GNOME Developer Suggests Split From GNU Project

blozza2070 writes "In a recent posting from Philip Van Hoof, he suggests that GNOME split off from the GNU Project and has proposed a vote. He was informed he will need 10% of members to agree for a vote to be put forth. At the same time, David Schlesinger (on the GNOME Advisory Board) has agreed on a vote. Stormy Peters said she doesn't agree with this, but then gave everyone instructions on how to proceed with a vote. She mentioned that roughly 20 members are needed to agree." The mailing list server is timing out as of this writing, but iTWire has the Cliff's notes.

Comments

Re:Because?

[cntThnkofAname]

This is just off the top of my head, but I would assume that while gnome interacts with many programs in the GNU project it is almost big enough to be a separate project in it's own (like KDE or other DE). This would probably allow for quicker discussions as far as packages and more centralized management. Improving things for developers and the users.

So they can't talk about proprietary products??

[MrCrassic]

From reading the article, I'm getting the gist that part of the problem was that some folks on Planet GNOME, de Icaza included, made a lot of mention of proprietary software and relatively little mention of its open-sourced cousins. I got this impression from several points in the article, such as this one:
 

And in response to Van Hoof's comments about VMware, Stallman said people should not write about their work on Planet GNOME "unless VmWare (sic) becomes free software. GNOME should not provide proprietary software developers with a platform to present non-free software as a good or legitimate thing."

I think that's a preposterous rule! You mean to tell me that folks who work on open source software, but happen to also work on non-OSS for their employers (Microsoft, VMware, etc) aren't allowed to talk about the work that actually helps them put food on the table and may even HELP make open-source software better?

I don't know a terrible lot about the open source movement, but from what I've read here and elsewhere, Stallman's an extremist, and that's NOT a good role model to follow.

Re:So they can't talk about proprietary products??

[Antique Geekmeister]

Stallman is consistent about his beliefs. Don't read 3rd hand re-interpretations: proceed directly to the GPL, and to Stallman's presentations, to understand what he said and what he believes.

Stallman is a visionary, not an "extremenist". Sometimes that means the rest of us need to pay the rent and don't follow his grand visions, but he's consistent and historically very perceptive of the risks of the slippery slopes often presented by people, and their corporations, who don't share that vision. In this case, Silverlight does in fact present some nasty risks to Gnome and free software development. We've seen Microsoft's "embrace and extend" behavior too often to trust them in this case.

Re:So they can't talk about proprietary products??

[Device666]

Richard Stallman is important for the free software movement. However it seems he is losing momentum in inspiring people who are on free software projects. This is a pity. I can partially understand his extremism, because freedom is easily lost. However if freedom has to be defended by dictatorship, there is no freedom either.

Re:So they can't talk about proprietary products??

[dragonmantank]

Have you ever read any of Stallman's rants? Stallman is about the freedom of the /software/, not the end user. He wants all software to be free no matter what the end cost for the user actually is. Why do you think he has a problem with licenses like BSD (which is less restrictive than the GPL)? They give more power the user than the software itself to determine how it can be used. If you take the time to actually read the GPL and some of Stallman's writings, you begin to see that he is a religious zealot who is banging the wardrum for software to forever be 100% free and open. If the user doesn't like that, he doesn't care. As a developer, I personally go for projects that are BSD-based. Yes, there is potential that the code could get locked up in a proprietary stack (MS using the BSD network stack, for example), but as long as it was released under BSD it will forever be open to be used as USERS see fit.

Re:So they can't talk about proprietary products??

[oldhack]

Dear noob, Stallman is an extremist in the same sense Ghandi is an extremist. Different ideals, though. I mean, the guy started GNU/FSF and spends decades with it, instead of going into the industry and raking it in.

What are you, born 20 minutes ago?

Re:So they can't talk about proprietary products??

[clang_jangle]

No, BSD doesn't grant openness forever, as it lets people close it.

This misconception gets repeated a lot, but there's no truth to it whatsoever. BSD-licensed software can be used by anyone for any purpose, but the original code remains free no matter what. There've even been cases of hysterical GNU "developers" thinking they need to re-license BSD-licensed software under the GPL, but it just doesn't work that way.

Re:So they can't talk about proprietary products??

[Urkki]

Yes, I have to agree.

If you restrict it and keep proprietary software off, then it will become just hobbyist platform.

Indeed. Just compare *BSD operating systems, with a license very friendly to proprietary software, and Linux, which is GPL and rather unfriendly to proprietary code (just look at the proprietary kernel module mess). It's because of this that almost in almost all commercial cases, the OS is *BSD, while Linux is used almost exclusively by hobbyists such as IBM.

