GNOME Foundation Elections - Final Candidate List

Motor writes: "The list of candidates for the forthcoming GNOME foundation election is now available. And yes, RMS is on there..." Note for voters, the email will be sent out the 13th. Please note the Election Rules and Director Overview Good luck to all the candidates!

Comments

RMS

[PigeonGB]

Very passionate about what he does.
If everyone was like that for their respective jobs, how much of an increase in productivity would we see?
So even without knowing much about what he could do for GNOME, I don't know who else could be better for the job.

Re:Strange...

[murrayc]

Note that RMS doesn't use any desktop or GUI. He doesn't even use GNOME.

Re:Damn...

[dvdeug]

> I strongly believe RMS has gone from evangelist to extremist.

I don't think he's changed behaviors; he's doing the same things he's always done.

> Claiming to be the father of OpenSource

When did he say that? From the way you use the word OpenSource, I'd you don't really understand anything that RMS has done, or why he objects to OpenSource.

> true or not

If it is true, then how can you fault him for saying it? What, "I don't like you because you know who you are"?

> just wants to be in the lime-light

There aren't that many times you can really say RMS wants to be in the lime-light. It's not RMS/Linux he's pushing for, for example, it's GNU/Linux. He wants you to assign the copyrights on GNU projects to the Free Software Foundation, not himself. He wants his project, his beliefs to be in the limelight.

> if he wasn't so anti commercial products and accepted that they do have a place and are necessary

Then there would probably be little free software. The only thing that enabled free Linux was free shells, free utilities and a free compiler from the GNU project. Some could have been rewritten; some could have been taken from the BSD projects when they were released and the lawsuits were over. But it would have taken a lot of time to remake the compiler, and the work needed to replace the shells and utilities would have made early work on Linux much harder. He could have used commercial software; but then why replace all the little pieces that permitted complete Open Source operating systems, if they come with Unix already?

Hold the phone...

[Reality Master 101]

I thought RMS doesn't use a GUI at all? Isn't he a strictly command-line only guy?

If so, shouldn't one of the prerequesites to being on the board of a GUI desktop initiative that you actually use the freaking product? Why would he think that he's the right person for this job?

what's with the RMS-bashing?

[danny]

RMS has never tried to claim "all the credit" for free software for himself - he does ask for more recognition for the GNU Project, but that's not just RMS, that's thousands of developers. If you check out the partial "GNU's Who" on the web site, you'll find RMS in alphabetical position, not promoted over the others.

If I were voting for GNOME directors, I should think RMS would make a fine choice. He's an experienced developer himself, he knows a lot about licencing issues, and his committment to free software development is unquestioned. Sure, he'll bring some politics into it, but the whole point of the GNOME Foundation is surely to do the politics, public relations, marketing, and so forth so the developers don't have to.

Danny.

Interesting Contrast...

[sphealey]

MR. GATES: Let me start out, really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use, and all the extensibility should be there. And so it was very predictable that once we had gotten the PC going, and going and gotten hundreds of millions of machines out there, that it had always been sort of free software and the universities would flourish and there would be more of that. We certainly accept free software as part of the software ecosystem. In fact, there's a very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the commercial software existing together.

Bill Gates speaking at Microsoft's 2001 shareholders' meeting

==========

I've been working for GNOME since years before there was a GNOME. In 1983, while formulating plans for the GNU operating system, I decided it ought to include a window system. Later, around 1988, we obtained X, but we found out that X only did the lower-level half of the job, so I decided we needed to develop a free software desktop to do the rest of the job. After our desktop initiatives in 1990 and 1994/5 didn't produce a working desktop (*), I became aware of another desktop project based on a non-free library (**), and spoke to the community about the problem posed by that dependency. This inspired Miguel to launch our third desktop project, the one that succeeded: GNOME.

Richard Stallman in his statement of candidacy for the GNOME Board of Directors.

Hmmm...

sPh

Why is RMS so upset with KDE?

[coe]

It sounds so strange to me when RMS states that "gnome is the only one that succeeded". He takes pleasure bashing KDE without a reason or what do you think about this quote from:

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-announ ce /2001-November/msg00028.html

-snip-
I became aware of another desktop project based on a non-free library (**), and spoke to the community about the problem posed by that dependency. This inspired Miguel to launch our third desktop project, the one that succeeded: GNOME.
-snip-

Vote for Alan Cox's wife!

[thule]

TELSA GWYNNE " I do docs, bugs, and hassling developers. I don't code. I also make last minute decisions. "

GPL isn't clear cut about in-house development.

[Carnage4Life]

In house projects _don't_ have to have their source code released, according the the GNU license. If you use/extend GNU software in house for your own use, you don't even have to tell anyone you've done so. It's not until you _distribute_ the binaries to others that GNU obligates you to _distribute_ the source

GPL advocates keep mentioning this but until I see it tested in a court of law this is a very gray area. For example, what if I work for a company that uses a modified version of some GNU software internally that completely outperforms the version used in the main development tree. Now let's say my NDA forbids me from revealing source code I've obtained from work or written while working as an employee as most NDAs do. Yet the GPL specifies that I can redisribute any GPL code I receive with source, not just that but if I redistribute it I must deliver source and also that there should be no restrictions on how I can distribute it. Now if I decide to redistribute it, what has precedence my NDA or the GPL? If it's the GPL then I've done nothing wrong but it then means that people claiming that you can use GPLed software internally and not have to reveal your modifications are not absolutely correct since any body who receives the code internally can redistribute it to the outside world. On the other hand, if it's the NDA then this means that the GPL can be overriden by contractual obligations which may open up a hole from which exploitations of the GPL can begin.

I am not a lawyer so I cannot answer this but I can see it being argued both ways. Until some legal precedence is set as to whether in-house modifications of GPLed software can be redistributed by those who receive it internally within the company or not, I don't think anyone can state authoritatively that using modified GPLed software in-house doesn't have any pitfalls.

Jim Gettys

[Pemdas]

I don't know the guy personally, but having worked for Compaq in the past and being familiar with some of his past work, I'm glad to see his name on the list. Something he was involved in that many ./ readers may remember is the Itsy project, which can be found here.

If I were a voting member (which, sadly, I'm not), he'd definitely get my vote. So instead, I'll just lobby for him here. :)

Not convinced about RMS

[maroberts]

I actually think that RMS is a great guy, but should not be nominiated to the board of directors for GNOME. GNOME requires someone who can devote a significant amount of time to it, and I believe RMS has his fingers in enough pies already and would be pushed to dedicate the time that GNOME requires.