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SPI Formally Non-Profit
Software in the Public Interest, Inc. is now formally a 501 (c) (3) non-profit
organization, meaning that all donations are now tax deductible. SPI is the
umbrella organization of several free software projects, primarily Debian, but
also GNOME, Berlin, and the Open Hardware project. They (Disclaimer: I am
a Debian developer, and thus associated with SPI) claim to hold the Open Source mark.
How the hell do you write those things anyway? THe only worse thing I've seen was that C program which prints out "the 12 days of christmas" using lots of recursive calls to main or something..
GNOME is certainly under a lot of umbrellas! Red Hat, FSF, International GNOME support and now SPI. Strange, I wonder what they really mean.
:)
I guess this is just the industry's way of showing support for GNOME.
At the risk of sounding controversial, I once heard that KDE donated money to SPI... meaning that KDE has effectively funded part of GNOME.
So would I. FSF is a proven organization which we can trust, but I'm afraid I don't have much confidence in SPI or the workings of SPI.
Excuse my ignorance but what they'll do with the money? I mean, money isn't going to improve the code.
Sometimes I think that I should give a couples of bucks to the Debian Project but I want to know what they'll do with it.
Thanks
I would like to politely disagree. We shouldn't care about this trademark you've "screwed up". Trademarks don't matter, what matters is good, free software. What matters is morals.
In my opinion, the biggest screwup you've ever made was the anti-KDE campaign that you mounted. With this campaign, you hurt a lot of well-meaning innocent developers pouring a lot of time and energy into generating freely licensed code. The KDE project is still trying to recover from the effects of this campaign that it was not prepared for and had no means of defending itself against except by pouring out more good code. IMHO, this was a very immoral action of yours or at the very least a very bad way of reacting.
It is certainly my opinion that this screw up was bigger than any screw up about a meaningless trademark could be.
Does anybody know if this is possible in Canada?
Maybe you're right about Eric, but Richard Stallman has written hundreds of thousands of lines of free code, plus several books worth of
free documentation. A few years ago they say he
blew his hands up from constant typing and had to
hire someone as a human typewriter. Not to mention living in his cubicle at MIT for years to save money so he could spend it on the Free Software Foundation.
Woohoo! A good thing for SPI and for free & open software. So when's the next Debian release coming out, I wonder?
I much agree with your way of thinking. But here is one more point: almost everyone knows that in the past Microsoft has openly, and straight-out, violated patents belonging to others, trade agreements, and anti-trust laws. If they modify and distribute GPL code, are they going to get stuck on having to provide sources?? Of course not.
As for spending money to enforce the GPL, yes I agree, the money can be put to better use.
Add to that list:
RMS
FSF
-- *duck* *evil grin*
Anonymous Cowlings
oj@did.it
Agreed. Interesting how these armchair pundits are so eager to bash those who have been working hard to make their software free (RMS and ESR) while worshipping wannabe 'leaders' like Miguel the Mouth.
Miguel has done more to split the community then to tie it together, and deserves no recognition. I call upon the Gnome project again to dump this so-called leader in favour of someone who has passed the age of 12.
On the contrary, the fact that SPI failed to react promptly on the trademark shows that they are not pre-occupied with WITLESS trademark issues. The free-software community has little to gain with spending time and money on trademark issues; consider, does FSF spend money on trademarks? No.
But I agree with you that OSI should take over ownership. What is the Open Source trademark today after APSL? A piece of shame.
Whatif games are difficult. Without Eric Raymond, there would be no 'Cathedral and Bizaar'. This document continues to influence the organisation of new software projects as they start up. It is likely that without it, Netscape would not have open sourced. It is possible that without Netscape, IBM, Dell, Oracle, SGI, and many other big players would not have sat up and taken note of Linux and OSS. It is not provable, but it is possible. Eric, along with the Samba and Apache teams, has made the bridge between the Linux counterculture and the mainstream. Granted, at times he may have gone too far on a few issues for some of our tastes, but that does not devalue the outstanding work he has done and continues to do.
