Re: GNUStep: An Apology for Announcing Donation of Proprietary Software to the Project

[Philippe C.D. Robert]

This is exactly one of the reasons IMHO why GNU will never succeed, why it is
doomed to fail - like all other 'extreme' ways of dealing with realities. This
is a very poor move. I am deeply disappointed.

I am seriously considering to release the next gen 3DKit under a BSD style 
license and remove the 'GNU' from its name.
  
-Phil

On Fri, 21 Dec 2001 10:45:05 +0100
Laurent Julliard <Laurent.Julliard@xrce.xerox.com> wrote:
> FYI.
> 
> http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-12-21-005-20-OP-CY
> 
> ----------------------
> 
> GNUStep: An Apology for Announcing Donation of Proprietary Software to 
> the Project
> Dec 21, 2001, 07 :07 UTC (1 Talkback[s]) (933 reads)
> 
> By Adam Fedor, Chief Maintainer of the GNUstep Project
> 
> The GNUstep project would like to apologize for announcing that we had 
> been given, as a donation, a license for a proprietary program. We made 
> a mistake in announcing this, but the first mistake was in asking for a 
> donation of that kind. The GNU Project gladly accepts donations of 
> computers, money, and other services, and gladly thanks the donors for 
> them. But we can't accept a copy of a proprietary program, because we 
> criticize proprietary software on ethical grounds and we have to live by 
> our ethical principles. And we can't advertise a proprietary program no 
> matter how grateful we feel towards its developer.
> 
> How did we make the mistake of asking for a donation of that kind? We 
> were so absorbed in looking for ways to improve GNUstep that we forgot 
> the larger goal and principles of the GNU Project. We forgot that 
> "donating a license" for a non-free program is just making a special 
> exception to a general policy of restricting all the users. We're 
> supposed to be working on changing this restrictive situation for 
> everyone, not obtaining a special exception for ourselves. We're 
> supposed to be taking the proprietary software off our machines, not 
> putting more of it on.
> 
> Announcing this problematical donation was a further mistake, because it 
> had the effect of advertising the proprietary program. Our principles 
> say we should only help publicize a software package if it's the sort of 
> package that we're trying to encourage--that is, a free software package.
> 
> This just goes to show how people working on a technical project need to 
> recall the larger context--the long-term goals and ethical 
> principles--and not get lost in the details of the specific technical 
> problems to be solved today.
> 
> We hope you can learn from this mistake. Please consider the benefits of 
> free software that respects your freedom. And if you find a non-free 
> program that you really would like to use, don't try to get a copy. 
> Write a free replacement for it instead!
> 
> Related Stories:
> GNUstep Receives Help from VMware(Dec 11, 2001)
> 
> 
> -- 
> Laurent JULLIARD - Xerox R&T/XAC/XPA - Open Source team
>  >> Host your Xerox Software project on CodeX: http://codex.xerox.com
>  >> Linux@Xerox community: http://xww.linux.world.xerox.com
> 
> 
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> 


-- 
Philippe C.D. Robert
Software Engineer
Silicon Graphics, Inc.