Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey

[Luis Villa <luis tieguy org>]

On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 10:14 AM, Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com> wrote:
> On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 09:34 -0700, Stormy Peters wrote:
>> I believe we can state it this way ...
>>
>> The GNOME Foundation believes in free software and promotes free
>> software but that does not mean that GNOME is anti-proprietary
>> software. We believe, promote, use and write free software.
>>
>> We are excited when companies and individuals use GNOME technologies
>> because we believe it brings us closer to our mission and vision of a
>> free desktop (or mobile interface) accessible to everyone. Sometimes
>> those companies are proprietary software companies and while we hope
>> that they move closer to free software in the future (and that we are
>> helping them do so with the use of GNOME), we are delighted that they
>> have chosen to use GNOME and will help them and their customers.
>
> This is a great, positive way of saying things that I consider to
> reflect the long-standing views of the GNOME community and is inclusive
> of the diversity of opinions that we have.
>
> Continuing a negatively framed debate like "does the GNOME community
> believe that proprietary software is immoral" is not helpful. I hope
> Lefty will take a step back and consider whether his survey actually has
> a real purpose in guiding the activity of the GNOME project.
>
> We have a lot of software to write, we have a lot of users to get our
> message to. I think there's a responsibility on all of us, and
> especially those who could be seen (by virtue of holding a position on a
> GNOME board) as representing GNOME, not to get sidetracked into argument
> for the sake of argument.

+1 to both Owen and Stormy's statements.

Luis