And don't for a moment forget the valuable work done by all the folks at SPI, the Linux documentation project, and in open-source companies like Cygnus.
Media work is work, and it is important work. Without the coders, the media workers and the documentation writers would be redundant, but without the media workers and documentation writers, the programmers remain a closed geek counterculture.
Does KDE crash? I've been running 1.1.1 continuously on a heavily loaded workstation which not only runs number crunching, Netscape, emacs, plus a whole load of X-applications over the net from Sun, SGI, DEC, and Cray machines. It has not crashed, or even wobbled, since I installed it over a month ago. Is it ugly? I tweaked the appearance and behaviour (without touching a config file) until I had a look-and-feel I was happy with. I'll try Gnome on my home machine when I next upgrade, but for now KDE is rock steady and provides me better productivity than W95 or CDE. I also use KDE beta 4 on my (32Mb P100) home machine, and while this has nothing like the stress testing of my work machine, I haven't crashed it yet.
Credit where credit is due. I think a good deal is due all around.
The statement 'KDE is ugly' is certainly an opinion to which you are entitled. My own opinion is that the panel is ugly, although I quite like the clean WM appearance. But that is just another opinion.
The statement 'KDE crashes a lot' is less of an opinion than a testable hypothesis. The experience of myself, other posters and a number of reviewers suggests that it is false.
YAAC
> * The trademark application has expired, so SPI's sole claim to fame
has faded in the west.
Good. When SPI polled the Debian developers for their prefered course of action
this was what I voted for: to let it expire.
While I think you'd have better posted your anti-KDE rant as an AC, I do somewhat agree with the people issue.
We really should appreciate the work of the *developers* ESR and RMS, but we shouldn't turn this into the kind of personality cult it sometimes is.
There are a lot of other developers who have contributed code of similar importance, and it's just unfair not to give them equal credit.
You haven't mentioned the worst example of this 'cult':
Miguel de Icaza from the Gnome project
In fact he has just split a project and written a decent amount of code, but not more so than many others.
Yet he shows up in the media as a kind of saviour of the software world, at the same time doing considerable harm to the Linux community by spreading (unneccesarily) FUD of the worst kind.
RMS has earned the freedom to be radical by working for free software for decades.
Miguel has not. He is a perfect example of what 'leadership' should not be like.
Bruce,
I'm more curious about time/labor donations. I would happily take 3 months off of my "paying" job to donate a very reasonable $50/hr towards free software, if there was the nifty side effect of cutting my gross income by $24,000 [$50/hr * 3 mos].
I suspect a lot of engineers'd follow suit.
What does this mean? It means that Microsoft can call Windows 2000 "Open Source" if they want to. But not if we don't let them!. Boycott any product that claims to be Open Source but doesn't meet the Open Source Definition. Tell everyone you know what Open Source really means. It's our only hope.
Hi, would you mind reposting that sig in legible form? You're lacking at least a close ` character.
n _the_wall:99 i $a$b,-$i$a,-Tak$t".--$i."$a$b
I keep meaning to get a mailing list together for us sick people who enjoy writing these.
And yes, this is offtopic. Moderate away
--
#!/usr/bin/perl -ie_one_down_pass_it_around,-:_bottles_of_beer:_o
for(($t,$a,$b,$i)=split/:/,$^I;$i;print){$_="-$
";s/(-1_.*?e)s/$1/g;y/_-/ \n/}
see shy jo
> How the hell do you write those things anyway?
Well you start with a simple, clean little program and use every trick you know to compress the hell out of it.
BTW, I have no idea why my posting ate part of the one it is a reply to. Odd. Also, I have set up a mailing list for discussion of these things, go
to http://kitenet.net/~sigprog/ to subscribe.
