On April 1st (no joke), FSFE will hold by far its biggest Fellowship raffle yet. The goal is to encourage more people to join the Fellowship, so we're asking for your help spread the word. We've made some graphics if you'd like to use them, and more general information is here: http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/raffle/2007/raffle_2007
If you've been waiting for the right time to join the Fellowship, or if you know people who value free software or intend to join but haven't gotten around to it, now's a good time.
The prizes this year are:
* 1 Free Software Greenphone from Trolltech * 2 Free Software based routers KWGR614, from NETGEAR * 1 LinSoft BTP-PC amounting to 500 EUR, from linsoft.de * 4 USB smart card readers SCR-335, compatible with the Fellowship crypto card on all GNU/Linux distributions, from kernelconcepts.de * 2 Omnikey PCMCIA CardMan 4040, compatible with the Fellowship crypto card on all GNU/Linux distributions, from xtops.de * 30 German books (among German speaking Fellows only), from linuxland.de * 3 Developer Discount codes for Nokia N800 Internet Tablets from Nokia NOTICE: special conditions apply to the N800 prizes, see: http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/raffle/2007/special_conditions_for_nokia_n800
Everyone that is a Fellow on April 1st, new and old, will be included in the raffle.
Since it's launch in February 2005, the Fellowship has been a great success. It's enabled FSFE to interact more directly with the community, it's aided the organising of local Fellowship meetings.
In recent years, mostly thanks to the financial support of the Fellowship, FSFE has grown to include 5 full-time and 2 part-time staff doing GPL enforcement, EU/UN/WIPO lobbying, GPLv3 awareness, volunteer coordination, events, and media relations as well as national activities.
We want to grow the Fellowship to further increase the work that FSFE does.
Finally, we'd like to thank the hardware vendors who have donated the prizes. FSFE is glad to see that hardware vendors see the importance of a future without lock-in and dependency.
So please help spread the word: If anyone was waiting to join, now is the time. Putting a logo on your webpages or forwarding a message to relevent mailing lists would a good way to help FSFE.
And good luck to all the Fellows, new and old on April 1st!
On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 15:56, ciaran@fsfe.org said:
- 3 Developer Discount codes for Nokia N800 Internet Tablets from Nokia NOTICE: special conditions apply to the N800 prizes, see: http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/raffle/2007/special_conditions_for_nokia_n800
That URL does not work ... oh well here we go; only 3 minutes.
Anyway, the FSFE asks its fellows to buy or use a device which only seems to be based on Free Software but in reality hides important details? I do not just mean the Opera browser but stuff like battery control, access to the radio and the boot monitor? From my experience with the N770 there is even no way to flash it without using a proprietary tool. Thus it might even be non-GPL compliant. See also the recent discussion on this list and Neals article http://walfield.org/blog/2007/01/29/maemo.html .
Digital Freedom with the N800 or Nokia - I doubt it.
Shalom-Salam,
Werner
Werner Koch wk@gnupg.org writes:
Anyway, the FSFE asks its fellows to buy or use a device which only seems to be based on Free Software but in reality hides important details?
Well, like the webpages says: "FSFE wants to give to Fellows the opportunity to help the N800 become a full Free Software device."
From my experience with the N770 there is even no way to flash it without using a proprietary tool. Thus it might even be non-GPL compliant.
I don't know if this has been checked for the N800, I'll raise it, and I'll pass on this link:
See also the recent discussion on this list and Neals article http://walfield.org/blog/2007/01/29/maemo.html .
Digital Freedom with the N800 or Nokia - I doubt it.
On Mon, Mar 12, 2007 at 04:17:04PM +0000, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
Well, like the webpages says: "FSFE wants to give to Fellows the opportunity to help the N800 become a full Free Software device."
Except the link doesn't work, and I'm still not sure this is good enough. If I win, you're going to ship me some proprietary software.
I don't think this is appropriate, or wise. Further, it makes me want to not support FSF Europe.
matt
Well, like the webpages says: "FSFE wants to give to Fellows the opportunity to help the N800 become a full Free Software device."
Except the link doesn't work, and I'm still not sure this is good enough. If I win, you're going to ship me some proprietary software.
Not to mention that it is recommending this device to others as a supposedly free alternative; which it isn't. The sentence alone is suspect, how does the FSFE know that a developer will get the device, let alone be capable of writting the needed parts? This kind of hacking isn't exactly the easiest; if it was then we wouldn't have devices with non-free software on them.
How about instead of having a raffle, hire a programmer to actually replace all the non-free bits instead of distributing non-free software to Fellows? Seems like that would be a better way to spend money.
I don't think this is appropriate, or wise. Further, it makes me want to not support FSF Europe.
I have to agree.
On 12/03/07, Alfred M. Szmidt ams@gnu.org wrote:
How about instead of having a raffle, hire a programmer to actually replace all the non-free bits instead of distributing non-free software to Fellows? Seems like that would be a better way to spend money.
Just one small point - all the devices in the raffle have been donated to FSFE.
Cheers,
Gareth
Am Montag, den 12.03.2007, 19:28 +0100 schrieb Alfred M. Szmidt:
how does the FSFE know that a developer will get the device, let alone be capable of writting the needed parts?
By asking developers that think that they are capable of writing the needed parts to register themselves. The Discount codes will be raffled among these registered developers.
Actually I would have considered the text on the web page clear enough:
"But the Nokia N800 doesn't come with full Free Software: some applications are still non-free. FSFE wants to give to Fellows the opportunity to help the N800 become a full Free Software device. So if you are interested to develop Free Software for the N800 then please sign up here to be the lucky winner."
But as there is obviously still enough room for misunderstandings, I am thankful that this was brought up here, so we can clear this up. We certainly did never intend to advertise the Nokia N800 as a Free Software device.
How about instead of having a raffle, hire a programmer to actually replace all the non-free bits instead of distributing non-free software to Fellows? Seems like that would be a better way to spend money.
We did not spend money on that raffle, all the prizes were donated by the companies named on the web page.
Of course some might consider it a waste of time to develop Free Software for devices that currently require proprietary software, but some might not.
The registrations so far have shown that there are indeed people that would *want* to write Free Software for that device, and I really think we should support people in writing Free Software, especially if we just have to pass on support that we get to those interested.
Thanks, Reinhard
On Mon, 2007-03-12 at 14:56 +0000, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
- 1 Free Software Greenphone from Trolltech
``[T]he phone's license reads in part, "...This device may only be used with Trolltech's Qtopia Software. You may not use this device in any other hardware/software combination other than in the combination of hardware and software that was delivered to you..."''
-- http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9220906852.html
:/
Cheers,
Alex.
On Mon, Mar 12, 2007 at 06:36:20PM +0000, Alex Hudson wrote:
``[T]he phone's license reads in part, "...This device may only be used with Trolltech's Qtopia Software. You may not use this device in any other hardware/software combination other than in the combination of hardware and software that was delivered to you..."''
Ouch. Come on guys, what are you playing at?
Here's next year's prize list?
* A Zune * An XBOX360 * iTunes Vouchers
matt
Matt Lee wrote:
Ouch. Come on guys, what are you playing at?
Actually, this is news to all of us. Quite obviously, we don't want to support nor advocate non-free software. Specifically for the N800, it was always our intent that the recipient should be a technically knowledgable person with a wish to help liberate the device by erasing the proprietary software from it, and showing others how to.
I think the page that is linked from the mail would explain this, had the URL actually worked. :-)
So we'll look into this, and if there's no way to liberate the hardware before sending it out, we might well have to withdraw those prizes from the raffle to avoid sending non-free software to anyone.
Alex Hudson home@alexhudson.com writes:
On Mon, 2007-03-12 at 14:56 +0000, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
- 1 Free Software Greenphone from Trolltech
``[T]he phone's license reads in part, "...This device may only be used with Trolltech's Qtopia Software. You may not use this device in any other hardware/software combination other than in the combination of hardware and software that was delivered to you..."''
To be clear, they updated their EULA in response to this. See http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4872069549.html. But the device still ships with proprietary components, and is less free than the OpenMoko.
(I'm not wild about giving away nonfree technical documentation books either. Or are the 30 German books licensed freely?)
On Mon, 2007-03-12 at 14:51 -0400, John Sullivan wrote:
To be clear, they updated their EULA in response to this. See http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4872069549.html. But the device still ships with proprietary components, and is less free than the OpenMoko.
I didn't realise that; thanks - for the longest time, the version of Qtopia it shipped with wasn't free software either (Qtopia 4 has only been available under the GPL quite recently AIUI).
Moko also has the advantage of being designed for actual end-users, not just people who want a prototype to develop phone software on. FSFE could do a lot worse than dropping those guys a line to see if they could get their hands on some hacker's lunchboxes - from what I've seen of the project (I intend to buy one when P1 ships), they are truly worthy of support.
Cheers,
Alex.
John Sullivan johns@fsf.org writes:
But the device still ships with proprietary components
For the PDA we raffled last year, we took delivery of it and removed the proprietary software before sending it to the winner.
Ciaran O'Riordan ciaran@fsfe.org writes:
John Sullivan johns@fsf.org writes:
But the device still ships with proprietary components
For the PDA we raffled last year, we took delivery of it and removed the proprietary software before sending it to the winner.
Since it's the communications stack that's proprietary in this case, I don't think that will work.
There is also a proprietary package manager. It looks like there is a free software replacement for it, but the replacement is unable to modify even more things on the phone -- at least that's what I get from reading at linuxdevices.com; I haven't actually tried myself.
|| On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 15:36:25 -0400 || John Sullivan johns@fsf.org wrote:
js> Since it's the communications stack that's proprietary in this js> case, I don't think that will work.
Do you know a device with a free GSM stack? We'd be glad to help promote that device. To my knowledge there is no such stack or device at the moment, including the OpenMoko.
The issue in this case is a thicket of cross-licensed patents that includes parties that appear to have no interest in resolving that situation. This is not good, and we'll need to work on that.
Meanwhile we can already give people substantially more freedom on mobile phones. At the current point in time, the vast majority of PDAs and mobile phones sold are proprietary from bottom to top.
The GreenPhone already offers significantly more freedom than other mobile phones, only the OpenMoko appears to be potentially better.
According to my knowledge, which is based on cursory examination, the Nokia tablets and GreenPhone both are almost entirely Free Software, although they both fall short by a couple of packages (and the GSM stack in one case). So their status appears somewhat similar to that of the Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution.
