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Now of course, for a small fee, users could add extra hardware.

"Screw all that nickel and diming. I'm trying something GNU."

People need to learn that they need to pay for software.

All too true. Freedom isn't free.
[opens Debian donation form and donates half the price of a Windows 10 license]

Software in the Public Interest is in a unique place to act as an information clearing house, conduit and "amalgamator" for this problem.

Have you considered to be part of one of the open source foundations?
http://www.spi-inc.org/ Software in the Public Interest ( http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/associated-project-howto/ )
http://sfconservancy.org/ Software Freedom Conservancy
http://www.ffis.de/ (Germany)
And the most known Eclipse, Apache and Outercurve Foundations

The process for handling the money is very similar as you have described. The foundation is the entity that receives the funds (money or equipment) and tag them for the project that they were donated. So the foundation keep the donations for each project independent. If you need money for a conference or to pay the hostings and your project have the resources then they can send the project leader a wire or a check or in some cases make the payments directly in behalf of the project. The expenses have to match the legal policies for a non profit organization (all the previous samples are fine).
Each foundation has its own rules and processes to be accepted, there was a really interesting thread some months ago in the vertx mailing list where some of the foundation leaders exposed their own strengths: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/vertx/WIuY5M6RluM%5B1-25-false%5D look at the posts from:
Jim Jagielski (Apache), Bradley M. Kuhn (SFConservacy), Kohsuke Kawaguchi (Jenkins, this project is on SPI), Mike Milinkovich (Eclipse), Paula Hunter and Stephen Walli (Outercurve)

Have you considered to be part of one of the open source foundations?
http://www.spi-inc.org/ Software in the Public Interest ( http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/associated-project-howto/ )
http://sfconservancy.org/ Software Freedom Conservancy
http://www.ffis.de/ (Germany)
And the most known Eclipse, Apache and Outercurve Foundations

The process for handling the money is very similar as you have described. The foundation is the entity that receives the funds (money or equipment) and tag them for the project that they were donated. So the foundation keep the donations for each project independent. If you need money for a conference or to pay the hostings and your project have the resources then they can send the project leader a wire or a check or in some cases make the payments directly in behalf of the project. The expenses have to match the legal policies for a non profit organization (all the previous samples are fine).
Each foundation has its own rules and processes to be accepted, there was a really interesting thread some months ago in the vertx mailing list where some of the foundation leaders exposed their own strengths: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/vertx/WIuY5M6RluM%5B1-25-false%5D look at the posts from:
Jim Jagielski (Apache), Bradley M. Kuhn (SFConservacy), Kohsuke Kawaguchi (Jenkins, this project is on SPI), Mike Milinkovich (Eclipse), Paula Hunter and Stephen Walli (Outercurve)

If you want, you can always donate $$$ directly to Debian and some associated free software like PostgreSQL or FFmpeg. These donations are not used to pay for developer time. They are generally used to reimburse some of the travel costs associated with things like Debconf for the poorer developers, hardware costs for developer machines (something more recent) etc.

http://www.spi-inc.org/donations/

Debian is just one of the members of SPI. There are other software that benefits too,

http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/

And if you are suspicious that SPI is not associated with Debian, just look at Debian's donations page and be happy.

http://www.debian.org/donations

Cheers!
Anonymous Debian Dev.

PS. $$$ is not a big problem for Debian (as everything is either sponsored or volunteered), but it is always welcome.

If you want, you can always donate $$$ directly to Debian and some associated free software like PostgreSQL or FFmpeg. These donations are not used to pay for developer time. They are generally used to reimburse some of the travel costs associated with things like Debconf for the poorer developers, hardware costs for developer machines (something more recent) etc.

http://www.spi-inc.org/donations/

Debian is just one of the members of SPI. There are other software that benefits too,

http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/

And if you are suspicious that SPI is not associated with Debian, just look at Debian's donations page and be happy.

http://www.debian.org/donations

Cheers!
Anonymous Debian Dev.

PS. $$$ is not a big problem for Debian (as everything is either sponsored or volunteered), but it is always welcome.

SPI is the official sponsor of the Debian Foundation and Arch takes donations. Canonical makes some money off of FLOSS, but is not making a profit yet.