--
#!/usr/bin/perl -lisubstr($_,39+38*sin++$y/9,2)=$s joey@kitenet.net
for($s=' '||McQ;$_='JOEY HESS 'x8;print){eval$^I} # Joey Hess
see shy jo
I for one think it is a very bad reflection on SPI that they have failed to act in a timely manner on this trademark dispute. They called for comments from the free software community in 1998 (FWIW I told them they should give the mark over to OSI) and said they would have a decision by the beginning on 1999. Well, here we are and it's June and we haven't heard anything out of them. I emailed them in Feb or March and was told they were running behind but hoped to come up with something RSN. (They also told me they got disappointingly few responses).
If SPI wants people to trust them with their money, they need to do better about following through on doing what they say they are going to do. Or at least communicating why it is that they can't do it.
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
Thanks for having the journalistic integrity to add the disclaimer! You guys are learning! 8^)
--
"Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
So, M$ can't prevent us from using our free software, but they might, theoretically be able to "steal" it, ie use it in their own closed software.
Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
How many people are there that are "like linus"? Your definition of "signifigant" is too steep to be useful. Few us will ever do anything signifigant by your requirements. Everybody genuflect. We're not worthy. I think we know this already.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Okay,
Let's look at what ESR has done:
- fetchmail, as noted. This apparently has a decent user-base.
- Many high quality HOWTOs over at the LDP ( I count at least 7, some technical, some not. )
- Lots of press contact. (good & bad)
- Maintains the Jargon File/Hacker's Dictionary
- principal co-developer of ncurses (which you probably use daily)
- helps out with metalab.unc.edu
I'd call that substantial contribution. It's more than I've done. It's more than most people have done. And I'm more than willing to let him do the speaking thing. I don't want to.
So what are you kvetching about?
It's really ugly to lots of people in the community too.
Actually, here's a good topic for a slashdot poll:
The Open Source Trademark Should Be Owned By:
Bruce
Eric
SPI
OSI
The Open Source Community
etc., etc.
Personally, I think it should be jointly owned by all developers / programmers / companies who release program(s) complying to the DFSG... i.e. those who support the right to freedom of code, as it were.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I'm not too familiar with it all. I'm anxious to donate, and even moreso to something like the LSB gaining that status...
~ ^~~^~
(I also desperately want another topic to be discussed than Bruce vs. ${ANYONE})
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~
True, My rant against big names of people with not much stuff was slanted more towards Eric S Raymond, and other people. Stallman has contributed quiet a bit, but I dont like his politics and how he goes about handling things.
Jeff Knox
Yes, Stallman has done quite a bit. Thats why I primarily spoke about Eric S. But like I said above in a previous reply, I dont like how he goes around saying and thinking that he should control the open source movement. I dont like it politics and way of handling things.
Jeff Knox
Why do you feel you have to post as Anonymous Coward. The goverment isnt going to get you, and if it is so what. If I am going to comment I am going to stand up for what I am saying, and not hide behind AC. As for Miguel, I have noticed his name around the media lately, I just dont follow who actually developes gnome that closely so I wasnt sure what exactly he is claiming to be. Thanks for the contribution.
Jeff Knox
I think you took my message wrong. The intention wasnt as much to bash them, as to point out that they are not doing alot and are not the leaders they claim to be. And I dont worship wannabe leaders like Miguel. If I was to worship anyone it would be Linus Torvalds.
Jeff Knox
I dont know why people are affiliating me with gnome, and being a gnome/miguel fanatic. First of all, I only run gnome maybe an hour a day now, until I reinstall Debian 2.1 tonight. I certainly dont obsess over Gnome being so cool. The point of throughing in a anti-KDE rant was to get the point across, that everyone is entitled to there own opinion, and what you are doing is not allowing me to have mine and saying that KDE is better.