But the area of GNU/Linux distributions is much more mature in terms of freedom than that of mobile phones and PDAs. The whole area of PDAs, mobile phones and similar is one that is still very much dominated by proprietary software. There is not a single device that could be recommended without warning.
The way the Free Software community addressed similar issues in the past is to get and (within legal limits) study what you want to replace, and replace the non-free components one by one. That is how the GNU Project got started, it was a major motivation to establish Debian, and other examples exist in other areas.
We need to build a stronger presence of the Free Software community in this area. Harald Welte is already doing a fantastic job, but we need more people like him.
So the idea is to give technologically adept Free Software people with an inclination to play devices that already come with mostly Free Software and allow tinkering, and make sure to point them to the problem of non-free components so we will have more freedom for everyone as a result.
Regards, Georg
Do you know a device with a free GSM stack? We'd be glad to help promote that device. To my knowledge there is no such stack or device at the moment, including the OpenMoko.
What if there is no device with a free GSM stack? Will the FSF Europe promote such a device despite it being wrong?
But the area of GNU/Linux distributions is much more mature in terms of freedom than that of mobile phones and PDAs. The whole area of PDAs, mobile phones and similar is one that is still very much dominated by proprietary software. There is not a single device that could be recommended without warning.
Then the only right thing to do is to not recommend any device, just like one couldn't recommend any GNU/Linux specific system until UTUTO-e came about (and closely following other 100% free GNU/Linux poped up).
The way the Free Software community addressed similar issues in the past is to get and (within legal limits) study what you want to replace, and replace the non-free components one by one. That is how the GNU Project got started, it was a major motivation to establish Debian, and other examples exist in other areas.
When the GNU project was started, there was no free software; one had no choice other than non-free sofyware. Today we have all the tools needed to reject all non-free software.
Debian is also a bad example, since they distribute non-free software despite there being free replacements (Java for example); there are other problems as well with Debian, the whole non-free section being one such a problem.
We need to build a stronger presence of the Free Software community in this area.
And this is by distributing devices that contain `almost entirely Free Software'?
Cheers.
Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
Then the only right thing to do is to not recommend any device [...]
I agree. Also, writing free applications for non-free platforms is not a useful activity (the result is making these platforms more attractive to users). The right thing to do is writing replacements in order to make these platforms/devices truly free.
When the GNU project was started, there was no free software; one had no choice other than non-free sofyware.
Even in those unfortunate times, the GNU Project has never recommended nor distributed (as a "prize" or not) computers (or software) that run a proprietary Unix variant + free GNU components. Doing so would totally undermine the goals of the whole movement. There was never a contest "Donate $n to the FSF and you'll get a SunOS box with GCC and Emacs you could tinker with"
I fear that the valid and worthwile goal of raising funds for FSFE's activities is being compromised in a similar manner as is done in many other areas -- for example, people tend to promote not entirely free GNU/Linux distros because they "help" introducing new users to our community (i.e. a step back from freedom with the hope of popularity and "more freedom" in the future). This path leads to exactly the opposite outcome and I'm really shocked that namely FSF Europe has chosen to follow it.
On 13/03/07, Alfred M. Szmidt ams@gnu.org wrote:
Do you know a device with a free GSM stack? We'd be glad to help promote that device. To my knowledge there is no such stack or device at the moment, including the OpenMoko.
What if there is no device with a free GSM stack? Will the FSF Europe promote such a device despite it being wrong?
No - however I don't personally see a problem with promoting the creation of Free replacements - and in order to develop these, a suitable platform is required. Platforms such as the Greenphone or N800, while not being perfect (they're non-free after all!) are still the most free platforms available and as such, hopefully, have the least amount of work to do to reach 100% freedom.
But the area of GNU/Linux distributions is much more mature in terms of freedom than that of mobile phones and PDAs. The whole area of PDAs, mobile phones and similar is one that is still very much dominated by proprietary software. There is not a single device that could be recommended without warning.
Then the only right thing to do is to not recommend any device, just like one couldn't recommend any GNU/Linux specific system until UTUTO-e came about (and closely following other 100% free GNU/Linux poped up).
That's true, however before UTUTO-e came along, people still needed a platform to use to work on. IIRC RMS ran Debian GNU/Linux (I don't know if he still does) as this was the most Free distribution at the time. In the same way, the N800 represents, to the best of my knowledge, the best PDA-style device in terms of Freedom available. It still has work to do, which is why it's being provided separately from the main raffle, and only to people wo specifically want to work on making the device more Free.
The way the Free Software community addressed similar issues in the past is to get and (within legal limits) study what you want to replace, and replace the non-free components one by one. That is how the GNU Project got started, it was a major motivation to establish Debian, and other examples exist in other areas.
When the GNU project was started, there was no free software; one had no choice other than non-free sofyware. Today we have all the tools needed to reject all non-free software.
For general-purpose PC-style hardware, I agree with you 100%. That's not so true on PDAs and mobile phones. We have the tools available to fix those last few bits that remain are still non-free though, and by ensuring that people joining the raffle for the N800 discount vouchers are wanting to free the device, from where I'm standing at least, the net result is freer devices.
Debian is also a bad example, since they distribute non-free software despite there being free replacements (Java for example); there are other problems as well with Debian, the whole non-free section being one such a problem.
...and yet before UTUTO-e, "even" RMS used Debian.
We need to build a stronger presence of the Free Software community in this area.
And this is by distributing devices that contain `almost entirely Free Software'?
In the early days of Free Software, it was developed on non-free platforms. It is now the early days of Free Software on devices such as PDAs and mobile phones. The landscape is slightly different because we now have a large amount of Free Software which can be ported to these devices, but there is still work to be done for this new hardware to reach full freedom. If there are devices that are already mostly-free, then this seems like a better starting point than a device which is entirely non-free, or even one that hasn't been designed yet. Regarding the last point there, that is simply down to the fact that I'm not a hardware hacker. It'd be great if fully-free hardware existed, but until it does then existing platforms which are almost-free seem like the best starting point.
Cheers,
Gareth
Then the only right thing to do is to not recommend any device, just like one couldn't recommend any GNU/Linux specific system until UTUTO-e came about (and closely following other 100% free GNU/Linux poped up).
That's true, however before UTUTO-e came along, people still needed a platform to use to work on. IIRC RMS ran Debian GNU/Linux (I don't know if he still does) as this was the most Free distribution at the time.
RMS never recommended Debian to people.
It is one thing that you as a developer have a device with non-free software and trying hard to replace it or even that you run a system where you removed all the non-free bits your self, but it is another thing that a organisation or even a person, supposedly promoting free software, starts distributing non-free software to its members/friends in the vauge hope that someone, maybe, when all planets are aligned exactly right, will replace the non-free software on this device.
I find this quite frightening. What is next? Free copies of Windows Vista to people so that they can write a free replacement?
If there are devices that are already mostly-free, then this seems like a better starting point than a device which is entirely non-free, or even one that hasn't been designed yet.
I feel that this is missing the point, a device that is `mostly-free' still has non-free software, and giving such a device to people, let along recommending it is just as bad as handing out copies of a non-free program. This isn't about a starting point to writting free software, but distributing non-free software to people; it was wrong when we didn't have a completely free system, and it still wrong.
Cheers.
"Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org wrote:
[...] IIRC RMS ran Debian GNU/Linux (I don't know if he still does) as this was the most Free distribution at the time.
RMS never recommended Debian to people.
Firstly, that's contradicting a point that wasn't made: Gareth Bowker (I think - still ams fails to attribute quotes) doesn't say that he did.
Secondly, there are many interviews and reports which say RMS used to recommend Debian (try a web search... for one example result, http://beust.com/stallman.html). However, I know reporters sometimes make mistakes and it's not impossible that there could be so many.
[...] it is another thing that a organisation or even a person, supposedly promoting free software, starts distributing non-free software to its members/friends
[...]
It was some time ago that FSF started distributing non-free-software manuals to people. I also expect that FSF has often distribued machines to developers that currently require non-free software, in the hope that it helps to develop free software for them. I don't see a fundamental problem in that, but maybe including such development platforms as raffle prizes is a bit silly, and maybe the swpat-fans Nokia have made a platform which will never be free.
Conversely, maybe it's time for those who want to work on replacing non-free software to join the debian project, who don't *distribute* non-free software but merely host it and are actively working to free or replace it.
Regards,
MJ Ray mjr@phonecoop.coop writes:
join the debian project, who don't *distribute* non-free software but merely host it
One could say that he do not distribute child pornography, just hosts it on his website.
Secondly, there are many interviews and reports which say RMS used to recommend Debian (try a web search... for one example result, http://beust.com/stallman.html). However, I know reporters sometimes make mistakes and it's not impossible that there could be so many.
What a great example, nothing in that actually quotes RMS.
[...] it is another thing that a organisation or even a person, supposedly promoting free software, starts distributing non-free software to its members/friends
[...]
It was some time ago that FSF started distributing non-free-software manuals to people.
Manuals aren't software to begin with.
I also expect that FSF has often distribued machines to developers that currently require non-free software, in the hope that it helps to develop free software for them. I don't see a fundamental problem in that, but maybe including such development platforms as raffle prizes is a bit silly, and maybe the swpat-fans Nokia have made a platform which will never be free.
You expect, and guess, and assume quite alot about the GNU Project and the FSF.
Conversely, maybe it's time for those who want to work on replacing non-free software to join the debian project, who don't *distribute* non-free software but merely host it and are actively working to free or replace it.
Debian clearly is not working to replace any of its non-free parts that are part of Debian. Debian still has a non-free Java system despite there being free ones. Debian still has a plethora of non-free software that they distribute and recommend to its users.
If you want to support free software, support Gnewsense, or UTUTO-e.
"Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org wrote:
I also expect that FSF has often distribued machines to developers that currently require non-free software, in the hope that it helps to develop free software for them. [...]
You expect, and guess, and assume quite alot about the GNU Project and the FSF.
I'm sure I've read it somewhere, but I can't find it on the new web sites. The section "Donated computers" on http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html suggests that it happened even in that flagship FSF project at first. Why not in others?
I agree with the comment that it's evil even when justified, FWIW.
Conversely, maybe it's time for those who want to work on replacing non-free software to join the debian project, who don't *distribute* non-free software but merely host it and are actively working to free or replace it.
Debian clearly is not working to replace any of its non-free parts that are part of Debian.
The donors of scores of man-hours spent on it each week salute you(!)
Debian still has a non-free Java system despite there being free ones.
