around the world with jobs and school, it’s hard to find a time that works. Our current time doesn’t work very well for folks in India, like Srini. (He did stay up until 3am last time though to dial in!) Read the GNOME Annual Report 2008http://foundation.gnome.org/about/gnome_annual_report_2008.pdf. Nice job, Lucas, writers and photographers! It was a good year for GNOME. Created a Zazzle http://zazzle.com/ account for the new GNOME Store. (Got permission to have a 5 letter login and store name, gnome.) Set up a press interview about my talk at OpenSource Worldhttp://www.linuxworldexpo.com/ . Wrote my Friends of GNOME http://gnome.org/friends post cards. They went to Finland, Australia, Cyprus, and Canada as well as several US states! Sign up to support GNOME with a Friends of GNOME http://gnome.org/friends monthly subscription and get a postcard from your favorite hacker! Created some Amazon affiliate accounts in US, UK, Canada and Germany so that Jaap can set up stores and a Firefox widget that will enable people to direct Amazon referral fees for their purchase to GNOME. Talked to a couple of sponsors (Canonical, IBM) about things they’d like to see done and things they are willing to sponsor. Met with Sally from HALO Worldwide. She helps the Apache Foundation with their press and marketing and teaches a class every year at ApacheCon. We talked about how she could help with GNOME marketing and pres. I’d love to have a marketing hackfest and have her come teach a press class. Met with Paul Cutler about all the things we’d like to get going on GNOME marketing, following up on all the conversations from the Desktop Summit. Went through all my email and notes from the Desktop Summit and created an enormous todo list. For next week: - Create slides for my OSCON talk, the Role of Users in Open Source Projects http://en.oreilly.com/oscon2009/public/schedule/detail/8377. It will be based on The GNOME Foundation is all about peoplehttp://www.stormyscorner.com/2009/06/the-gnome-foundation-is-all-about-people.html. Speaking of OSCON, I really like the system they have set up for identifying which talks you want to see, what other talks people interested in those talks are interested in and identifying who will be at the conference and who you’d like to meet. It would be great to have something like that for GUADEC. - Attending two days of OSCON. (Short trip this year to save on hotel stays and to minimize time away from home as I’ve already spent 10 days away from home this month.) - Tackling as many items from the rest of my todo list as possible. The rest of my to do list. (Let me know if you’d like to help on any of the projects!) These are not in any particular order here. - thank all the Desktop Summit sponsors (Hoping someone from the marketing team will help compile a list of all the press and blogs that came out of the Desktop Summit.) - finalize 401K plan with attorneys - blog about travel committee - they did an excellent job with the Desktop Summit - ask all teams for input on Q2 report - follow up with potential sponsor who was at GUADEC - follow up with people who had good ideas at GUADEC that they mentioned to me - Talk to Jim Zemlin about Moblin Linux Foundation and relationship to GNOME Foudnation - GNOME 3.0 launch plans? Include advisory board companies - publish June Friends of GNOME data - Publish case studies/success stories from the foundation (This was an idea that came up on the marketing list and Novell has already sent us a great GNOME customer story that we can use.) - ask other sponsors to help Sun, Red Hat, Canonical for customer stories - find people to help with the customer testimonials (case study article, quotes, slides, sidebar) - find someone to help Dave Richards with the usability hackfest he’d like to hold in the City of
