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

[Scott Francis]

i'm curious about something (yes, genuinely curious) - i am a fan of
opensource, and free software.  but i've also been working in the
corporate world for quite a few years, so i'm a little out of touch.  

my questions:
1.  is it the position of GNU that all "paid-for" software is bad?  
2.  is it ok to pay for the "service" that someone supplies (ie, hours
of time and toil), rather than the finished product?  can someone be
"paid" to write "opensource" or gnu software? i mean, rather, is that
considered "legit"? 
3.  the logical extension of this thing seems difficult to understand to
me... the position that you should not buy software seems interesting to
me... ie - don't buy the operating system, use the free one.  or help
write the free one.  so far so good.  but how about the hardware?  do we
all need to use only free hardware?  how do we acquire such free
hardware?  how about the firmware that runs much of the hardware?  does
that need to be opensource as well?  

adam, i understand why you are declining accepting the gift from vmware,
and that it doesn't fit with the gnu paradigm, but i don't think it
makes you a "dolt" :)  there are people who are wanting to contribute to
gnustep who are not quite as committed to GNU in general - ie, they use
windows (god forbid) and other paid-for software, but are also
contributing to free software projects.  i don't see anything wrong with
that, personally, but that seems like an individual choice.  getting the
free licenses was a way to encourage those people to contribute and to
test their code on multiple platforms without having to buy multiple
machines, or dual boot them.  however, advertising the provider of those
licenses doesn't fit with the free software motif.

i've used a trial version of vmware, and it is a very professionally
written product, i've enjoyed using it.  i'm not willing to shell out
$300 for it though :)  no matter how well advertised :)  if they drop to
$50 though, then i'm in!  hey, i pay for games, so why not for some
other random piece of cool software :)  its entertainment value as
well... i pay for dvd's and movies and lots of other stuff...  

let me close by saying:  my apologies if any of this post is offensive,
i just haven't participated in many discussions on free software
philosophy, so i'm missing the FSF/GNU points of how should software
developers support themselves, when (if ever) is it okay to ask for
compensation for software written (finished product), and when (if ever)
is it okay to pay for software, hardware, services, or goods in general
(not just software).  

please, feel free to take this offline and just reply to me if you want
to educate me without spamming the list :))

cheers,
scott


-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-gnustep-admin@gnu.org
[mailto:discuss-gnustep-admin@gnu.org] On Behalf Of Laurent Julliard
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 3:45 AM
To: discuss-gnustep@gnu.org
Subject: GNUStep: An Apology for Announcing Donation of Proprietary
Software to the Project


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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