Re: Questions to answer

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Richard:

Thank you for highlighting this issue.  Yes "ISV" stands for
"Independent Software Vendor".  Since the GNOME Interface Specification
(http://live.gnome.org/InterfaceSpecification/) has been a place where
much of the GNOME-related ISV/GAD/ISD related discussion has been
captured, I changed the text so the more general term "interface
consumer" is used instead of ISV.  I chose to use "interface consumer"
since I think it more accurately describes the relationship and is more
clear than using a TLA.  Now the Interface Specification only mentions
"ISV" in one sentence as follows:

This helps interface consumers (free/open software developers and ISV's, 
for example) integrate with the GNOME desktop.

So hopefully this will help to encourage an understanding that our goal
is really to create a more solid foundational set of interfaces for all
users and not vendors.

Again, thanks for pointing this out.

Brian


>     I would be happy to help out.  As Jonathan mentions, Murray and I have
>     been sorting through some of the issues on live.gnome.org by putting
>     together an Interface Specification that is hopefully useful to ISV's
>
> Does "ISV" stand for "Independent Software Vendor"?  If so, the term
> is often misleading, because the most important developers of GNOME
> applications--those developing free software--are mostly not vendors.
>
> Consider, for instance, the GIMP developers.  Their program works with
> GNOME, but project is not a vendor.  GNU Emacs now has GTK+ support,
> but we Emacs developers are not a vendor.
>
> Every time a standard describes the projects that develop or
> distribute software as "vendors", that has the effect of denying the
> existence of volunteer projects.  So please, let's use a different
> term for GNOME application developers in general, one which fits all
> of them, and particularly fits our own community.  Perhaps we could
> refer to them as GNOME Application Developers (GADs), or more
> generally, Independent Software Developers (ISDs).
>
> See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Vendor
> for reference.