Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

RMS Running For GNOME Board Of Directors

Posted by timothy on from the thus-could-the-circle-be-completed dept.

An anonymous reader points to this story at Newsforge which says that "RMS is throwing his hat in the ring as a candidate for the GNOME foundation board of directors. Speculation is that he's pissed because the GNOME summary keeps mentioning non-free software; now he's going to (try to) do something about it."

4 of 439 comments (clear)

  1. Let me see if I undestand by DVega · · Score: 5, Informative

    So RMS wanted an alternative to KDE bacause it was not "Free Enough" and created GNOME. They build the proyect on GTK Toolkit which is LGPL. LGPL allows to be used by non-Free products (see why LPGL is bad)

    But now KDE is completely GPL and Free (Qt Toolkit now is GPL). So it is the perfect Free Desktop. Meanwhile GNOME have walk the oposite path and now is commercial.

    I think RMS should join KDE team :-)

    --
    MOD THE CHILD UP!
  2. Not sure RMS can run according to charter by nullity · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Per the GNOME Foundation's charter, any contributor to GNOME is eligible for membership. Although it is difficult to specify a precise definition, a contributor generally must have contributed to a non-trivial improvement of the GNOME Project. Contributions may be code, documentation, translations, maintenance of project-wide resources, or other non-trivial activities which benefit the GNOME Project. While large amounts of advocacy or bug reporting may qualify one as a member, such contributions must be significantly above the level expected of an ordinary user." from the GNOME foundation membership qualification page.

    I don't think RMS fits these qualifications. The GNOME foundation membership, and all the more the board (almost all GNOME contributors are foundation members) should be active members of the GNOME community. Simply "being RMS" does not qualify one; the foundation is intended to represent the interest of those who make it happen, that is contributors.

    As a minor side niggly, the candidacy period is over and I didn't see a message from RMS, so technically he isn't qualified to run this year anyway.

    Perhaps he'd like to contribute to the GNOME project and re-apply next year?

    -seth (GNOME Usability Project Lead)
  3. Re:A matter of choice... by zangdesign · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hearsay evidence is given by the following quote: "RMS replied telling us that he disagreed with my argument and saying the we are legitimatizing the use of non-free software by mentioning it. I left it at that, but today RMS remailed us today asking us to confirm that we will not mention non-free software anymore."

    The message that sparked this email is unknown, but circumstantial evidence would seem to point to the idea that RMS wants no mention of non-free software in some projects.

    --
    To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
  4. RMS vs Miguel by Karma+Sucks · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is interesting because there is now major heat between RMS of GNU and Miguel of Ximian. Miguel has even attacked RMS in public once or twice, this was around the glibc flamewar. Miguel even stated he regretted having ever made GNOME part of the GNU project.

    Apparently RMS has long been politically maneovering around GNOME. Miguel didn't approve. My guess is this was part of the reason the GNOME Foundation was created.

    --
    (Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)