Re:Why would he suggest that?

[Stumbles]

So in other words: the Gnome folks (those who love Microsoft technologies) is telling the FSF folks to get bent. I image Microsoft is very pleased with this new direction with Gnome. I predict in 5 years, perhaps less Microsoft will have maneuvered these short sighted individuals to accepting Microsoft to buy Gnome. By that time it will have forked and these "forward" thinking Gnome folks will have changee the license making it possible. It is unfortunate some of the Gnome folks are so blinded to not realize just the kind of manipulation they have been exposed to; it is the proverbial frog+cold water+a fire.

It's straightforward

[udippel]

I know RMS is unpopular in /.
I know Miguel de Icaza is more popular.

But I also know that I am a fan of Free Software. I'd be too happy Gnome could shed non-free software (like Tomboy notes - based on Mono) instead of priding themselves for functionality. KDE is not much of an alternative, they are hopeless. German engineering, for the sake of engineering, great ideas, but agnostic to the concept of 'user requirements'.
I might have to go back to xfce?

Re:It's straightforward

[dschl]

I don't think that Miguel is all that popular. The last time I saw a long thread with him here, he suffered pretty badly. Making mono a dependency in Gnome exposes the project to unnecessary risk.

I respect Stallman far more than de Icaza, both for his thoughts and his actions over the years. Stallman is often taken out of context, but he is very consistent, and his statements almost always make sense years later - sometimes prophetically so.

There are a group of people (mostly affiliated with corporations) who have a hate-on for Stallman, because he values his principles more than he does development speed, ease of use, profits, or being able to use the latest shiny thing from MS.

Re:It's straightforward

[msclrhd]

I just wish that the GNOME folks can look at what happened with (ex)FAT, both with TomTom and now with the licensing costs/requirements from Microsoft for what is likely going to happen with the .NET platform and Mono in the future.

Re:It's straightforward

[macraig]

... he values his principles more than he does development speed, ease of use, profits, or being able to use the latest shiny thing from MS.

You hit the nail squarely with that comment: Stallman values ethics more than he does profit, even his own, and the "entrepreneurs" of the world who have a reverse value system utterly despise him for it. Can we agree that Stallman is a talented man who, in some parallel dimension, could have made quite a lot of money for himself? He hasn't though, precisely because he doesn't value that extreme wealth.

In effect, by consistently adhering to and promoting this ethic for decades, Stallman has been placing the Greater Good well ahead of his own good. He's a helluva lot more like Jesus in that regard than most people I know or have heard about. Stallman is not unique for having this value system; Craig Newmark demonstrably holds the same values. However Stallman is, as you pointed out, rather uniquely consistent in his application of those values. That at least is a trait worth admiring, even if one disagrees with him. Those who do disagree with him, though, need to spend some time in reflection upon their own selfishness. Stallman demonstrates a selflessness that makes Mother Teresa (and her lifelong duplicity) look like a huckster.

The only thing wrong with Stallman's approach is that, in his zeal to realize this ethical Utopia before he dies, he is resorting to increasingly authoritarian methods when mere education fails to sway people. That appears to be what caused this little rebellion within the GNOME community: it wasn't his free-software ethic that got them riled, it was his willingness to resort to authoritarian measures to realize or preserve it.

GNOME slides further into irrelevancy.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just GNOME sliding further and further into irrelevancy. It's basically a dead project at this point. There is little innovation happening, and most discussion these days is bickering over philosophical issues like in this case.

Even if it wasn't great when initially released, at least the KDE project was able to get their KDE 4.x releases out and stabilized relatively quickly. They've built a good foundation for future development. GNOME, on the other hand, hasn't seen a major release since GNOME 2.0 in 2002! GNOME 3.0 is basically a bunch of mocks at this point, and even then, the proposed changes are quite minor.

A lot of people will say, "But GNOME is the main desktop of Ubuntu and Fedora!" Yes, that is true, but it is really only an artifact of history, dating back to when the Qt licensing wasn't as open as it is today (and thus making KDE a less-appealing option). These days, both Ubuntu and Fedora could switch from GNOME to KDE within one release cycle. I predict this will happen soon enough, probably with Ubuntu switching first.

At some point, the Ubuntu community is going to realize that GNOME has stagnated, and all of the real innovation is happening with the KDE project. It'll take time, but people are already moving over to KDE, especially as the more recent KDE 4.3 and the upcoming KDE Software Compilation 4.4 releases have shown to be of a very high quality.