Which of the java systems in debian (classpath, ecj, gcj, gij, jamvm, kaffe, sablevm, maybe more) is non-free?
[...]
If you want to support free software, support Gnewsense, or UTUTO-e.
gNewSense is a good choice too.
Regards,
You expect, and guess, and assume quite alot about the GNU Project and the FSF.
I'm sure I've read it somewhere, but I can't find it on the new web sites. The section "Donated computers" on http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html suggests that it happened even in that flagship FSF project at first. Why not in others?
Mark, you do realise that `donated computers' is not the same as `donated software', let alone `they require non-free software to run'?
Debian still has a non-free Java system despite there being free ones.
Which of the java systems in debian (classpath, ecj, gcj, gij, jamvm, kaffe, sablevm, maybe more) is non-free?
Sun Java. Then there is also a non-free flash program in Debian, despite the existance of gnash.
But can we drop this for anotherday? I'm much more interested in the whole FSFE recommending and distributing non-free software to people deal than this old tirade that we have gone through several times now. :-)
On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 10:57:03PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
Conversely, maybe it's time for those who want to work on replacing non-free software to join the debian project, who don't *distribute* non-free software but merely host it and are actively working to free or replace it.
Binary blobs? I believe the kernel Debian ships still contains the non-free firmwares that gNewSense removes? When Debian ships a browser that doesn't ask me every five minutes to install non-free software in the form of Flash, and stops distributing non-free software from its own website, then your statement would be correct.
matt
"Gareth Bowker" tgb@fsfe.org writes:
...and yet before UTUTO-e, "even" RMS used Debian.
I doubt that RMS used any proprietary software packages on his Debian system. At that time one could use Debian without running non-free software. Anyway.
The point is not whether you personally would use proprietary software on your phone, but whether FSFE will distribute non-free software to users. This is a very bad (and sad) example. It looks like it's not so unethical to distribute non-free software. Any vendor can point to FSFE and say: "Even FSFE distributes non-free software, so why don't we?"
"Fellowship Raffle 2007: Time to give back" -- I'm sick of it.
|| On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:55:41 +0100 (CET) || "Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org wrote:
ams> Then the only right thing to do is to not recommend any device,
That is why no device is being recommended.
As was pointed out by others before, this part of the raffle is about giving developers access to hardware that is coming closest to our goals and thus give them the best start in making them entirely free.
ams> When the GNU project was started, there was no free software; ams> one had no choice other than non-free sofyware. Today we have ams> all the tools needed to reject all non-free software.
For desktops that is true.
For mobile devices it is unfortunately not yet true and requires more work by the Free Software community.
ams> Debian is also a bad example, [...]
Please read my previous mail again.
Your criticism is precisely why Debian is a good example.
Without Debian there would have been no Ubuntu, and without Ubuntu there would be no Gnewsense. And Gnewsense itself helped influence others to think about providing pure Free Software distributions.
ams> We need to build a stronger presence of the Free Software ams> community in this area.
ams> And this is by distributing devices that contain `almost ams> entirely Free Software'?
Without access to Ubuntu, Gnewsense would not exist.
In the case of Ubuntu, the distribution was available without cost on the internet. That is not true for hardware. But if someone had told me that they wanted to create Gnewsense and they needed access to Ubuntu to do that job, I would indeed have sent them a DVD.
Regards, Georg
ams> Then the only right thing to do is to not recommend any ams> device,
That is why no device is being recommended.
As was pointed out by others before, this part of the raffle is about giving developers access to hardware that is coming closest to our goals and thus give them the best start in making them entirely free.
By distributing a device to people that contains non-free software FSFE is clearly recommending the device. That is what I thought when I saw the notice, and I'm quite sure others did the same. My initial thought was (before knowing anything about the non-free software) was how cool that companies like Nokia and others are trying to do the right thing and respect the rights of computer users.
I find the whole claim that using a lottery based system to get someone to write a free replacement for these things to be quite absurd to say the least. Do you really belive that from a random set of indiviuals, someone will have not only the time, but also the knowledge to replace the non-free software bits with something that is free?
ams> And this is by distributing devices that contain `almost ams> entirely Free Software'?
Without access to Ubuntu, Gnewsense would not exist.
How do you know? Gnewsense might have been created either from scratch or based on another system. Alas, my crystal ball is broken, and I suspect that yours is as well... In anycase, Gnewsense does not contain non-free software, Ubuntu and Debian do.
I find it even more frightening that you are trying to justify these actions and that the FSFE has some kind of responsibility in providing people with non-free software.
I hope that the FSFE will do the right thing, and remove all devices that contain non-free software from the raffle.
Cheers.
Alfred,
Am Dienstag, den 13.03.2007, 23:46 +0100 schrieb Alfred M. Szmidt:
Do you really belive that from a random set of indiviuals, someone will have not only the time, but also the knowledge to replace the non-free software bits with something that is free?
You might have missed my previous email in which I already made clear that the Discount codes are raffled among exactly that group of people that explicity voiced their interest in doing this, not among a "random set of individuals".
Reinhard
On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 11:54:27PM +0100, Reinhard Mueller wrote:
You might have missed my previous email in which I already made clear that the Discount codes are raffled among exactly that group of people that explicity voiced their interest in doing this, not among a "random set of individuals".
And the page to see that is only available to people with a login?
Seriously. Abandon the raffle, rethink and come back with a set of prizes that don't fall into one of the following categories:-
* Hardware that runs free software * Stuff which goes against the ethics of the people you want money from * Pages only accessible to people who've already entered or have accounts * Poisons
On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 06:56:48PM -0400, Matt Lee wrote:
- Hardware that runs free software
I meant non-free software. Oops. A prize of an er.. N800 and the Vista Extreme Ultra boxed set go to Mr Alex Hudson at the back, who is... running away from the podium as fast as he can.
matt
You might have missed my previous email in which I already made clear that the Discount codes are raffled among exactly that group of people that explicity voiced their interest in doing this, not among a "random set of individuals".
You, as well as Georg, are clearly missing the whole point. And it is distrubing that you are trying to justify these immoral and unethical actions.
Please abandon the raffle.
"Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org wrote:
[...] In anycase, Gnewsense does not contain non-free software, Ubuntu and Debian do. [...]
The gNewSense developers say that it does: http://bugs.gnewsense.org/Bugs/00001
Just like debian, gNewSense has bugs. However, it probably has a more FSF-compatible view of what free software is.
Regards,
On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 11:13:31PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
The gNewSense developers say that it does: http://bugs.gnewsense.org/Bugs/00001
I believe that is a direct response to Ubuntu's Bug #1.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1
I don't believe it's saying that gNewSense contains any non-free software.
matt
How about sticking to the topic at hand instead of flipping this thread into something that is not important at this point? Both of your messages have had nothing of relevance to say about the whole issue of the FSFE distributing non-free software to people.
Your petty attempts at point out "bugs" that have been fixed, or are being fixed are beyond silly. You know perfectly well that Debian is _not_ willing to remove any of the non-free software that it is distributing. Gnewsense, as well as UTUTO-e will remove it as soon as humanly possible; so if you found something that is non-free, please file a bug report so that it can be removed!
"Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org wrote:
How about sticking to the topic at hand instead of flipping this thread into something that is not important at this point?
Yes, how about it? On that note [another message]:
Mark, you do realise that `donated computers' is not the same as `donated software', let alone `they require non-free software to run'?
I thought one complaint was about the Nokia N800 computers?
Also, note that part of the problem in that "donated computers" section was that they were running Unix and that sometimes they "could not replace a machine's operating system with a free one" but once they could, they "replaced the machine instead".
Both of your messages have had nothing of relevance to say about the whole issue of the FSFE distributing non-free software to people.
In fact, I noted that I don't see a fundamental problem in FSFE distributing these computers, but maybe including such development platforms as raffle prizes is a bit silly, and maybe the swpat-fans Nokia have made a platform which will never be free. But that was ignored, as people prefer wild claims about free software projects.
I'm happy to stay on-topic if others stop straying into lies about projects I work on, or asking about them.
Matt Lee mattl@gnu.org wrote:
Binary blobs? I believe the kernel Debian ships still contains the non-free firmwares that gNewSense removes?
Yes, it does. The project made debian GNU/Linux depend on that type of non-free software before some free software advocates pointed out the problem clearly. FSF is still not really getting this message across: I can't find an essay about it on the new FSF and GNU websites any more. I found only a few paragraphs in 2002's http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/linux-gnu-freedom.html and very recent pages like http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/firmware/view which seems to update old contributions for debian like http://doolittle.icarus.com/~larry/fwinventory/2.6.17.html
There was also a bit of a debian release management misjudgement IMO. Anyway, as a result, the non-free firmwares have a special permission into the next release, from a whole-project vote. I think that happened partly because the project wasn't willing to drop that much hardware support so "close" to a release. The suggestion that they should be allowed "as long as required" was rejected, so I hope that debian can incorporate gNewSense's good work swiftly after etch.
In short: to get rid of the firmwares in debian, remind/help the debian project as soon as possible after the release, then encourage the next release to come as soon as possible. I think the project will listen to actual and potential users about things like this, but if you leave it to a few contributors on the fringes like me, it will happen, but may take longer.
When Debian ships a browser that doesn't ask me every five minutes to install non-free software in the form of Flash, and stops distributing non-free software from its own website, then your statement would be correct.
Reportbug iceweasel or Request For Package gnu-iceweasel, please, or ask an appropriate debian user to.
As for the project's own website, the logo bugs are being fixed (finally).
So again, most of these bugs are being fixed.
"Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org wrote:
Debian still has a non-free Java system [...]
Which of the java systems in debian [...] is non-free? Sun Java.
Point of information: Sun Java is not in debian. It may be after they finally GPL it.
Then there is also a non-free flash program in Debian, despite the existance of gnash.
gnash will be in debian (lenny) and non-free flash program isn't.
Your petty attempts at point out "bugs" that have been fixed, or are being fixed are beyond silly.
So stop doing it about debian, please.
You know perfectly well that Debian is _not_ willing to remove any of the non-free software that it is distributing. [...]
Actually, I know that removals happen pretty often, like http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=345743 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=375355 or if you mean the hosted non-free stuff, rather than distributed http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=325363 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=400850 (random web search result examples)
Hope that explains,
On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 11:08:51PM +0100, Georg C. F. Greve wrote:
As was pointed out by others before, this part of the raffle is about giving developers access to hardware that is coming closest to our goals and thus give them the best start in making them entirely free.
