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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.
The issue is one that I wish more Planets would take seriously. Why are former GNOME devs which now work and post primarily about non-GNOME, proprietary software still being syndicated on the GNOME Planet? Why are some Ubuntu Planet members constantly posting about their Mac and Win desktops 9since they apparently don't eat their own dogfood)?
If you're on a Planet, do us all a favor: create a tag for posts that should be on the Planet and don't syndicate the other stuff. We don't want to know what you bought at the grocery store. If the Planet's ToS says the language is English, post in English (substitute appropriate language for other Planets).
Glad I got that off of my chest.
Put identity in the browser.
And pushing Tomboy means it's nothing but a ploy to get Mono distributed. Choosing a minor app that takes 189 freaking MB of memory for nothing but displaying sticky notes on the screen is preposterous when you have similar programs which do the same in a few MBs. It's waste for your high-end desktop/laptop with 2-4GB RAM, it's a deal breaker for slimmer configurations.
Mono was a trap from the very beginning. Let's not let it drag us down.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
OTOH, Gnome had to be written because of KDE's relationship to proprietary software. For many years, KDE was a better overall environment and attracted more users. But as the corporate world began to look for ways to market Linux-based distros, it was Gnome's relative purity (not any of its technical merits, which are few) that got KDE pushed to the sidelines.
Are we now going to see Gnome become the encumbered environment that's more popular with users, and KDE freer one?
Its kind of absurd when you think about it. Copying Microsoft's stuff will only make Gnome more like WINE, only less popular. And can you see GNU making further concessions for Microsoft's patented ideas within their projects?? Don't be ridiculous!
de Icaza and his troop want to continue a career of aping Microsoft's binary components while leaving almost all of the design and other heavy lifting to the latter. They are not worth the trouble that brings. Let them fork Gnome into something else and then see which environment continues to get included in the corporate-supported distros.
Pretty much so, there is a major push to switch Gnome to C#
[citation needed]. There's exactly a single GNOME desktop dependency using C#, Tomboy, and even that's been cloned in C++ (GNote). and is gaining adoption instead of the Mono-based variant by many major distros including Fedora. I really wouldn't be surprised to see it proposed to replace Tomboy in the upcoming months.
.NET components accepted or even proposed to be included in GNOME in years. The Mono fear is a sound one, but it's not one you realistically have to worry about today as a GNOME user. With the recent improvements in GThumb and newer photo cataloging apps like Shotwell, not even F-Spot can be considered a 'killer app' for Mono anymore. That community has long since left GNOME along with Miguel.
Furthermore, if GNOME's heading in any direction on the desktop, it's towards enabling 3D, networking, web and presence technologies through the stack. There has been a heavy push to add networking to the lower libraries so that libraries above can take advantage without reinventing the wheel. A D-Bus layer is merging into GLib next. GNOME Shell is written mostly in Javascript with Clutter being used as a 3D toolkit, after Gtk+ itself was extensively modified for better offscreen rendering support. Webkit replaced Mozilla's Gecko, and is being used by more up-and-coming GNOME projects. Telepathy and Empathy were adopted into GNOME and gives us an instant messaging client. There are half a dozen new projects around the rather small-but-growing geography and cartography communities. GNOME technologies are also heading towards the more-deeply embedded direction, with Clutter-GTK+ pushing Moblin to new heights and products like the Litl webbook (which is also very heavily Javascript-based).
There have been no new
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
There was a project named GNU. Then came GNUstep. Then came GNUstep + WindowMaker. GNU looked upon this and called it good, and declared it the official desktop of the GNU project. But GNUstep was not finished, not even close.
Then kame KDE. It was based upon the not-so-free Qt. Everyone at GNU cried "oh shit." Fire and brimstone began to fall.
Then came Miguel, a shit-disturber from the NetBSD holy wars. GNOME was cooked up with an official "fuck you" to the KDE team on their mailing lists. The 0.33 release was based on a bunch of free tools hastily thrown together and re-branded with the never-proven CORBA thrown into the mix.
Then came RedHat, wading into the morass and inspiring GNOME to jump from version 0.33 to version 1.0 overnight, resulting in much crash-age and tooth-gnashage. But the gospel had been preached and accepted in the West, and even Slashdot jumped on Miguel's bandwagon. Yea, even the Rasterman was drawn into the mighty whirlpool for a time and Enlightenment was lost to history. So the holy wars were joined.
Over time, KDE became more free. The dreaded, reviled Qt became GPL, then LGPL. On the flipside, GNOME began adopting questionable technologies like MONO. The grinning spectre of Dread Lord Gates lurked in the shadows. The wheel had turned.
And yet back in the dustbin of history, GNUstep waited. And all along this would have been the best choice of all, had Stallman & co not thrown their weight knee-jerk behind "anyone but KDE". Given the return of NextStep under the name "Mac OS X," just imagine the interoperability and cross-compatibility we could have today?
People have mistaken the agenda of RMS for their own, but he has a political agenda and not a practical one.
RMS's agenda is eminently practical. It's just a long-term practicality over immediate gratification.
The Free software ecosystem is now well past the point where sacrificing the functionality of free software is a requirement for the general community. There are certainly niches where that is still true, but something like GNOME is not a niche.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Good summary. I for one ain't that crazy about seeing my FSF dues going to host a MS/Silverlight ad. What's next, a rave review of Office 2010? Windows 8? Is MS so impoverished they can't afford to buy ads anymore? Wouldn't this be a better place for a Sliverblight endorsement? With all the money those parasites have, you'd think they'd be too ashamed to leech off of GNU!
.NET to work on the the NT kernel?! Won't be any skin off my butt, XFCE, KDE, and Fluxbox, are all better alternatives. /end rant.
As long as I'm ranting, Dear GNOME, if you find that the 4 freedoms make you philosophically uneasy, feel free to leave GNU. While you are at it why not re-write GNOME in
About your bruised feelings: Tough shit. Now, feel free to use your sock-puppets to mod me down: "-1 unympathetic."
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.