KDE is just technically better these days. It is implemented in a better programming language (even C++ is better than the C-and-GObject hellhole), built upon a better GUI toolkit (Qt kicks the fuck out of GTK+), and offers much better desktop applications and a more integrated desktop experience. Unless there are some huge changes within the GNOME community, they will not be able to match KDE's current environment, let alone exceed it.

Re:GNOME slides further into irrelevancy.

[Ant P.]

I too once thought this way. Then one day I realised: "Holy fuck, I've got half a gig of RAM and a SSE2 CPU and I'm boycotting Qt3 to save what, 20MB?"

Re:Because?

[MrNaz]

Rather than Gnome leave GNU, wouldn't it be easier for Richard Stallman to just fork reality? It seems he's always wanted his own.

Re:Why would he suggest that?

[buchner.johannes]

No, the GNOME folks want to decide where they want to go. Puristic or non-puristic.

ISOified!

[Anonymous Coward]

> Their position isn't necessarily compatible with your position that
GNOME should "avoid presenting proprietary software as legitimate".

Do they know what Gnome stands for? What GNU is?

To me, there's a slow process of takeover by M$ ideals -- the same thing which was done to ISO, but on a much more planned way. ISO needed to be taken asap, or ODF would kill Office. Since OOXML was "approved", ODF was sorta defused (OOXML does not need to be good or even work; in fact, if it appears to work but doesn't, so much the better for M$).

Gnome has an ubiquitous presence in the Linux world. Taking over Gnome would deal a serious blow on Linux; if things proceed this way, who knows where they aiming? The kernel?

Things came to a point so bad that the ISO room was full with pro-M$ dudes; it was even physically impossible to enter to vote for Linux (I'm not making this up, as unbelievable as it may seem). This equates in the free collaboration world to forums being crowded -- when a "Maillist appears to be under some sort of dos attack of unknown cause."

Even the division situation is already a defeat for FOSS: every part has now half developers.

From the comments above and following here on /., I guess RMS is right; people are talking about software "which puts food on the table", Stallman being a extremist, seceding Planet Gnome so it has nothing to do with GNU ideas... Wow. I mean, wow!

My view, FWIW, is to go where RMS goes. If not for him, I would have at home the suffering I must endure at work, a M$-only shop.

Re:Because?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, for a GNU project, he arguably might be right.

The split proposal assumes he is, actually.

Gnome#

[Requiem18th]

Pretty much so, there is a major push to switch Gnome to C# as it core development language and now that the whole of Gnome is spliting you can bet that .NET will become the core dependency. Remember, MS can void its "promises" over .NET at any moment, the EEE is is progressing well.

Re:Gnome#

[Hatta]

Thank god for KDE, XFCE, etc. Anyone who thinks multiple desktop environments are a waste of effort, this is exactly why we need them.

Re:Gnome#

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

The whole situation amuses me given that the only reason Gnome exists is because back during KDE 1.x days it was "OMG QT is too proprietary!"

Re:Gnome#

[Requiem18th]

>Remember, MS can void its "promises" over .NET at any moment, the EEE is is progressing well.

No, they can't. If you make a "promise" that causes someone else to take an action, it's the same as having a contract and you can be sued.

Yes they can, there's a loophole, the promises only apply while they hold the patent, they don't apply if they sell them to some one else like a split company a puppet think tank or a patent troll.

And there is precedent of MS attempting to do just this. http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=4800

Short memory

[peppepz]

I think the newest generations of free software developers take free software for granted.

They do not know how things went before GNU and Linux were there, when to have an usable development environment you had to pay for an operating system (more expensive if it was a developer-oriented version), a windowing system, a file manager, an office application, a web browser, an email client, a compiler, a debugger, a zip program, a picture viewer, access to the official developer's documentation, and a full set of "Undocumented %s" books. Not to mention any library you might want to use.

Now they are growing tired of the "free software fundamentalists" because they do not see that what they've accomplished is inseparable from the ideology in which they believed. They just think that for some reason, charitable organizations such as Microsoft, Oracle, Sony and all the hardware manufacturers have an interest in providing them with software free of charge, and with unlimited freedom to use it in whatever way they see fit - and that they will keep doing so forever, even when that harms the sales of their commercial products.

GNOME will turn away from the FSF, this is obvious, and has been obvious since the first day the Mono affaire began. What will happen after Microsoft will be in control of key components of GNOME, is obvious too.
An then, hopefully before long, some new RMSes will appear, inspiring a free software movement again.