That's not a very good point though.
If you want to get these things made free, put out a call for help on the website, and ask people to apply giving some vague idea of how they'll be used, and then decide, privately to give them if you must.
For mobile devices it is unfortunately not yet true and requires more work by the Free Software community.
Does that mean we should abandon our ethics for the sake of convienience? I can't get my ATI card to work with free drivers, so is the FSFE going to recommend I use proprietary drivers? By the way, the machine is an all-in-one unit, so I can't swap out the card.
What do you suggest I do?
Without Debian there would have been no Ubuntu, and without Ubuntu there would be no Gnewsense. And Gnewsense itself helped influence others to think about providing pure Free Software distributions.
I think if Mark Shuttleworth had wanted to build a distro, he would have done it anyway, regardless of Debian. The fact that Debian provided a lot of the groundwork is a great resource, but that doesn't mean people should be recommending Ubuntu or Debian to others.
I'd be more concerned by the fact that somewhere along the way, even Debian with their freer-than-free attitude, decided that non-free software was okay too.
In the case of Ubuntu, the distribution was available without cost on the internet. That is not true for hardware. But if someone had told me that they wanted to create Gnewsense and they needed access to Ubuntu to do that job, I would indeed have sent them a DVD.
RMS using Debian is very different from RMS promoting Debian. I'm sure if you emailed RMS five years ago and asked him which distro to install, he wouldn't have had an answer for you, or would have told you that no distro was a good distro as they all shipped proprietary software.
If I ask the FSFE Fellowship which is a good PDA, am I going to be told to buy an N800 because it's almost free software?
I think the best cause of action now, would be for FSFE to pull its entire raffle and rethink it's commitments to the free software community, putting the interests of software freedom before help-us-get-some-Nokia-to-run-Firefox-please.
I'm hearing a lot of Fellows say they won't renew, I only hope they'll at least consider donating their money to the FSF, rather than spending it elsewhere, because free software needs all the supporters we can get, and now is not the time for us to start alienating people for the sake of convienience.
Join the FSF - http://www.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom/join_fsf
Donate - http://www.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom/donate
matt
|| On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 18:46:49 -0400 || Matt Lee mattl@gnu.org wrote:
ml> If you want to get these things made free, put out a call for ml> help on the website,
That is why we asked the Fellows who wants to help freeing these devices, for they are not yet entirely free. So several people, you included, have applied to get the device to free it entirely, so that in the future these might become entirely free devices.
ml> Does that mean we should abandon our ethics for the sake of ml> convienience?
No.
ml> I can't get my ATI card to work with free drivers, so is the FSFE ml> going to recommend I use proprietary drivers?
No.
ml> By the way, the machine is an all-in-one unit, so I can't swap ml> out the card. What do you suggest I do?
It seems there are plenty of better alternatives to be had in that area, so I'd recommend you get yourself another machine that does not require you to give up your freedom.
ml> I think if Mark Shuttleworth had wanted to build a distro, he ml> would have done it anyway, regardless of Debian.
Maybe, although you might be underestimating the work that is inside Debian. But any of this would be pure speculation, and I've been talking about facts.
ml> The fact that Debian provided a lot of the groundwork is a great ml> resource, but that doesn't mean people should be recommending ml> Ubuntu or Debian to others.
Nobody suggested recommending them.
In the case of Ubuntu, the distribution was available without cost on the internet. That is not true for hardware. But if someone had told me that they wanted to create Gnewsense and they needed access to Ubuntu to do that job, I would indeed have sent them a DVD.
ml> RMS using Debian is very different from RMS promoting Debian. I'm ml> sure if you emailed RMS five years ago and asked him which distro ml> to install, he wouldn't have had an answer for you, or would have ml> told you that no distro was a good distro as they all shipped ml> proprietary software.
What you write seems unrelated to what I wrote.
Since I was discussing the issue with RMS five years ago, I know his answer to the issue, which I seem to remember being a little more balanced than what you present here.
When asked, he told people that he was using Debian, but he also told them that he wasn't happy with Debian because it had the non-free repository (that he of course had switched off) and he could not recommend using it.
He would also tell you that he finds it important that someone does the work of providing a pure Free Software distribution. He was also considering to start such a distribution off Debian, because Debian came closest to what he wanted.
ml> If I ask the FSFE Fellowship which is a good PDA, am I going to ml> be told to buy an N800 because it's almost free software?
No.
We would tell you that no PDA is good enough today, but that it would be very important to have one that runs only Free Software.
We would also tell you that there are some devices on which this seems possible, but that they are not yet good enough and require more work.
Regards, Georg
ml> If you want to get these things made free, put out a call for ml> help on the website,
That is why we asked the Fellows who wants to help freeing these devices, for they are not yet entirely free. So several people, you included, have applied to get the device to free it entirely, so that in the future these might become entirely free devices.
And that is by distributing immoral and unethical software? Has the FSF _ever_ distributed copies of non-free software to its members in the hope that someone will write a free replacement? No. Why? Because distributing non-free software to people is _wrong_, no matter what the reason is.
You simply do not know if these people will write free replacements or not. You cannot know.
ml> I can't get my ATI card to work with free drivers, so is the ml> FSFE going to recommend I use proprietary drivers?
No.
Why not? It is exactly the same situation.
ml> If I ask the FSFE Fellowship which is a good PDA, am I going ml> to be told to buy an N800 because it's almost free software?
No.
That is exactly what people are being told right now with the FSFE distributing this device to fellows.
We would tell you that no PDA is good enough today, but that it would be very important to have one that runs only Free Software.
This raffle shows otherwise.
|| On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 11:56:25 +0100 (CET) || "Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org wrote:
ams> And that is by distributing immoral and unethical software?
As someone else already pointed out, this is about giving people hardware so they can free it. This is not very different in principle From (for lack of alternative) getting a notebook that has Microsoft Windows on it for the purpose of replacing Windows with a fully free GNU/Linux.
Most of us have had to do this before, including the FSFs, because it is almost impossible to get the hardware without preinstalled Windows.
That coupling is even more intense in the embedded area.
Is this good? No.
But should we let this stop us from bringing freedom to those devices?
ams> You simply do not know if these people will write free ams> replacements or not. You cannot know.
We feel that can put more trust in our Fellows because they have already shown themselves quite determined to promote freedom.
But you are right. We cannot know.
ams> Why not? It is exactly the same situation.
Because it would be a step away from freedom.
As explained before, the situations are vastly different.
ams> That is exactly what people are being told right now with the ams> FSFE distributing this device to fellows.
It has been implied that we were telling this to people, although we explicitly pointed out that we are not recommending these devices and pass them on only for the purpose of finding people to free them.
But yes, as I wrote before, this could probably have been made clearer, which is why we have reworked the page of the Raffle at
to explain this more clearly:
Also FSFE will raffle these devices that need liberation: these devices are not shipped with Free Software only, and can therefore not be recommended for general use. Being offered these devices confronted us with a difficult decision. Because it is very important for our community to have entirely free devices of this sort in the future, we have decided to give them to people who wish to work to set them free. You can apply for them here but please do it only if you really plan to work on setting them free:
1 Qtopia Greenphone by Trolltech
3 Developer Discount codes for Nokia N800 Internet Tablets, by Nokia
The banners have also been updated to make this more clear.
Regards, Georg
ams> And that is by distributing immoral and unethical software?
As someone else already pointed out, this is about giving people hardware so they can free it. This is not very different in principle From=20(for lack of alternative) getting a notebook that has Microsoft Windows on it for the purpose of replacing Windows with a fully free GNU/Linux.
It is _very_ different, a notebook works without non-free software. These devices do not.
But should we let this stop us from bringing freedom to those devices?
One does not achive freedom by distributing non-free software to people.
ams> Why not? It is exactly the same situation.
Because it would be a step away from freedom.
As explained before, the situations are vastly different.
It is exactly the same, and you trying to compare it to notebooks with Windows preinstalled makes it even more clear why it is the same. In all three cases you are distributing non-free software in the hope that someone will replace it.
ams> That is exactly what people are being told right now with the ams> FSFE distributing this device to fellows.
It has been implied that we were telling this to people, although we explicitly pointed out that we are not recommending these devices and pass them on only for the purpose of finding people to free them.
But giving them away you are indeed recommending them, a message stating that you are not does not change the fact.
I cannot in good concious recommend people to become Fellows, and I suspect that many others on this list feel the same.
"Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org writes:
I cannot in good concious recommend people to become Fellows, and I suspect that many others on this list feel the same.
Seconded.
On Wed, 2007-03-14 at 13:49 +0100, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
ams> That is exactly what people are being told right now with the ams> FSFE distributing this device to fellows.It has been implied that we were telling this to people, although we explicitly pointed out that we are not recommending these devices and pass them on only for the purpose of finding people to free them.
But giving them away you are indeed recommending them, a message stating that you are not does not change the fact.
Well, not just that, but in the case of the N800, they're asking people to buy them, albeit at a subsidised rate.
The new text on the page is an improvement, but it's still a bit odd to raffle work to people :)
Perhaps in the future the FSFE should consult with people about hardware; even the fully free router has free software issues:
http://jjinux.blogspot.com/2006/12/linux-netgear-open-source-wireless-g.html
... and I understand it doesn't work with OpenWRT. It's not a freeness issue, but it's a pain, and there are better options out there.
Cheers,
Alex.
|| On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 13:05:23 +0000 || Alex Hudson home@alexhudson.com wrote:
ah> The new text on the page is an improvement, but it's still a bit ah> odd to raffle work to people :)
That may be true.
But people in the Free Software community oddly seem to enjoy working to promote freedom, and like to play with the technology. ;)
Freedom is not a burden that needs to be borne like a cross.
ah> Perhaps in the future the FSFE should consult with people about ah> hardware; even the fully free router has free software issues: ah> [...] ... and I understand it doesn't work with OpenWRT.
Last time I looked, OpenWRTs web page claims it was supported in the most recent branch, and that work was in progress and at least this router does not have the accursed Broadcom chipset.
Fortunately routers are already a little more advanced than PDAs and mobile phones in terms of becoming fully free.
And yes: We should (and do) talk to people who are working in these areas, and are always open to feedback, even when the feedback is that people disagree with something.
We generally would however prefer to get that feedback in a non-public form first, because public discussions draw additional resources from ongoing work. I am for instance quite worried about the fact that ISO put OpenXML back on the fast track [1] and would prefer to spend more time on this issue and others.