I'm not a huge fan of Canonical, but this argument over modifying an open-source application is silly. (In addition, Canonical contributes a good amount to FLOSS given its size, though not necessarily to the kernel itself -- Launchpad, U1 client, app indicators, and Unity are just recent examples.)

Wasn't HP a major sponsor of Software in the Public Interest, Debian's parent organization, a couple years back? If they backed it substantially (they seemed to have featured prominently on SPI's sponsorship pages), would anyone here know if that was part of their strategy to eventually build a distro on top of Debian? Having both Ubuntu and HP contribute packaging fixes upstream to Debian would be great.

Software in the Public Interest Should be your first step.
(Supporting Debian indirectly supports your interests as many packages are sourced from there)

http://www.spi-inc.org/projects

Also see gnome friends and kde.

I also recommend supporting wine.

Here's a link with election info. Here are the election results.

But for me the real question is whether it is time for a magnetic floating bed?

Here's a link with election info. Here are the election results.

But for me the real question is whether it is time for a magnetic floating bed?

here it is

Here ya go. Just make sure to specify that you want it to go to "Debian."

He was the leader of the Debian Project from 1996-1997 and founder of various other projects such as The Open Source Initiative ( http://opensource.org/ ) and Software in the Public Interest ( http://www.spi-inc.org/ )

• Register it as an individual. This can be a problem if you get run over by a bus, or something.
  
• Form a non-profit or charitable organisation. Legal overhead, depending on where you are. You may need to submit proper accounts and the like.
  
• Get an organisation like SPI to hold the trademarks on your behalf.
  

The article didn't go quite as in depth as I would have liked. Specifically, the Debian apt repositories have literally, and you may quote me, zillions* of packages. I'm fairly certain they have quite a few more than, say, Red Hat has binary packages in their repositories.

Therefore, it would follow that if 4% of Debian packages had security vulnerabilities that would equate to a substantially greater number of packages than would the same 4% of Red Hat packages.

The other important thing to keep in mind is that it's unlikely many users would install all zillion packages at one time.

Finally, the article implies Debian and Red Hat are in competition. However, as literate geeks will know, Debian is the OS of "Software in the Public Interest" http://www.spi-inc.org/about which is a non-profit entity. Therefore, while one could argue that Red Hat (a for-profit enterprise) and Debian are in competition for userbase, by no means are they in direct competition for 'business'.



*Debian website says "over 15490." Which begs the question, how many more than 15490? 15491?

But you still have Debian (the group of people) being allowed to do something other people aren't allowed to.

What is the difference between:

SPI (the trademark holder) allowing Debian (the affiliation of people) to alter Debian (the software) and still use the original mark while not giving everyone else that right.

Mozilla (the trademark holder) allowing Debian (the affiliation of people) to alter Firefox (the software) and still use the original mark while not giving everyone else that right.

To be logically consistant Debian (the group of people) should not be able to distribute the Debian software with the Debian trademark. Debian has been granted management of that trademark by SPI and does not give the same rights to those they distribute to.

If the DSFG stop Debian (the group) using the Firefox trademark because they have been granted special rights to it then it must also stop them using the Debian one.

http://www.spi-inc.org/

> Maybe he's changed since then, and maybe the attitude problem was more one of poor communication than of obnoxiousness

Branden has really mellowed out a lot over the years. He did a decent job communicating as treasurer of SPI[1], and I think he is ready for the role of DPL. Time will tell, of course, but I find his initial email encouraging.

[1] SPI has had several "accounting scandals", info is publically available if you're interested. Some people want to lay the blame at Branden's feet, but IMHO it was a situation that he inherited, not one of his own making.

The two relevent pages I can find at debian.org are this one listing companies that have donated hardware, bandwidth, etc., and this page saying that they recommend giving to Software in the Public Interest and the Free Software Foundation

No. The term "Open Source" is a trademark of the Open Source Initiative and/or Software in the Public Interest, and it has a very specific meaning.

It seems they let just about anybody post to Slashdot these days.

It's amazing how inconvenient it can be to stick to one's principles. In this case, we have binary globs being shipped in the kernel. The question isn't about whether you're allowed to use them as the end user. You are. The question isn't whether this is a GPL violation. It's not.

