GNOME dev proposes vote on split from GNU Project

Sam Varghese
Saturday, 12 December 2009 01:26

Opinion and Analysis

Van Hoof responded brusquely to Stallman, writing: "Nonsense. The people who work at VmWare (sic) also very often posted (and still post) about their work and appear on Planet GNOME. There's nothing wrong with that. Same goes for Nokia and many other companies involved.

"Forbidding those contributors to talk about their work goes directly and philosophically against the "Planet GNOME is a window into the world, work and lives of GNOME hackers and contributors" slogan of the project. You see that word "work" there? Right."

With de Icaza's name figuring in the discussion, it was only a matter of time before the word Mono was mentioned, and Stallman said he had no objection to it as Mono is free software; he, however, said he had a problem with C#.

And in response to Van Hoof's comments about VMware, Stallman said people should not write about their work on Planet GNOME "unless VmWare (sic) becomes free software. GNOME should not provide proprietary software developers with a platform to present non-free software as a good or legitimate thing."

He added: "Perhaps the statement of Planet GNOME's philosophy should be interpreted differently.  It should not invite people to talk about their proprietary software projects just because they are also GNOME contributors."

GNOME chief executive Stormy Peters then said it was pointless to block a whole blog post from Planet GNOME because a small part dealt with something not connected with GNOME.

This prompted Stallman to respond: "GNOME is part of the GNU Project, and it ought to support the free software movement. The most minimal support for the free software movement is to refrain from going directly against it; that is, to avoid presenting proprietary software as legitimate.

"I think Planet GNOME should have a rule to this effect.  There are many ways to implement such a rule, of which 'block the whole blog' is about the toughest one we might consider.  I'd suggest rather to try a mild approach; I'm sure that can do the job."

Lionel Dricot then asked if GNOME was part of any anti-proprietary software movement, prompting Schlesinger to join the discussion.

Responding to Stallman, Schlesinger said: "GNOME is not connected with the anti-VMWare (sic) movement, nor (that I'm aware of) any 'anti-proprietary software' movement'."

He added that GNOME was supporting free software and doing a good job of it and that Stallman's point about abstaining from presenting non-free software as legitimate was nonsense.

CONTINUED