From: "Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org
Freedom and practicality don't go hand in hand.
Maybe. But some companies or individuals (I, for example) would want to be "certified" (cum grano salis) against the GBN guidelines.
Branding is important in business, be it Microsoft certified or Cisco certified or GNU certified.
Ottavio Caruso
(follow up on list, please)
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Ottavio Caruso wrote:
From: "Alfred M. Szmidt" ams@gnu.org
Freedom and practicality don't go hand in hand.
This statement suggests that freedom and practicality are somehow mutually exclusive. The existing evidence in our field does not support this assertion.
The GNU GPL is a practical license. It uses copyright to ensure freedom.
The Free Software Foundation is a practical collective. It uses a combination of paid staff and volunteers to promote the idea of Free Software.
FOSS projects are frequently practical. Teams coordinate and deliver high quality technology to users. This technology include mission-critical software like the Linux kernel.
There is absolutely no reason freedom and practically cannot go hand in hand. They already do.
But some companies or individuals (I, for example) would want to be "certified" (cum grano salis) against the GBN guidelines. Branding is important in business, be it Microsoft certified or Cisco certified or GNU certified.
Exactly.
The reason I suggest that the provisions of the GNU Business Network Definition pertaining to support contracts are potentially unreasonable is that branding and certification are key when it comes to business confidence. If the GNU Business Network Definition alienates established integration and support providers it will not be adopted by them. The lack of wide-spread adoption will undermine the use of the certification and thereby reduce it's positive impact on businesses.
IMHO the GNU Business Network Definition should be compatible with as many existing integration and support vendors are possible to ensure adoption. Naturally the GNU Business Network Definition should encourage Free Software excellence, but the base principle should be to encourage the use and support of Free Software in business environments. Exclusivity of use and support should perhaps be secondary.
Shane
- -- Shane Martin Coughlan e: shane@shaneland.co.uk m: +447773180107 w: www.shaneland.co.uk - --- OpenPGP: http://www.shaneland.co.uk/personalpages/shane/files/publickey.asc
There is absolutely no reason freedom and practically cannot go hand in hand. They already do.
There are several reason, one is that sometimes it is more practical to use non-free software, this goes against the goals of freedom. The other is that supporting non-free software how ever obscure can lead to the spreading of this obscure piece of software.
The reason I suggest that the provisions of the GNU Business Network Definition pertaining to support contracts are potentially unreasonable is that branding and certification are key when it comes to business confidence.
Supporting non-free software goes against the goals of the GNU project. Since GBN is part of the GNU umbrela, it makes very little sense for it to list companies that support non-free software. I don't see what the problem is, the goal is freedom, not huge list of companies that do unethical and immoral things.
Cheers.
|| On Fri Jun 9 12:56:59 2006 || pr0f3ss0r1492 at yahoo.com (Ottavio Caruso) wrote:
oc> Maybe. But some companies or individuals (I, for example) would oc> want to be "certified" (cum grano salis) against the GBN oc> guidelines. Branding is important in business, be it Microsoft oc> certified or Cisco certified or GNU certified.
Yes, and indeed this always was one intended benefit for Free Software professionals and individuals in the GNU Business Network.
If you ask why this does not yet exist, there is a very simple answer:
FSFE did not have the resources to do it right, which is the only way we want it done. Please do not underestimate this project: There is a lot of work involved in starting up something like the GBN, and keeping it running solidly.
Unless we forseeably have the resources needed, we will not proceed.
So we worked to find funds for this at the European Commission in the scope of our GNUCAN proposal, but that was unfortunately not rated highly enough that the Commission would have given it priority over other projects that were funded.
We also talked to several individual companies, many of who would have been interested to help this project, but the overall sum we were talking about was still too low to start it up.
Also, the GPLv3 process [1] is taking a toll on FSFE's time resources, and keeping us quite busy, including organising the GPLv3 conference in Barcelona [2] -- I hope many of you will attend.
Also, the legal issues around Free Software are definitely in urgent need of some more attention in Europe -- and we have been planning to establish a "Freedom Task Force" of FSFE, which will be working very closely with people like Harald Welte.
FSFE was able to find some resources for this activity, which also is less resource intensive than the GNU Business Network, so we decided to give the Freedom Task Force priority for the moment -- even though we also would very much like to work on the GBN.
If you want to help us on any of these tasks, that would be great.
Regards, Georg
[1] http://gplv3.fsf.org [2] http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/europe-gplv3-conference