Normally we think of the kernel as being one package licensed under the GPL. Instead, if we take Torvalds' claim as gospel (and we can since it's estoppel), the kernel is GPL'd but ships with non-GPL'd parts. This is no conflict; the firmware is not a derived work and need not be covered under the GPL. As long as Torvalds has the right to redistribute those binary blobs, under any license, then he can distribute them with his kernel.

Debian, however, has a more difficult decision. The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) dictates that "The program must include source code..." and this clause applies as much to firmware as it does to the kernel core.

It's easy to criticize Debian as being overly pedantic without due concern for their users, or to say that they aren't being pragmatic. Instead Debian alongside hardline Free software advocates such as Stallman himself are being very pragmatic; their efforts of refusing non-Free software promotes the continuing development of Free software. They are consistently working towards a world of Free software, and pragmatically, compromise is a step in the wrong directory.

Maybe the code isn't shipped because we don't have compilers that will compile it. Obviously, the solution isn't to ship binary firmware with the kernel, the solution is to author a Free software compiler for this architecture! Or at least a GCC backend.

The other reason for Debian to be extremely pedantic about legal issues which is commonly overlooked is their dependence on the goodwill of their ftpmasters. The ftpmasters are the group of ISPs donating storage and bandwidth to Debian. Debian offers these people a guarantee: debian-legal (and lawyers with parent company Software in the Public Interest (SPI) are prepared to prove that the ftpmasters do indeed have the rights to redistribute all Debian software. Now, can you prove that with the kernel firmware? What license does it fall under, since it can't possibly be the GPL without source?

There will be no such mark, although a couple competing factions at one time thought they had it sewn up. It was ultimately determined that "Open Source" (with or without the hyphen) is too descriptive to qualify for trademark protection. See this OSI press release and this earlier release from Software in the Public Interest. Google around a bit and you'll see there was much unpleasantness around the issue several years ago.

JVDS rocks. Great prices, awesome support, they support every distro you'd want to run on a server, and they kick back a percentage of your sign-up to spi-inc.

Lawyers file lawsuit. Lawyers settle lawsuit, with defendant agreeing to donate money to lawyers. How is this constructive?

Rather than giving money to the FSF, why not give money to groups which write free software?

"If any of this is true, I would hate to see SourceForge caught in the middle of something that could hurt them or its users."

SourceForge mention that their system is a good way to donate money to organisations such as the EFF.

It's worth noting however, that both the Free Software Foundation, and the Electronic Frontiers Foundation accept credit cards directly, without any sort of intermediary.

As for Debian, there's the Software in the Public Interest site, which is setup to handle donations to Debian, or to other Free Software projects.

If you have more time than money, consider the Help Wanted pages at SourceForge and Savannah (currently unavailable)

This news made me realize how much I depend on Debian. At the moment, every one of my machines (four servers, three workstations, and a laptop) runs Debian. I've been running it as my primary OS for... two years? So far I haven't paid a dime for it. It is a nice advantage of Free Software to be able to use it for free, but given the fact that I'm way out of "try-before-you-buy" mode, I'm going to send them a check today. Software in the Public Interest was founded by and is the current funding source for Debian.

One server compromise in the two years that I've been watching by a company with zero product sales revenue is pretty impressive. An OS that is (IMO) dramatically superior to any commercial offering for free? They've earned my respect, and have clearly earned my cash.

SPI

SPI is a well run non-profit with tax exempt sttus from the IRS that supports several projects including Debian and the Open Source Initiative.

SPI is a well run non-profit with tax exempt sttus from the IRS that supports several projects including Debian and the Open Source Initiative.

SPI is a well run non-profit with tax exempt sttus from the IRS that supports several projects including Debian and the Open Source Initiative.

There's hardly one big open-source organisation entitled to all the money.

What about Software in the Public Interest?

From the home page:

What is SPI?

SPI is a non-profit organization which was founded to help organizations develop and distribute open hardware and software. We encourage programmers to use any license that allows for the free modification, redistribution and use of software, and hardware developers to distribute documentation that will allow device drivers to be written for their product.

Looks like we have a winner!