Regards, Georg
[1] http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/openxml_back_on_fast_track
"Georg C. F. Greve" greve@fsfeurope.org wrote:
We generally would however prefer to get that feedback in a non-public form first, because public discussions draw additional resources from ongoing work. I am for instance quite worried about the fact that ISO put OpenXML back on the fast track [1] and would prefer to spend more time on this issue and others. [1] http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/openxml_back_on_fast_track
FSFE can say that this is wrong, immoral, unethical and so on, but I believe that FSFE leaders should not go around questioning the accountability or democracy of other groups. That's the pot calling the kettle black a bit.
For example, that article mentions "it seems that such processes can be ignored by lone decisions of the ISO personnel" - well, at least they have a process. With the FSFE Raffle of the N800, which several fellows seem unhappy about, what can they do? There doesn't seem to be any process besides non-renewals. Emailing comments? Well, even after the negative feedback started was clear here, the FSFE Newsletter still went out with the raffle "happy to pass these gifts on" item included, so email clearly has only minor effect.
I know that there are strong reasons why FSFE is not more democratic, but this means its leaders need to be careful with the comments from the above article. Otherwise, more supporters will look at FSFE and say the reasons against greater democracy aren't sufficient.
Regards,
|| On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 14:48:30 +0000 || MJ Ray mjr@phonecoop.coop wrote:
mr> FSFE can say that this is wrong, immoral, unethical and so on, mr> but I believe that FSFE leaders should not go around questioning mr> the accountability or democracy of other groups.
FSFE is an entirely democratic organisation with personal liability and accountability of all elected executives towards the general assembly and a large European team (as well as local teams) that generally work on the basis of consensus of all active people.
It cannot be open or representative for reasons explained multiple times, but that does not change its democratic basis.
mr> With the FSFE Raffle of the N800, which several fellows seem mr> unhappy about, what can they do? There doesn't seem to be any mr> process besides non-renewals. Emailing comments?
Emailing comments would have been one idea. That is also how the general assembly and all the teams of FSFE normally work.
As a matter of fact, *no* Fellow actually got in touch with us prior to this public debate, and the most verbal people in this debate are not Fellows, and have not participated in FSFE's work of the past years in any other way, either.
So yes, for Fellows a good way would have been to get in touch and raise this as something they see a problem with.
And if they were overly unhappy with the reaction to their getting in touch that it undoes all the things they agree with, they could have decided to not renew their Fellowship.
mr> Well, even after the negative feedback started was clear here, mr> the FSFE Newsletter still went out with the raffle "happy to pass mr> these gifts on" item included, so email clearly has only minor mr> effect.
There are two responses to this.
Number one: The devices that were discussed here are only a small part of the raffle, that (some people argued that point well) maybe should not have been put into the raffle in the first place, but handled differently.
So there are several things that are indeed very fine gifts that should be passed on to the people who made the work of the past years possible.
Number two: Writing and translating the newsletter is a long process, it takes more than a week. So practically, it was written and translated long before anyone raised any issue.
It probably simply didn't even occur to the person sending it out that there was a connection with this discussion.
Regards, Georg
On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:58, greve@fsfeurope.org said:
As a matter of fact, *no* Fellow actually got in touch with us prior
I expect that the paid people at last briefly follow discussion@. They should have noticed that the Nokia stuff has been discussed back in January.
to this public debate, and the most verbal people in this debate are not Fellows, and have not participated in FSFE's work of the past years in any other way, either.
Although I retired as board and active member of the FSFE in December [1], I did quite some work over the last 6 years.
Salam-Shalom,
Werner
[1] Though I am still somewhat active in the German chapter.
|| On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 17:49:40 +0100 || Werner Koch wk@gnupg.org wrote:
wk> I expect that the paid people at last briefly follow discussion@. wk> They should have noticed that the Nokia stuff has been discussed wk> back in January.
This is unrelated to what I said, though: Prior to this public discussion noone contacted us directly to raise their problem with the raffle.
Although the communication admittedly wasn't good enough, and it maybe also should not have been mixed with the raffle, we always pointed out that the N800 would only be given to people for the sole purpose of freeing them.
to this public debate, and the most verbal people in this debate are not Fellows, and have not participated in FSFE's work of the past years in any other way, either.
wk> I did quite some work over the last 6 years.
Very true. And we all are very grateful for that.
I did not consider you among the most verbal people in this discussion because you (thankfully) wrote much fewer and shorter mails.
But yes, I did take notice that you also saw problems with this, although I personally would have preferred if you had raised those issues earlier and in the right channels.
Regards, Georg
On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:09, greve@fsfeurope.org said:
although I personally would have preferred if you had raised those issues earlier and in the right channels.
I learned about the raffle right here at discussion@. So how should I have raised my voice on other channels? As you know I am only subscribed to the FSFE members list and not on any of the dozens of other lists. This has not been announced on the members list.
So many lists and so much information - one only needs to pick the right one ;-)
Salam-Shalom,
Werner
|| On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:32:40 +0100 || Werner Koch wk@gnupg.org wrote:
wk> So many lists and so much information - one only needs to pick wk> the right one ;-)
True. That is a problem. And if we had fewer things going on, we might have caught this one earlier.
Regards, Georg
On Wed, 2007-03-14 at 17:49 +0100, Werner Koch wrote:
On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:58, greve@fsfeurope.org said:
As a matter of fact, *no* Fellow actually got in touch with us prior
I expect that the paid people at last briefly follow discussion@. They should have noticed that the Nokia stuff has been discussed back in January.
Infact, at that time in January we had already received the stuff from Nokia and we realized we had a problem. The solution we elaborated was to keep the n800 available only for developers. We chose to *trust* the Fellows that declared to be *able* and *willing* to fix the freedom issues.
It is clear now that not only the solution was suboptimal but also it was communicated poorly.
I can reassure that measures are being taken to prevent this problem from happening again next year: we are changing the process and establish more control and double-check points along it. If you give me some time I promise I will publish the process publicly for comments.
Thank you Stefano
As a matter of fact, *no* Fellow actually got in touch with us prior to this public debate, and the most verbal people in this debate are not Fellows, and have not participated in FSFE's work of the past years in any other way, either.
I find this extremley insulting. I'm a GNU developer and a GNU maintainer, I can only take this as that the FSFE does not care about what GNU developers do, and does not consider it part of FSFE's work; despite the FSFE stating that the GNU project is one of its primary projects.
Just because someone hasn't shelved out money because of financial reasons to the FSFE and become a Fellow, does not mean that one is not participating in the FSFE's work for the past 10 years.
|| On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:22:15 +0100 (CET) || "Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org wrote:
ams> I find this extremley insulting.
It certainly was not my intention to insult you or anyone else.
I had hoped that the amount of time spent on this discussion should give you an idea that we are taking you and this issue very seriously indeed. I assure you: We do not take this lightly, at all.
Regards, Georg
On Wed, Mar 14, 2007 at 04:58:34PM +0100, Georg C. F. Greve wrote:
As a matter of fact, *no* Fellow actually got in touch with us prior to this public debate, and the most verbal people in this debate are not Fellows, and have not participated in FSFE's work of the past years in any other way, either.
I'm a fellow, in so much as my card doesn't have an expiry date and I just recently got an email asking me to pay you some more money, and my login still works, so I assume I'm good?
Why should anyone get in touch with you in any way other than public debate? I'd say you're lucky people are discussing it on a mailing list you're on. Once something is on the web, who's to say where they should and should not discuss things?
I wasn't aware of this until it was posted to the website and someone alerted me to the mailing list, which I was already subscribed too.
I'm sorry I've not participated in any of the FSFE's work directly, but I'm already fairly busy with my work for the GNU project, but if you can think of a way I can help you in future, please let me know. I'm pretty good with raffle tickets, tombolas and other forms of gambling, too.
matt
|| On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 13:45:34 -0400 || Matt Lee mattl@gnu.org wrote:
ml> Why should anyone get in touch with you in any way other than ml> public debate?
Because a public debate often creates more friction and is more time consuming than a direct mail to the people involved, which is usually the most effective way of solving a problem.
ml> I'm sorry I've not participated in any of the FSFE's work ml> directly, but I'm already fairly busy with my work for the GNU ml> project,
Yes. Many of us have spent much time working for the GNU Project, myself included. That is very important work and I am grateful that you are doing it.
If you were also finding time to work with FSFE, we'd be very glad, maybe you could occasionally work with Gareth.
Regards, Georg
"Georg C. F. Greve" greve@fsfeurope.org writes:
As a matter of fact, *no* Fellow actually got in touch with us prior to this public debate, and the most verbal people in this debate are not Fellows, and have not participated in FSFE's work of the past years in any other way, either.
So yes, for Fellows a good way would have been to get in touch and raise this as something they see a problem with.
Are you saying that we should fund an organization that distributes proprietary software in order to be able to protest against this activity? Adherents of the Free Software Movement are against proprietary software distribution no matter who does it — Microsoft, Nokia, Debian Project or FSF Europe. Proprietary software distributed by FSF Europe is not friendlier other proprietary software. It is even more harmful, because it is done in the name of our freedom by the people who should lead us, not betray us.
I don't understand why you want to ship those devices at all costs. Please, drop the raffle while you still can.
And if they were overly unhappy with the reaction to their getting in touch that it undoes all the things they agree with, they could have decided to not renew their Fellowship.
Of course, the unhappy Fellows will leave the Fellowship (after their membership expires). And others (like me) may decide not to become Fellows at all. That's a perfect way to filter out the determined members of the Free Software Movement: they won't fund and entity that distributes proprietary software.
So if you're going to listen only to the Fellows, then you're listening only to those who support your actions anyway. No doubt that you'll hear only fine melodies and you can use them as an argument that you're doing well. You'll be deaf for the riots on the street.
This is very sad.
Am Mittwoch, den 14.03.2007, 14:48 +0000 schrieb MJ Ray:
Well, even after the negative feedback started was clear here, the FSFE Newsletter still went out with the raffle "happy to pass these gifts on" item included
The newsletter didn't list the prizes at all. It only mentions that there *is* a raffle, and I didn't consider this discussion as a negative feedback against that fact.
But you are of course right - if the newsletter had explicitly mentioned the Nokia tablet, I would certainly have changed it as a result of this feedback.
Thanks, Reinhard
|| On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 13:49:35 +0100 (CET) || "Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org wrote:
ams> It is _very_ different, a notebook works without non-free ams> software. These devices do not.
