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Re: [Dragora-users] FSF interview with Matías Fonzo


From: Volkeng
Subject: Re: [Dragora-users] FSF interview with Matías Fonzo
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2024 14:52:17 +0000

> unlike most organizations, that depend on corporate sponsors and have to 
> follow their agenda.

The FSF publicly accepts corporate patronage: 
https://web.archive.org/web/20240718132707/https://www.fsf.org/patrons/benefits

FSF CORPORATE PATRONS
Google LLC: 250000 $
PIA Inc.: 200000 $
IBM Corp.: 150000 $
HP Inc.: 125000 $

They've also accepted "smaller" amounts of money from iMatix, Hurricane 
Electric, Alibaba, Lush, Gandi, ASCADE, Anacom,...

If that weren't sufficient, corporate sponsors who "donated" 50000 $ or more 
were offered participation to the internal round tables on FSF policy. In other 
words, the agenda of the FSF is already tainted by those sponsors.

> FSF doesn't run misleading fundraisers
> The FSF raises funds transparently, informs what the funds are for, and 
> reports how the funds have been spent.

Their fund management is totally opaque, hidden by generic terminology.
They report only what's imposed by law, but the names of who gets the money 
remain fully hidden.
Their financial statements are very hard to spot and do not indicate any direct 
payments or grants to free software developers, with the exception of very few 
GNU projects managed by their close friends. What we know is that most free 
software developers don't get a single penny.

> Many free software projects (not only GNU packages) are sustained by the 
> infrastructure that the FSF maintains, and the organization gives those 
> projects visibility. This is exactly the case with Dragora.

Please don't be silly, anyone can get an old computer or a virtual machine for 
a few dollars and have it managed by hyped kids thinking they're saving the 
world. Offering "visibility" and cheap shared hosting fully maintained by young 
unpaid volunteers is a no-risk way to save the face while hiding how the money 
is really used.

Offering "more visibility" to a project isn't equivalent to sponsoring the free 
software developers. People can't buy anything with "visibility".

> The campaign code inclusion in the URL is simply to measure its performance.

GNU claims that we shouldn't trust any website, so let's be coherent.
We users can only see the tracking codes and that the FSF started using 
geolocation + browser fingerprinting.

> The Dragora interview is prominently listed

Prominently like any advertising page, so more people can see those invasive 
banners and popups.
There Dragora is just exploited, nothing more.

> PS If anyone would like to comment further about the FSF, I suggest replying 
> off-list or better yet, sending a message directly to the FSF.

The comments are about your decision, not only about the FSF. If you aren't 
ready to accept the answers, don't post on a newsletter.

Articles are made to be commented and are judged not only by their content, but 
also by their context, authors and publishers.
Make better and more honest alliances and people won't have any reason to leave 
critical comments.

AFAIK Dragora is supposed to not depend on the FSF or any other company, but 
there is a FSF zealot in the staff. This is bad...

Let's hope Dragora stays clean and independent...

bb :-X



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