Someone tell me what is "trolling" in this post:

Looks more like grotesque ignorance than trolling, but slashdot doesn't have a "grotesquely ignorant" mod. :)

It would have helped a lot, I think, if people like Bruce Perens had worked as part of the Free Software movement instead of confusing the issues with all the talk about Open Source.

Since Bruce has been writing Free Software since before the label "Open Source" existed, and was involved with the Debian project back when they were strongly affiliated with the FSF, and is considered the primary author of the Debian Free Software Guidelines, and is a former Debian Project Leader, and is currently on the board of directors of Software in the Public Interest, the parent organization for the Debian Project, and since Bruce has resigned from the OSI (which was really ESR's baby) over philosophical differences, I think it's a little unreasonable to criticize him for the OSI's failings.

So we know we hate this guy and he'd never be our official representative, but who *is*?

it does not appear that he has any engagement with Open Source projects and developers, or that he brought this matter up with representative organizations such as the Free Software Foundation, the Open Source Initiative, and Software in the Public Interest.

You may re-publish this message or excerpts of it.

FALSE OPEN SOURCE REPRESENTATIVE CALLS FOR EUROPEAN SOFTWARE PATENTS

A false or misled "open source representative" has signed an industry resolution calling for the EU to allow software patenting, which has been sent to members of the European Parliament. Copies of the resolution are here and here . The European Legal Affairs Committee holds a plenary vote on software patenting this Wednesday, and may have been influenced by the false representation.

Graham Taylor is director of Open Forum Europe, an organization that is purported to work for broader acceptance of Open Source. Taylor has appeared at various trade shows in Europe, saying reasoanble things about Open Source, for the past year. Open Forum Europe is a division of IT Forum Foundation and InterForum. InterForum's membership includes a number of large companies that have a vested interest in the promotion of software patenting in Europe. Mr. Taylor's sponsor organization is well connected with the EU government.

I would encourage Mr. Taylor to evangelize Open Source software, something he's done successfully for a while. However, he does not have the credentials to represent the Linux, Open Source and Free Software developer communities, especially when he contradicts our extremely strong opposition to software patenting. While Mr. Taylor has been visible as a public speaker, it does not appear that he has any engagement with Open Source projects and developers, or that he brought this matter up with representative organizations such as the Free Software Foundation, the Open Source Initiative, and Software in the Public Interest. No legitimate Open Source representative would think of taking this sort of position with government without first holding a public consultation with the developer community.

Software patents could be fatal for Open Source software in the U.S. and Europe. Since we do not collect royalties from the distribution of our own software, we have no funds to pay royalties to patent holders. Rather than sue us to collect money, expect patent holders to sue Open Source developers to restrain them from distributing their software or carrying out further development. Companies that produce proprietary software would bring that sort of suit to kill us off as a competitor.

While we can sometimes work around a patented algorithm that we know about, the Open Source developer is not able to defend himself from patent infringement claims, even invalid ones. In the U.S., the cost of a patent infringement defense often exceeds US$500,000. The Open Source developer, an individual working on his own time, won't have the funds to defend himself. He will be compelled to settle with his accuser, regardless of the merits of the case, in order to preserve what assets the plaintiff deigns to leave him. The copyrights of his own software won't be among those assets.

We are especially threatened by royalty-bearing software patents that are embedded in industry standards. In many cases, it is impossible to achieve compliance with a standard without infringing upon the patented algorithms that are specified by that standard. Standard compliance is critical for interoperability, and thus software patents in standards can make an un-communicating island of a Linux system. For example, the IEEE 1488 FireWire standard is encumbered by patents that apply to the software interfacing to it, and a patent r

(although I recognize that the OSI definition typically includes most of the same freedoms that are found with Free Software)

Read the OSI's Open Source Definition or, better yet, the original Open Source Definition Version 1.0, published in 1998, when the Open Source Initiative was founded.

Then, after you read the Open Source Definition 1.0, read The Debian Free Software Guidelines.

Now, keep in mind, that The Debian Project was officially founded in 1993. The creation of Debian was sponsored by the Free Software Foundation's GNU Project, before the Software in the Public Interest organization was formed. Debian is the only GNU/Linux distribution, which correctly use the operating system name "GNU/Linux," while all other GNU/Linux distributions refuse to give any due credit to The GNU Project, for some reason.