You you fetchmail, but how many others out of the 11million linux users use it. And I am not new. I have been using Linux since before 1.0, and free software tools since before that. And with ESR I think I would still have those shiny Gnome buttons that I dont even play with. And I dont whine, the purpose of writing that was to make a few points, not whine over ESR or RMS or anyone for that matter. What have I dont for the GNU community? Not nearly as much as RMS, or Linus, but I help run the Linux in the Classroom organization that is working hard to get linux into schools. I helped get the creation of the book Open Sources started, look in the Acknowledgement section. I and a leader in the open sourced ReactOS project. To name a few things. Its not like I sit here and use linux and take advantage of it.
Once Again, dont call me a gnome fanatic, I dont even know Migeul's title or whatever he does. All I know is that he is part of the gnome project, and I could care less, as long as quality software is produced. As to why you have to flame me is another question. Once again you must not of read my little part on how people are allowed to have there own opinions, I even put down that they might be ignorant and am not claiming to be some wise guy who knows all these things.
BTW, Is it cool to hide behind AC? You talk about Miguel hiding, what about you?
Jeff Knox
There should be nothing special about SPI's association. Being a GNU project can mean something different than the traditional concept of ownership...
Many projects are copyrighted (thus legally owned) by their developers. But they are GNU projects nontheless. Being GNU means some kind of honor and recognition, but these projects can be associated with other organizations at the same time. GNOME is definitely an important GNU project/closely associated with the FSF, and SPI's support is also a plus...
Just an outsider's opinion...
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!
I made peace with the KDE folks the moment I could. Actually, about 12 hours before I should have: I was so anxious to make peace that I preceded Troll Tech's public announcement, much to their annoyance. I publicly endorsed Troll's new license, and they display that endorsement on their web site.
Nobody was more happy than me to see that mess resolved. I still think things would have been much worse if it had not happened.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
If I'm not mistaken, there was even a line regarding taxable proceeds of barter on my return this year.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Let's not forget that FSF has been a 501(c)3 for at least a decade.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I've never meet Bruce Perens, or even e-mailed him, but from reading his work, and from observing his involvement in threads here I gotta say, I like the guy.
He is committed to free software development, he doesn't just talk, he does what it takes to make a difference. I admire him for it.
I've watched people here slander him in the worst possible way, and seen him lose his cool and reply angrily. I didn't think any the less of him for it, to me it made him seem more real, it made it seem like the stuff he is contributing to is really, truely, dear to him. Even if we go away I think he'll stay.
So you say he was involved in the anti-KDE campaign. To me the "anti-KDE campaign" is the worst thing to ever happened in the free software world. It is a shameful story, a witch hunt were innocent developers were attacked for "crimes" they did not commit. The KDE developers did nothing wrong, I wasn't around from the beginning but I've read the mailing list archives and I've watch in horror and disgust over the last year or so.
There is no excuse for what I've witnessed.
Now I know Bruce Perens was part of this, I know he voted against the creation of a KDE newsgroup on usenet, I know there's much I don't know about how he was part of the anti-KDE campaign.
But I believe he is innocent, unlike others who joined the lynch mob in this despicable affair, what he did, he did for the right reasons.
He had every right to criticize the KDE project, people expressed valid concerns, what if MS brought TrollTech and stop giving away QT for free? If would have been the end of KDE that's what.
KDE was about a GUI for unixes, not about freeing the source code. It relied on a toolkit that didn't give us the right to freely modify and distribute it. For some people, for Bruce Perens that wasn't good enough.
Some still criticize KDE they call it evil and make derogatory remarks about the KDE developers. There are still reasons people don't like KDE, they consider C superior to C++, or the only kind of free software the are interested in is GPL'd software, or they won't support a truely international project like KDE because they consider it un-American. I don't think Bruce was interested in any of those reasons though.
Once Bruce was satisfied with the QT license he crossed the line to support KDE. He stepped out of the lynch mob that had flocked around him and shielded the lynchees. That took guts, that's something he should be admired for.