Exactly. You explained very well why the situations are different.
Notebooks now work with Free Software after people got them while Free Software was not running on them and made Free Software run.
Embedded devices are behind in terms of freedom compared to notebooks.
ams> That is exactly what people are being told right now with the ams> FSFE distributing this device to fellows.
Getting your hands on hardware that you want to run Free Software on, even if you have to buy these devices, is the only practical way to get Free Software to run on them.
ams> But giving them away you are indeed recommending them, a message ams> stating that you are not does not change the fact.
What you state as fact is an allegation based on disregard of stated intention. But intention is central for recommendations, and the recommendation here is very clearly and expressedly that these devices should *not* be seen as devices that are good enough.
So what you may have meant to say is that FSFE is setting a bad example if it passes on hardware to people who want to set it free.
Regards, Georg
ams> It is _very_ different, a notebook works without non-free ams> software. These devices do not.
Exactly. You explained very well why the situations are different.
Notebooks now work with Free Software after people got them while Free Software was not running on them and made Free Software run.
Embedded devices are behind in terms of freedom compared to notebooks.
And yet the FSF, nor anyone else who cared about freedom distributed laptops with non-free software to people in the vauge hope that someone might write a free replacement. The FSF wasn't distributing Flash to developers when Gnash was started, nor was the FSF distributing Sun Java to developers when there was no free Java.
It is beyond bewildering why the FSFE is doing this, and trying to justify these actions.
ams> That is exactly what people are being told right now with the ams> FSFE distributing this device to fellows.
Getting your hands on hardware that you want to run Free Software on, even if you have to buy these devices, is the only practical way to get Free Software to run on them.
More excuses, Georg. The probobaility that someone knoweldgeble enough to write this missing pieces will win the raffle is about as probable as me getting hit by a meteorite. I might understand this whole thing _if_ the FSFE was activley looking for one or two people too actually work on this, but this is just a publicity stunt, that ends up distributing non-free software to random people.
ams> But giving them away you are indeed recommending them, a ams> message stating that you are not does not change the fact.
What you state as fact is an allegation based on disregard of stated intention. But intention is central for recommendations, and the recommendation here is very clearly and expressedly that these devices should *not* be seen as devices that are good enough.
The FSFE is still distributing them to people! How is this not recommending them? It doesn't matter how clearly, and expressdely you state that it is not `good enough'. This is exactly why Debian is not a recommended system by the GNU project, Debian claims the exact same thing you are claiming right now: But we aren't really distributing things, we are only providing them.
So what you may have meant to say is that FSFE is setting a bad example if it passes on hardware to people who want to set it free.
No, since the FSFE is not attempting to making these devices work with free software. The FSFE is simply distributing non-free software to people. It doesn't matter how many times you repeat that you are "really" trying to get people to write a free replacement.
That you, as the president of the FSFE, have completely lost the goal of what free software tries to work for is what is the most frightening part of this.
Please, end the raffle, and reevaluate all the things you are going to give as prizes; enough people have complained that it should be quite clear that people feel that there is something wrong with the FSFE distributing non-free software.
|| On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 15:37:55 +0100 (CET) || "Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org wrote:
ams> The probobaility that someone knoweldgeble enough to write this ams> missing pieces will win the raffle is about as probable as me ams> getting hit by a meteorite.
As was explained multiple times in this thread: These devices are only given to people who have registered themselves as developers who are capable and willing to work on the devices.
Maybe random distribution is not the best way to decide between them, but the chances that some good will come from their work seem much higher than you describe.
ams> I might understand this whole thing _if_ the FSFE was activley ams> looking for one or two people too actually work on this,
You mean in the sense of putting out a call for qualified developers?
This would be an alternative, and maybe even a better one.
ams> The FSFE is still distributing them to people! How is this not ams> recommending them? It doesn't matter how clearly, and ams> expressdely you state that it is not `good enough'.
The critical point here is that FSFE is willing to pass a very limited amount of these devices along to Free Software developers for the singular purpose of making them run with Free Software.
There is no general distribution of these devices, the devices are not being distributed to just anyone, and they are explicitly *not* recommended for general use.
ams> No, since the FSFE is not attempting to making these devices ams> work with free software.
That is your interpretation of the situation which is either questioning the intent, or the way it is done.
If you are questioning the intent, there is very little to be gained by continuing the conversation. If six years of hard work for Free Software by overall hundreds of people have not convinced you that FSFE works for goals that you share, then I certainly won't be able to do so in this discussion.
If you are questioning the action, then I think there is merit in evaluating how to better reach our common goal.
Regards, Georg
ams> The probobaility that someone knoweldgeble enough to write ams> this missing pieces will win the raffle is about as probable ams> as me getting hit by a meteorite.
As was explained multiple times in this thread: These devices are only given to people who have registered themselves as developers who are capable and willing to work on the devices.
The FSFE is still distributing non-free software to people through public channels. This gives the wrong picture to everyone involved.
ams> I might understand this whole thing _if_ the FSFE was ams> activley looking for one or two people too actually work on ams> this,
You mean in the sense of putting out a call for qualified developers?
Yes.
ams> The FSFE is still distributing them to people! How is this ams> not recommending them? It doesn't matter how clearly, and ams> expressdely you state that it is not `good enough'.
The critical point here is that FSFE is willing to pass a very limited amount of these devices along to Free Software developers for the singular purpose of making them run with Free Software.
The FSFE is still distributing non-free software to people through public channels. And directly (no matter how many statements, warnings, and notes you send out) recommending non-free software to people. It simply does not matter that you put a big red label saying `WARNING: Non-free software in here! Use at your own risk!', it is still wrong to distribute it.
There is no general distribution of these devices, the devices are not being distributed to just anyone, and they are explicitly *not* recommended for general use.
Can anyone sign up for the raffle? Yes. Can anyone claim to be a developer? Yes. So despite your claims that this is not `general' distribution, it is exactly that. You sent out a press release recommending these devices.
ams> No, since the FSFE is not attempting to making these devices ams> work with free software.
That is your interpretation of the situation which is either questioning the intent, or the way it is done.
This is the interpretation of several people, including the GNU chief webmaster. I guess us GNU folks have no clue about how to inrepret things when it comes to distributing non-free software...
If you are questioning the intent, there is very little to be gained by continuing the conversation. If six years of hard work for Free Software by overall hundreds of people have not convinced you that FSFE works for goals that you share, then I certainly won't be able to do so in this discussion.
And by distributing non-free software to people you are trying to convince that you are sharing the goals of the free software movement? You have seen yourself that several people have lost faith in the FSFE by these futilie attempts to justify a immoral and unethical action.
Just admit that what you did was wrong, and retract the raffle, and then take a hard look about how to do it better instead of trying to justify that the FSFE has a responsibility to its Fellows in distributing non-free software.
|| On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 17:29:37 +0100 (CET) || "Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org wrote:
ams> Can anyone sign up for the raffle? Yes. Can anyone claim to be ams> a developer? Yes. So despite your claims that this is not ams> `general' distribution, it is exactly that.
So I take it that if we added some more layers of security to ensure that the devices will actually be used for their intended purpose, namely to make them run with fully Free Software, this would take care of the issue you are seeing?
What if we asked people to send in some kind of application instead of distributing them by random? What if we introduced some kind of obligation to report back on the progress made in freeing it?
Regards, Georg
ams> Can anyone sign up for the raffle? Yes. Can anyone claim to ams> be a developer? Yes. So despite your claims that this is not ams> `general' distribution, it is exactly that.
So I take it that if we added some more layers of security to ensure that the devices will actually be used for their intended purpose, namely to make them run with fully Free Software, this would take care of the issue you are seeing?
In my opinion? No. It would not. The end result is the same, FSFE is distributing non-free softawre to people, and asking them to pay to get this non-free software.
What if we asked people to send in some kind of application instead of distributing them by random? What if we introduced some kind of obligation to report back on the progress made in freeing it?
While this makes things it a bit better, it still does not make it right. What would happen if nobody does replace the non-free software on these devices? Does the person(s) send it back to the FSFE? Do they keep it? Do they get a refund? This opens up alot more problem than it solves, and probobly alot more work on FSFE's side that could be spent doing something more useful.
Alfred M. Szmidt ha scritto:
While this makes things it a bit better, it still does not make it right. What would happen if nobody does replace the non-free software on these devices? Does the person(s) send it back to the FSFE? Do they keep it? Do they get a refund? This opens up alot more problem than it solves, and probobly alot more work on FSFE's side that could be spent doing something more useful.
A solution: what if we ship those devices only AFTER some developers has replaced the proprietary parts?
Another solution: can we replace those prizes with something else? Is it possible to do that at this time?
Come on, let's discuss peacefully about that!
We're in discussion@ after all :)
A solution: what if we ship those devices only AFTER some developers has replaced the proprietary parts?
Another solution: can we replace those prizes with something else? Is it possible to do that at this time?
These are very good ideas indeed!
On Wednesday 14 March 2007 20:37, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
So I take it that if we added some more layers of security to ensure that the devices will actually be used for their intended purpose, namely to make them run with fully Free Software, this would take care of the issue you are seeing?
In my opinion? No. It would not. The end result is the same, FSFE is distributing non-free softawre to people, and asking them to pay to get this non-free software.
The process is a high chance that there is more freedom in the end. Compromises like this - take proprietary stuff to liberate it - have been made by GNU hackers and FSF before, e.g. running on proprietary operating system when the other have been unpractical.
What if we asked people to send in some kind of application instead of distributing them by random? What if we introduced some kind of obligation to report back on the progress made in freeing it?
While this makes things it a bit better, it still does not make it right. What would happen if nobody does replace the non-free software on these devices?
Then it is likely that it was too hard. We cannot be sure that it can be done, until somebody has done it. Writing a report about this, will be quite an effort. If this person has demonstrated the technical abilities the time of the report will be worth more money then the device itself.
Does the person(s) send it back to the FSFE? Do they keep it? Do they get a refund?
They keep it and do not get a refund, because of the time spend trying to liberate it and writing the report. Also it might be that they later get better ideas and progress with the liberation.
This opens up alot more problem than it solves, and probobly alot more work on FSFE's side that could be spent doing something more useful.
It is just a proposal for doing something useful with the devices. Sending them back will also not be good, as the necessary public reasoning will be quite a lot of work and negative one as well.