Now you should have some idea why "the OSI definition typically includes most of the same freedoms that are found with Free Software."

And you should probably also have idea why so many people get so angry when most of the world is talking about Eric Raymond and Linus Torvalds as the only heroes in the community -- Eric Raymond, who started the Open Source Movement and OSI in 1998 (never minding Richard Stallman who started the Free Software Movement and FSF in 1985), and Linus Torvalds, who wrote the whole operating system in 1991 (never minding, again, Richard Stallman, who started The GNU Project in 1983). See this recent farce, as an example on what I am talking about.

The facts are, that Linus Torvalds took an 8 years old operating system project, which only lacked the finished kernel, wrote a kernel and published the whole operating system (GNU system plus his own kernel) as "Linux." In my opinion, this operating system should be called simply "GNU," however Richard Stallman and the FSF wish to give both projects equal credit (for not equal work, mind you) calling the whole operating system "GNU/Linux." Still, most of the people call it just "Linux," refusing to mention GNU at all, for reasons which are beyond me. The same strange attitude we can observe with "Open Source Software" and The Open Source Initiative vs. "Free Software" and The Free Software Foundation.

Why is that so important? For a good example, see the "Linux" definition from this recent Sony Press Release from December 18, 2002:

"Linux: a Unix compatible open source operating system created in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, then a graduate student at the University of Helsinki."

Now I think it should be obvious for everyone. Keep in mind that I am talking about Sony here. This is the misinformation, which most of the people outside the community will take as truth. And when anyone will start to wonder why this software was started in the first place, she will go to Linus Torvalds and OSI's explainations, because she will not even know about the GNU and The Free Software Philosophy.

I think that the "Open Source Linux OS" vs. "Free Software GNU/Linux OS" schism is very harmful to the community at large, because the people outside of the hacker subculture have not only no idea who in fact has done which work, but they also have no idea why, which is much more important.

The real reason is freedom, but when people think that they use a "Linux OS," which was written by Linus Torvalds as an "open source software," which was invented by Eric Raymond, then they will never know that it is all about freedom at all. So, they are happy with proprietary device drivers, the very same thing which made Richard Stallman start The GNU Project in the first place.

This post will probably get moderated down, as most of Slashdot users unfortunately represent the let's-never-mention-GNU attitude of the young Internet community today. Of course, at the same time, some other post will get moderated up as +5 Funny, because it says GNU/this GNU/that -- yes, very funny indeed, especially after repeating this idiotic joke million times a week, not even stopping to think why it is important to talk about freedom, as the main motivation behind The GNU Project and the Free Software Movement at large...

Sad. Very sad.

Joey Schulze is stepping down as Vice-President, but that doesn't mean he is giving up his position as a member of the SPI Board of Directors. The bylaws do not require him to do so, and we have clarified this on the SPI Board mailing list today. To the relief of the active Board members, Joey's current intention does appear to be to remain on the Board. We'll need his energy and input.

This article did do at least one good thing, in that it apparently prompted Ian Jackson to check his SPI Board email...

Anyway, SPI is currently soliciting self-nominations for positions on the SPI Board of Directors. If you're a member of the Free Software and/or Open Source Software communities, and find that you share the goals listed in SPI's bylaws (see section two), you may want to submit yourself for consideration.

Also, SPI can be strengthened with regular memberships as well (yes, I know the SSL cert needs to be renewed). Historically, only SPI's Board has been particularly active, and sometimes not even that. If you'd like to change SPI for the better, we sure could use your help.

Thanks for listening; I hope we can turn this disappointment into an opportunity for SPI to improve. We need your help to do it.

Branden Robinson, SPI Treasurer

Joey Schulze is stepping down as Vice-President, but that doesn't mean he is giving up his position as a member of the SPI Board of Directors. The bylaws do not require him to do so, and we have clarified this on the SPI Board mailing list today. To the relief of the active Board members, Joey's current intention does appear to be to remain on the Board. We'll need his energy and input.

This article did do at least one good thing, in that it apparently prompted Ian Jackson to check his SPI Board email...