From experience, I have the opposite impression
- KDE just works fine, while Gnome keeps on trashing.g
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You may like my a cappella music
I would guess yes, so to me Eric S, Stallman are both useless pieces of trash.
Eric Raymond's contributions have already been noted, so I'll note Stallman's.
Stallman originally developed GNU emacs and gcc. GNU emacs (and its derivatives) are *widely* popular, and gcc is the compiler that free/open source software lives and breathes.
So, while Stallman's politics may seem harmful to many, including myself, I'd say that guys like he and Raymond are undeserving of the title "media whore."
Yeah, I'd like to know that too. I submitted the question to Ask Slashdot a month or so ago but it didn't make the cut. Maybe if this thread get's active we can find out.
So how about it? Are there extant FSF/SPI organizations in Canada? What would it take to setup a branch of the FSF or SPI in Canada so we can make tax-deductible donations too?
does that include donations of time?
if i'm reading this right, this means that any money that goes into the development of Debian or GNOME is tax-deductable?
so if some random company-- say, Redhat (ok, REALLY bad example) wanted to extend debian for some particular reason, any amount of money they spent paying programmers to do that would be tax-deductable, assuming they gave all code created to the debian community?
that's really cool.
err, wait-- isn't Redhat already paying people to work on GNOME?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I really can't think of any good reason why people wouldn't being that tax deductible basically means that you get to donate for free (up to a point and with certain restrictions of course).
How does tax deductible mean you get to donate for free? I am not an accountant but I thought tax deductible meant the amount you contribute gets taken off of your taxable income.
If I make $60,000 and get taxed at 33% then normally I would pay $19,800 in taxes. But if I made a $1000 donation to SPI I get taxed on $59,000 at 33%, paying $19.470.
I save $330 on taxes but spend $1000 out of pocket. Rather than it being free I spent $670. That doesn't strike me as free.
I don't get why GNOME is under SPI, though, why isn't it just part of the FSF (or am I being ignorant here)?
Anyway, I think it is really important that people either start donating money if they can't donate code. I really can't think of any good reason why people wouldn't being that tax deductible basically means that you get to donate for free (up to a point and with certain restrictions of course).
Also, they still haven't resolved that whole Open Source trademark issue, huh? That's too bad, because it must really appear ugly to outside observers of the Free Software/Open Source community.
-- atomly
I hope someone could give us a good reason to donate. I mean, if you donate to the hungary, they get food. If you donate to the homeless, they get homes. If you donate to the SPI they get... er. Where does the money go. It seems to me that money given to the FSF is used to hire people to manage the money (See, recursion isn't just an acronym, its a business model!).
Does anybody know where the money goes?
--
tax deductible basically means that you get to donate for free (up to a point and with certain restrictions of course). No it doesn't. It means you don't have to pay taxes on that money. So, if the donation is $1,000 and if you would have paid 20% tax on that money then in effect the goverment donates $200 and you donate $800. -PP
Well, the money could go into defending free/open licenses, hiring a lawyer to get patents on stuff we created first (so some stupid company doesn't get it), maybe even advertising. People really take something a lot more seriously when they see it on the tube.
Stuff like that.
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Here's another topid for ya:
;) )
A lot of Free Software is governed by the GPL, and most people put the recommended clause:
"This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version."
This is good, because it allows easy expansion into further versions of the license, but what if, somehow, Microsoft gained some control over the FSF, even for a few months, and released a Version 3 of the GPL, which allows the exception that Microsoft does not have to release derivative works under the same license.
Is this a legitimate possibility? Could Version 3 severely damage the Free Software movement, making all our work proprietry?
Or worse, I'm not sure, but if copyright law allows the legal owner of the software to change licenses at will, could someone buy Linux from Linus, change the license, and make it proprietry?
Maybe someone with a legel background (US and other countries) could give us some info here. (Or will the SPI have to use its funds for that?
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