Bernhard
Bernhard Reiter reiter@fsfeurope.org writes:
The process is a high chance that there is more freedom in the end. Compromises like this - take proprietary stuff to liberate it - have been made by GNU hackers and FSF before, e.g. running on proprietary operating system when the other have been unpractical.
This is not the first time when FSFE representative used FSF and GNU Project as an excuse for distributing proprietary software. This is non sense, since neither FSF nor GNU had ever distributed proprietary software.
Please, choose a better example when justifying your actions. You're not like FSF, you're like Linspire or the Debian Project, etc.
It is just a proposal for doing something useful with the devices. Sending them back will also not be good, as the necessary public reasoning will be quite a lot of work and negative one as well.
Of course sending them back to the vendor is not nice, and it looks like according to FSFE's values, distributing proprietary software is much more acceptable. You value your "public image" more than software freedom.
Making a mistake is one thing. Trying to justify it in this way, so persitently, is something quite different -- it shows that you have betrayed our values.
* Kaloian Doganov wrote, On 15/03/07 10:46:
Bernhard Reiter reiter@fsfeurope.org writes:
The process is a high chance that there is more freedom in the end. Compromises like this - take proprietary stuff to liberate it - have been made by GNU hackers and FSF before, e.g. running on proprietary operating system when the other have been unpractical.This is not the first time when FSFE representative used FSF and GNU Project as an excuse for distributing proprietary software. This is non sense, since neither FSF nor GNU had ever distributed proprietary software.
Please, choose a better example when justifying your actions. You're not like FSF, you're like Linspire or the Debian Project, etc.
Like most disagreements, the different proponents use the same word to represent different concepts. Words to watch out for here are "distribute" "your" "our" "FSF".
There is a difference difference between distributing munitions for use and distributing munitions for destruction. Of course in the second case the word "distribute" may not be the right word because the recipient group is so small and select.
There is a difference between distributing a proprietary OS for convenience in another task, and distributing a proprietary OS because you're trying to remove it and merely haven't finished yet; and that is what this is about.
For a moment, let's not talk about how the word "distribute" applies and whether or not this word has usually had bad connotations when used in the context of non-free software; lets not worry about how our enemies might describe us, let's actually look at the activities that are going on.
1. FSFE wants to co-operation of willing hackers to make some non-free platforms free. Lets agree on whether or not this is good. I think we agree that it is.
2. In order to do this the FSFE needs to transfer said devices into the hands of said willing hackers. And some people think this is wrong because the transfer could be termed "distribution" and the FSFE mustn't do what can be called "distribution of non-free software".
Someone here is bowing to language instead of ideal; and I cite this as a real life example of how controlling language controls the ability to think and express ideas, and ultimately to act.
It is just a proposal for doing something useful with the devices. Sending them back will also not be good, as the necessary public reasoning will be quite a lot of work and negative one as well.Of course sending them back to the vendor is not nice, and it looks like according to FSFE's values, distributing proprietary software is much more acceptable. You value your "public image" more than software freedom.
That's funny, because I just made that case about you, but it all hinges on what "distribute" actually refers to. I suppose you don't think that police confiscation of illegal drugs itself constitutes drug trafficking? Or handing over a dangerous gun for crushing constitutes gun-running?
Making a mistake is one thing. Trying to justify it in this way, so persitently, is something quite different -- it shows that you have betrayed our values.
That's a very overloaded use of the word "our" just there. I ask you to define it in that context, do you mean that you represent the "true" FSF?
And what are those values that _you_ speak of? As far as I can tell it is fear of what can be described as distributing non-free software and fear of being accused of behaving in a non-free way, instead of actually getting on with the business of liberating.
Why is "distributing non-free software" against FSF ideals? It's just words to describe some activities which are against those ideals, such activities as promoting use of non-free software. This proposed activity does not promote such use.
( Aside: I fear that by extending statements to mean more than was originally intended we commit the same sins as the RIAA, MPAA who are trying to pretend that copyright morally grants rights that were NEVER discussed by legislators when copyright was first legislated, and to have these new rights enshrined in law WITHOUT having the discussion now.
As an example, Orange (mobile phone co where I worked) were denied use of footballing photos on internet phones. Although they had licensed use of the images on the internet, lawers decided they hadn't licensed use over "mobile internet"! WTH? So you could get the images on your phone browser using WLAN but not using GPRS. )
My point is any decree or doctrine against "distribution of non-free software" was NEVER intended to discourage "here, hack this and make it free" activity, and that is ALL that this discussion as actually about.
If anyone wants to repeat the "we don't distribute non-free software" line they ALSO need to show that such a policy was intended to cover such an activity.
Sam
On Thursday 15 March 2007 11:46, Kaloian Doganov wrote:
Bernhard Reiter reiter@fsfeurope.org writes:
The process is a high chance that there is more freedom in the end. Compromises like this - take proprietary stuff to liberate it - have been made by GNU hackers and FSF before, e.g. running on proprietary operating system when the other have been unpractical.This is not the first time when FSFE representative used FSF and GNU Project as an excuse for distributing proprietary software. This is non sense, since neither FSF nor GNU had ever distributed proprietary software.
I am not so sure, there have been machines used and also put at places that probably had some proprietary software in there, may it be firmware, bios or microcode. In addition I think that the humans in those fine organistation will have one or the other mistake just like I did and everybody else does. Also the question is what constitutes "distributing"? I am not sure, but the FSF could have helped to get small number of devices from vendor to the developer for the purpose of liberating it. This is different from a distributing larger quanitities.
Please, choose a better example when justifying your actions.
I have not chosen a concrete example, but and argument to show you the limit that sticking to rule like a dogma will sometimes not help your own cause. Like Guide van Rossum writes in the Python Style guide (http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/): A Foolish Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Little Minds he means this about code, but it could be expaned to mean goals like freedom of the society as well.
You're not like FSF, you're like Linspire or the Debian Project, etc.
I do not know Linspire enough to comment on this part of your remark, but being like Debian is for the most part a compliment. Debian has done great work in the area of Free Software, they discuss and enforce licensing issue like no other GNU/Linux distribution, they seek to get the terminology right and manage to do so, they seperate non-free from Free Software and so on. Of course there do somethings I disagree with, like treating documents like software, having a rough communication style sometimes or running servers permanently distributing non-free software.
As for being different die FSF: Of course FSFE is different in a lot of aspects, but we do share the common vision of furthering Free Software and our work in the last 6 years has shown that we manage to work towards to this together very successfully. To just name one difference: We are using a european style approach to explaining Free Software.
It is just a proposal for doing something useful with the devices. Sending them back will also not be good, as the necessary public reasoning will be quite a lot of work and negative one as well.Of course sending them back to the vendor is not nice, and it looks like according to FSFE's values, distributing proprietary software is much more acceptable. You value your "public image" more than software freedom.
Well, the public image of Free Software has an effect on practical software freedom sometimes. For example without the public opinion against software patents in Europe, we would be much more limited in what we could programm and use now. Furthermore I believe that this will get more steps towards Free Software out of the vendors in question and the devices.
Making a mistake is one thing. Trying to justify it in this way, so persitently, is something quite different -- it shows that you have betrayed our values.
It was a mistake of FSFE to put those devices in the raffle, I am not justifying this. Putting them to use with hackers that are able and willing to liberate them or make significant progress is in my opinion a good approach.
Bernhard
In my opinion? No. It would not. The end result is the same, FSFE is distributing non-free softawre to people, and asking them to pay to get this non-free software.
The process is a high chance that there is more freedom in the end. Compromises like this - take proprietary stuff to liberate it - have been made by GNU hackers and FSF before, e.g. running on proprietary operating system when the other have been unpractical.
The process is that there is a random chance of more freedom at the end. You simply have no clue if these people will be able to liberate these devices. You have no knowledge about these developers are capable of. People have suggested several ways that the FSFE could do better instead of having a raffle that gives out non-free software to people, my personal favourite is that the FSFE gives it to the first person(s) to liberate the device in question, and on top of that, you should give them a life time membership in the FSFE. _That_ would make it a high chance of more freedom in the end, but not by distributing things randomly, and on top of that asking people to pay for it.
While this makes things it a bit better, it still does not make it right. What would happen if nobody does replace the non-free software on these devices?
Then it is likely that it was too hard. We cannot be sure that it can be done, until somebody has done it. Writing a report about this, will be quite an effort. If this person has demonstrated the technical abilities the time of the report will be worth more money then the device itself.
So since it was too hard, then it is OK to distribute such devices?
Does the person(s) send it back to the FSFE? Do they keep it? Do they get a refund?
They keep it and do not get a refund, because of the time spend trying to liberate it and writing the report. Also it might be that they later get better ideas and progress with the liberation.
And distribute non-free software to people? I'm really questioning what the heck is wrong with the FSFE, are you really only looking for money to fund non-free software or are you trying to spread freedom?
This opens up alot more problem than it solves, and probobly alot more work on FSFE's side that could be spent doing something more useful.
It is just a proposal for doing something useful with the devices. Sending them back will also not be good, as the necessary public reasoning will be quite a lot of work and negative one as well.
Distributing the device will do even less good: The FSFE ends up supporting non-free software and distributing devices that contain non-free software to Fellows.
On Thursday 15 March 2007 15:17, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
The process is that there is a random chance of more freedom at the end. You simply have no clue if these people will be able to liberate these devices. You have no knowledge about these developers are capable of.
Your answer does not fit the threat of the discussion anymore. I was discussing your opinion about not doing a raffle but have developers apply with provisions that they will do work to free those devices.
While this makes things it a bit better, it still does not make it right. What would happen if nobody does replace the non-free software on these devices?
Then it is likely that it was too hard. We cannot be sure that it can be done, until somebody has done it. Writing a report about this, will be quite an effort. If this person has demonstrated the technical abilities the time of the report will be worth more money then the device itself.
So since it was too hard, then it is OK to distribute such devices?
And distribute non-free software to people? I'm really questioning what the heck is wrong with the FSFE, are you really only looking for money to fund non-free software or are you trying to spread freedom?
Distributing the device will do even less good: The FSFE ends up supporting non-free software and distributing devices that contain non-free software to Fellows.
I am getting the impression that you suggest that we treat fellows or hackers that we would distribute devices to as children. Those proprietary devices are out there and hard hacking work is one way to help freeing them. If someone approaches us with: I am capable, commiting to a public report and willing to put in the time, here are my references! Why should we not appreciate this person's efforts a little by giving them one of those proprietary devices? Most of FSFE's fellows do not need hand-holding about what is Free Software and what is not, they are quite educated and can make their ethic choices by themself. If they would have said: No - we abstain from registering, because we believe there is no chance to use those devices to progress freedom, that would have been a clear statement - but guess - this is not what has happened. A lot of qualified people registered.