Anyway, SPI is currently soliciting self-nominations for positions on the SPI Board of Directors. If you're a member of the Free Software and/or Open Source Software communities, and find that you share the goals listed in SPI's bylaws (see section two), you may want to submit yourself for consideration.

Also, SPI can be strengthened with regular memberships as well (yes, I know the SSL cert needs to be renewed). Historically, only SPI's Board has been particularly active, and sometimes not even that. If you'd like to change SPI for the better, we sure could use your help.

Thanks for listening; I hope we can turn this disappointment into an opportunity for SPI to improve. We need your help to do it.

Branden Robinson, SPI Treasurer

Joey Schulze is stepping down as Vice-President, but that doesn't mean he is giving up his position as a member of the SPI Board of Directors. The bylaws do not require him to do so, and we have clarified this on the SPI Board mailing list today. To the relief of the active Board members, Joey's current intention does appear to be to remain on the Board. We'll need his energy and input.

This article did do at least one good thing, in that it apparently prompted Ian Jackson to check his SPI Board email...

Anyway, SPI is currently soliciting self-nominations for positions on the SPI Board of Directors. If you're a member of the Free Software and/or Open Source Software communities, and find that you share the goals listed in SPI's bylaws (see section two), you may want to submit yourself for consideration.

Also, SPI can be strengthened with regular memberships as well (yes, I know the SSL cert needs to be renewed). Historically, only SPI's Board has been particularly active, and sometimes not even that. If you'd like to change SPI for the better, we sure could use your help.

Thanks for listening; I hope we can turn this disappointment into an opportunity for SPI to improve. We need your help to do it.

Branden Robinson, SPI Treasurer

No items for this year.

then I won't go to school!"... are words that you can hear come out of a 3-5 year old. Basically, they are threatening you to oblige to their demands or they won't do something that is required of them.

As you can actually see, school is an important part of mental development for the child. In the context of this post, Mr. Schulze is the child and SPI is the school.

Just because he didn't get his candy, he is threatening to quit SPI? And pray, tell me, what possible good can this achieve? Even the purpose of SPI is unclear (No news for the whole year?).

And what is the role of free software? Just simply to reduce (possibly halt) Microsoft's domination? Only MS? Why not Apple, they too produces propietry OS? Or Macromedia for their overpriced web graphics tools?

Am I the only one to see that neither of these bodies actually serve any useful purposes other than (sigh) more propaganda for the Open Source community? Even in this area, they suck like hell! Somehow I fear for the longevity of the projects under the co-ordination of SPI.

So Mr. Shulze, basically you're just acting selfish. You have access to the minds and opinions of the SPI people and yet you decide to just quit them altogether. Thanks for helping out to futher dysfunctionalize the SPI.

Mod me as you will... it's only karma.

SPI looks like it's been pretty defunct for a while now anyway ... On the List of projects they list Berlin, which had it's name changed to Fresco, how long ago now??

"I don't see how SPI can work properly without a functioning Secretary and Board members who are too busy to make it even to the meetings. If those people wish to work on SPI matters and if their input is valuable, they should rather act as formal advisor, so SPI doesn't suffer from their overload but can benefit from their input," he added.

"In our current situation, with the currently assembled Board of Directors, with too many too busy Board members who are permanently not able to attend IRC Board meetings, join discussions and votes via mail and - from my perspective - a non-functioning Secretary with too many pending issues and problems writing and correcting minutes etc., I don't see a chance for SPI to work as our members and affiliated projects deserve.

"I believe that the Board requires a large change and that these members need to free their position so new people with more time and enthusiasm can join the Board and work on behalf of SPI."

Schulze wrote that, of the three he asked to resign, only Nils Lohner responded - and according to Schulze he has agreed to step down from his position as president. "Nils Lohner told the Board half a year ago that he will be absent for half a year. Once he was back, he let us know that he intends to resign since his new work environment did not leave enough room for SPI and he would not be able to act a Board member accordingly. Neither Wichert nor Ian even raised a word," says Schulze.

Barring voluntary resignations, Schulze noted article seven of the SPI by-laws, which provides for the forced removal of a director when "sufficient causes exist for such removal."