Do not want Silverlight

[SirGarlon]

I am glad this controversy came up because I was not following GNOME development and had no idea how hard they were working to integrate with proprietary "cross-platform technologies" like Silverlight. To me the appeal of Linux is that it *doesn't* rely on the MS model of giving Web applications full access to the OS. The real "benefit" to end users from ActiveX, Silverlight, .NET, etc is they expose the users to all kinds of Trojan horses and malware. If GNOME has drunk the Microsoft kool-aid of doing away with any kind of application sandboxing, then to hell with it.

Re:Because?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The thing to keep in mind about Stallman's "crazy" opinions is the function that they serve among the much large set of opinions that actually control what the software world looks like. Roughly speaking, the software(and availability of hardware support) that will actually be available in the present and immediate future reflects the a weighted average of the present's opinions of what software ought to be.

There is always going to be a reliable bloc of "all proprietary, all the time" opinions, because that is where the best money is. There will also usually be a reliable supply of "C'mon guys, pragmatic compromise!" opinions; because that is the home of a particularly nice costs/features ratio. "All Free, all the time", by contrast, is a largely thankless ideological position(since it will, at any given time, pay less well than "all proprietary" and be missing features that "pragmatic compromise" has). However, since future software availability reflects(roughly) a weighted average of today's opinions, it has a very important role to play.

If today's opinions are all "proprietary" or "pragmatic compromise", tomorrow's software landscape will move a bit closer to all proprietary. Each iteration will go the same way. The existence of the zealous(and explicitly ideological) "Free Only" faction helps keep things from drifting steadily in the proprietary direction.

Re:Because?

[peppepz]

As for proprietary crap - I use proprietary video drivers almost exclusively.

But that means that within one year and a half, when you go to your card manufacturer's web site to download the drivers, you'll see your card put in a separate "legacy products" box, and that will mean that you're not getting any more driver updates. Also, at the next big operating system version bump, you'll be likely in danger of being left with no drivers at all.
Moreover, since the manufacturers of your card won't probably be enthusiastic about the highly dynamic nature of the open source stack your drivers are running in, they will not be the first ones to support the new features offered by innovations on the open source side.

What I want to say is, that using open source drivers is not necessarily a philosophical/political/religious matter. It can be a very pragmatic way to use the card you paid for as long as you like, and not until its manufacturers decide it's time for you to buy a new one.

Re:Because?

[icebraining]

First, Gnome is a GNU project, not simply a GPL licensed. So, yes, they should agree with the Gnu philosophy, or they're lying. They are allowed to fork and get out GNU, nobody forces them to stay.

Second:
"If your approach is better, then time will prove that."

In a purely technical perspective, that's true. But the GNU philosophy is *not* purely technical, and sustains that access to code is a consumer right. So, by that POV, any proprietary software is worst from the start.

Stallman needs to STFU. He's ruining free software by trying to make it exist in some kind of walled garden where nobody who uses it can interact with anyone or anything else.

He's not ruining anything. He's saying what he believes, but doesn't force anyone to follow it. You're the censor here.

Re:Because?

[V!NCENT]

And he's right. Microsoft sets the standard because they have the largest platform (Windows) and they not only get to decide what the spec is, they will also release it after they released the latest Windows version.

To top that; Microsoft gets to decide if they even should release the latest specs...

*think... think.... think...*

We also have better cross platform tools already with Qt4.x... And for everything that's not native code we have webbrowsers...

*think... think... think...*

RMS is 100% correct about dumping this redundant piece of locking shittery.

Re:Because?

[Urkki]

Rather than Gnome leave GNU, wouldn't it be easier for Richard Stallman to just fork reality? It seems he's always wanted his own.

Mixing non-free software with free software systems is a slippery slope. To work on that slippery slope, as most real-world software development must, an anchor is needed. RMS and FSF are that anchor. Even though I don't agree with them 100%, I realize that my idea of good free software would be impossible if they didn't fight for their ideal and keep everything from sliding down the slippery slope.

So even if it's sometimes sensible and useful to mix free and non-free, especially from user point of view, I sure hope FSF and everything directly supported by FSF stays pure.

They better change the name

[Ilgaz]

Gnome was created by GNU guys, the vision and the name belongs to them.

I suggest DOTNETDesktop or Icaza can come up with a stylish name like Mono/Stereo/Dolby Digital whatever.

What they want is to ship a freaking Mono desktop and they can't dare to tell it to public yet. As releasing a .NET Clone with GNU license would be really pathetic/impossible, they want to get rid of license.

IMHO, GNU should get rid of them very quick and support KDE and OpenStep. Yes, the OpenStep which people ignore.