Yes, we do mention Nokia or Trolltech in the process which have done things we do not like, but they have also done some steps in the direction we like. So criticing them with for the bad things and giving them recognition for the good things they do seem to be the right way for me.
Bernhard
On 15/03/07, Alfred M. Szmidt ams@gnu.org wrote:
The process is that there is a random chance of more freedom at the end. You simply have no clue if these people will be able to liberate these devices. You have no knowledge about these developers are capable of. People have suggested several ways that the FSFE could do better instead of having a raffle that gives out non-free software to people, my personal favourite is that the FSFE gives it to the first person(s) to liberate the device in question, and on top of that, you should give them a life time membership in the FSFE.
How does someone liberate such a device without having the device to work with?
_That_ would make it a high chance of more freedom in the end, but not by distributing things randomly, and on top of that asking people to pay for it.
If someone tells me that they have the technical ability to free a device, then I'm going to trust them. If that person also shows a commitment to Free Software, whether by being a GNU contributor, an FSFE Fellow, member of FSF, whatever, that adds more credence to their claim, IMHO. So when FSFE say "look, we have some vouchers for non-free devices here that can be made free with a little bit of work. We'll give them to people capable of doing that work, so tell us if you're interested in working on this". I don't understand why, when someone has already shown support for FSFE's work by supporting us, that we should then not believe them when they tell us they can carry this work out. Why do you believe FSFE's fellows are so dishonest?
You keep insisting that we'd be distributing the device randomly and it's continually pointed out that the devices would only go to those who've said they'd work to free the devices. People who've already shown a commitment to Free Software ideals by joining FSFE. Why do you distrust them so much?
Cheers,
Gareth
How about instead of trying to justify these actions, listen to the several suggestions people have given about how the FSFE could do better?
|| On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 16:34:57 +0100 (CET) || "Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org wrote:
ams> How about instead of trying to justify these actions, listen to ams> the several suggestions people have given about how the FSFE ams> could do better?
As written yesterday: We have listened and have understood what you were trying to say about the raffle and were working to fix things.
Being a democratic organisation, this needs to be done with at least a little time for people to comment and agree, but can be done fairly quickly when things are important enough.
The message below has just gone out to all Fellows.
The web pages have already been updated.
Regards, Georg
Thank you for doing the right thing.
Alfred M. Szmidt ha scritto:
Thank you for doing the right thing.
Thank YOU for providing us support and suggestions. FSF and FSFE are ONE community of people working together for freedom.
We're improving, year by year, to make things better but we can do it only with your support. No matter if the person who makes suggestions is a Fellow, a GNU project man, a FSF man! We're ALL in the same community and we ALL share the same values.
Let's spread freedom.
Together.
arc
Georg C. F. Greve ha scritto:
we have decided to take the following items out of the raffle
1 Qtopia Greenphone by Trolltech
3 Developer Discount codes for Nokia N800 Internet Tablets, by Nokia
2 Free Software based routers KWGR614, by NETGEAR
and will pass them to developers for full liberation at a later stage.
[cut]
They will be replaced by 15 copies of "Free Software, Free Society" and the remaining items in the raffle will be raffled as planned.
I agree with that but what about adding some signed copies of Free Software Free Society and/or maybe some tshirt like this one?
It's just a suggestion.
arc
On 15-Mar-2007, Georg C. F. Greve wrote:
As written yesterday: We have listened and have understood what you were trying to say about the raffle and were working to fix things.
Thank you for your patience, and for considering the message's importance enough to discuss it at length here in the face of some unbecoming behaviour.
The message below has just gone out to all Fellows. The web pages have already been updated.
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 16:51:25 +0100 From: Fellowship of FSFE fellowship@fsfeurope.org
Dear Fellows, we have decided to take the following items out of the raffle
- 1 Qtopia Greenphone by Trolltech
- 3 Developer Discount codes for Nokia N800 Internet Tablets, by
Nokia
- 2 Free Software based routers KWGR614, by NETGEAR
I think this is the right decision. I hope that FSFE can find a way to continue to actively promote the liberation of these proprietary devices.
Thanks for communicating this clearly, and especially for communicating the reasons for this action.
On 3/15/07, Georg C. F. Greve greve@fsfeurope.org wrote:
Dear Fellows, we have decided to take the following items out of the raffle
- 1 Qtopia Greenphone by Trolltech
- 3 Developer Discount codes for Nokia N800 Internet Tablets, by Nokia
- 2 Free Software based routers KWGR614, by NETGEAR
and will pass them to developers for full liberation at a later stage.
Thank you.
This was the right thing to do.
--- Stefano Spinucci FSFE Fellow
* Alfred M. Szmidt wrote, On 15/03/07 15:34:
How about instead of trying to justify these actions, listen to the several suggestions people have given about how the FSFE could do better?
I don't think anyone is trying to justify the actions, they are trying to explain how the actions don't go against the FSF doctrine of distributing non-free software to someone who uses the word "distribute" when a non-free device is given to a hacker to liberate.
Why don't you try and justify your claim that saying "here, hack this non-free device" contravenes the doctrine of not distributing non-free software.
Sam
"Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org wrote:
It is _very_ different, a notebook works without non-free software.
Does it?
"Some desktop machines can run a free BIOS, but we don't know of any laptop that can do so." -- http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/free-bios.html
If so, which ones? I expect I'll buy a new notebook in the coming months and I'd prefer one which works without non-free software.
ObTopic: I think this is a question of degree, not as black/white as some suggest. I feel that Nokia-support is inappropriate, but other fellowship-problems are more of a blocker to me, so I'm probably not the target audience for the raffle.
Regards,
At Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:29:13 +0100, "Georg C. F. Greve" greve@fsfeurope.org wrote:
We would tell you that no PDA is good enough today, but that it would be very important to have one that runs only Free Software.
We would also tell you that there are some devices on which this seems possible, but that they are not yet good enough and require more work.
I've been told that Familiar, thanks to SDG Systems, has excellent support for the IPAQ H2210 (about 300EUR) and the HX4700 (500-600EUR). The only part not supported by free software is the WLAN driver in the HX4700.
Do you exclude these because you are not aware of them or because of some other issue?
Neal
|| On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:03:12 +0100 || "Neal H. Walfield" neal@walfield.org wrote:
nhw> I've been told that Familiar, thanks to SDG Systems, has nhw> excellent support for the IPAQ H2210 (about 300EUR) and the nhw> HX4700 (500-600EUR). The only part not supported by free nhw> software is the WLAN driver in the HX4700.
This sounds very good.
nhw> Do you exclude these because you are not aware of them or nhw> because of some other issue?
We were simply not aware of them. Did you have a look at them and could confirm that they are truly fully Free Software?
Regards, Georg
At Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:56:38 +0100, "Georg C. F. Greve" greve@fsfeurope.org wrote:
|| On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:03:12 +0100 || "Neal H. Walfield" neal@walfield.org wrote:
nhw> I've been told that Familiar, thanks to SDG Systems, has nhw> excellent support for the IPAQ H2210 (about 300EUR) and the nhw> HX4700 (500-600EUR). The only part not supported by free nhw> software is the WLAN driver in the HX4700.
This sounds very good.
nhw> Do you exclude these because you are not aware of them or nhw> because of some other issue?
We were simply not aware of them. Did you have a look at them and could confirm that they are truly fully Free Software?
Before writing the email you cited, I asked one of the developers what components were non-free. He gave me the information that I included. I have no reason not to trust him, however, I have not verified this information.
Neal
Georg C. F. Greve wrote:
That is why no device is being recommended.
Quite on the contrary -- I initially thought that the list of devices are such that 100% respect our freedom and FSFE organized this campaign precisely because of that.
As was pointed out by others before, this part of the raffle is about giving developers access to hardware that is coming closest to our goals and thus give them the best start in making them entirely free.
Our goals have always been 100% freedom. Not 99%, not 99.9%. 100%. I feel extremely uneasy to remind this to you. There are other ways of giving access to developers that want and can write free replacements without promoting these devices.
Without Debian there would have been no Ubuntu, and without Ubuntu there would be no Gnewsense. And Gnewsense itself helped influence others to think about providing pure Free Software distributions.
Listen to yourself! gNewSense would never exist if Debian and Ubuntu were 100% free GNU distributions. To praise Debian/Ubuntu for providing a solid code base to build (actually, to "strip" the non-free bits) a truly free OS, that has always been the initial goal, is disgusting. The sole existense of distros like gNewSense, whose task is not creative development, but cleaning the dirt created by the others, is shameful for our community. All GNU/Linux, GNU/Hurd and GNU/kFreeBSD systems, all variants regardless who is developing them should be free: this is our goal, namely, to escape non-free software.
Without access to Ubuntu, Gnewsense would not exist.
I find your lack of faith disturbing. It is more or less true that freedom is, and always was, of low priority, but you are underestimating the fact that a (small) minority of users will always be motivated enough to provide a free distro.
In the case of Ubuntu, the distribution was available without cost on the internet.
So what? I would prefer: against a fee, but 100% free.
But if someone had told me that they wanted to create Gnewsense and they needed access to Ubuntu to do that job, I would indeed have sent them a DVD.
You are free to decide whatever you want as a person. Bear in mind, however, that you are an official speaker of the GNU Project and you are leading this Foundation. With this action, FSFE is effectively inviting users to stop pursuing the goal of freedom. You are abandoning our ideals for the sake of popularity and raising funds.
This is more than sad for me personally, as years of respect and faith I had in you have been swept away.
"Georg C. F. Greve" greve@fsfeurope.org writes:
We need to build a stronger presence of the Free Software community in this area.
Yes, indeed. But this does not mean shipping proprietary software to users (or "developers"). In fact, I was considering making a donation to FSFE and becoming a fellow, but after reading this discussion, I've decided not to do so anytime soon.
I would be ashamed to support organization that organizes distribution of proprietary software. That's a Raffle to disgust more Fellows.
John Sullivan johns@fsf.org writes:
(I'm not wild about giving away nonfree technical documentation books either.
I don't remember any replies to this, so I should say neither would we be, and we won't.
People do not win books of their choice from linuxland.de, they win specific books (donated by linuxland.de) which are either non-tech (about licences, free culture etc.), or are technical but free.