But ultimately, Schulze decided to remove himself from the situation, rather than pursue the matter further. "I hereby step down as vice president of Software in the Public Interest, Inc. I have announced the intention to step more than two weeks ago, and I also asked for help about a week later with no responses," he announced.

Software in the Public Interest, Inc., was established as a non-profit in 1997 and acts as an umbrella for Free Software projects such as Debian, GNOME, and OpenSource.org. The last published minutes are from a July 2002 board meeting, when the group officially approved GNU Texmacs as a sponsored project. At that meeting they also turned down Bruce Perens' request for the organization to get on board with his Sincer Choice initiative, because of its claim "We support a broad range of copyright policies, from Public Domain through Open Source and Free Software to Proprietary." SPI board members stated that it is a Free Software organization and does not agree with any policy that supports proprietary software.

Since Schulze's resignation on Sunday, 19-year-old Debian developer Jimmy Kaplowitz threw his hat into the ring, stating "Right now, SPI membership means very little other than a subscription to spi-private. We should involve the members, so that we can receive their input and ideas. This would involve more use of the public and members-only mailing lists, wherever it wouldn't violate confidentiality. I am thinking now of Nils Lohner's message to spi-general when membership was first introduced, and we need to again ask the members what they want the board to be doing.

"I would be honored to serve as an SPI board member, and I hope that I am given the chance."

You'd think that the official #debian channel would move to OFTC, since it's a member project of Software in the Public Interest and a sister project to Debian.

Four years without a remote hole in the default install!

The OpenBSD project produces a FREE, multi-platform 4.4BSD-based UNIX-like operating system. Our efforts emphasize portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security and integrated cryptography. OpenBSD supports binary emulation of most programs from SVR4 (Solaris), FreeBSD, Linux, BSD/OS, SunOS and HP-UX.

OpenBSD is freely available from our FTP sites, and also available in an inexpensive 3-CD set. The current release is OpenBSD 3.0 which started shipping December 1, 2001. The CDs (and Shirts) can be ordered...

OpenBSD contains OpenSSH, which supports SSH1 and SSH2!

OpenBSD is developed by volunteers. The project funds development and releases by selling CDs and T-shirts, as well as receiving donations. Organizations and individuals donate and thus ensure that OpenBSD will continue to exist, and will remain free for everyone to use and reuse as they see fit.

My personal opinion is the that government should be Free Software's biggest friend. I feel that public monies should be used to benefit as many people as possible (not frivously though), and that by supporting Free Software development, more people will benefit than buy investing in proprietary applications.

So, how does one get the government to buy into this plan? Perhaps it's time that the Free Software Foundation or Software in the Public Interest hires a professional lobbyist to make some inroads into the US and other governments. Free Software is reaching the point where it is a highly viable alternative to propietary solutions. With the proper lobbying and data showing positive cost/benefit analysis, perhaps we can get more momentum behind Free Software.

In any case, it's not like joining, say, ICANN, to be done from the comfort of your keyboard.

So, I suspect we're not all going to run out and do it. But, we can support some folks we trust to do so. My first thoughts are to ask Mr. Gilmore and/or Bruce Perens, if IBM's left hand would let its right oppose these doings. Noise won't help here, but a combine in the form of that supporting Damian Conway's Perl work should be possible. Can one of our existing organizations (YAS or SPI [if there's still anyone home at at the latter]) pick up the banking effort?

For myself, I pledge to donate USD100 to such an organization for this purpose. Are there seven others willing to step up to the plate? If so, we've got a membership in hand.

In contrast, it is not a "contribution" to buy a copy of Civ:CTP, however nice the folks at Loki are.

The thing that is most irritating about the whole "commercial games" thing is that there are so many middlecritters in between you and the producer of the game. If you pay $40 for a game, it is unlikely that Loki sees much more than $10, which makes this a pretty inefficient way of getting funding to them.

I've bought games (well, one game) from them, so it would be pretty hypocritical to argue that it's dramatically evil to spend your money that way.

It's just a bit silly to regard this as a "contribution" when it's largely likely to be a contribution to the bottom line of the retailer rather than the producers...

Yeah, you could have just clicked on the link in the previous post, but I felt it would be better to elaborate a bit. :)