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Ciaran O'Riordan | 12 Mar 15:56

3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows


On April 1st (no joke), FSFE will hold by far its biggest Fellowship raffle
yet.  The goal is to encourage more people to join the Fellowship, so we're
asking for your help spread the word.  We've made some graphics if you'd
like to use them, and more general information is here:
http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/raffle/2007/raffle_2007

If you've been waiting for the right time to join the Fellowship, or if you
know people who value free software or intend to join but haven't gotten
around to it, now's a good time.

The prizes this year are:

* 1 Free Software Greenphone from Trolltech
* 2 Free Software based routers KWGR614, from NETGEAR
* 1 LinSoft BTP-PC amounting to 500 EUR, from linsoft.de
* 4 USB smart card readers SCR-335, compatible with the Fellowship
    crypto card on all GNU/Linux distributions, from kernelconcepts.de
* 2 Omnikey PCMCIA CardMan 4040, compatible with the Fellowship crypto
    card on all GNU/Linux distributions, from xtops.de
* 30 German books (among German speaking Fellows only), from linuxland.de
* 3 Developer Discount codes for Nokia N800 Internet Tablets from Nokia
    NOTICE: special conditions apply to the N800 prizes, see:
    http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/raffle/2007/special_conditions_for_nokia_n800

Everyone that is a Fellow on April 1st, new and old, will be included in the
raffle.

Since it's launch in February 2005, the Fellowship has been a great success.
It's enabled FSFE to interact more directly with the community, it's aided
(Continue reading)

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Werner Koch | 12 Mar 17:04
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 15:56, ciaran@... said:

> * 3 Developer Discount codes for Nokia N800 Internet Tablets from Nokia
>     NOTICE: special conditions apply to the N800 prizes, see:
>     http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/raffle/2007/special_conditions_for_nokia_n800

That URL does not work ... oh well here we go; only 3 minutes.

Anyway, the FSFE asks its fellows to buy or use a device which only
seems to be based on Free Software but in reality hides important
details?  I do not just mean the Opera browser but stuff like battery
control, access to the radio and the boot monitor?  From my experience
with the N770 there is even no way to flash it without using a
proprietary tool.  Thus it might even be non-GPL compliant.  See also
the recent discussion on this list and Neals article
http://walfield.org/blog/2007/01/29/maemo.html .

Digital Freedom with the N800 or Nokia - I doubt it.

Shalom-Salam,

   Werner
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Ciaran O'Riordan | 12 Mar 17:17

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows


Werner Koch <wk@...> writes:
> Anyway, the FSFE asks its fellows to buy or use a device which only
> seems to be based on Free Software but in reality hides important
> details?

Well, like the webpages says: "FSFE wants to give to Fellows the opportunity
to help the N800 become a full Free Software device."

> From my experience
> with the N770 there is even no way to flash it without using a
> proprietary tool.  Thus it might even be non-GPL compliant.

I don't know if this has been checked for the N800, I'll raise it, and I'll
pass on this link:

> See also
> the recent discussion on this list and Neals article
> http://walfield.org/blog/2007/01/29/maemo.html .

> Digital Freedom with the N800 or Nokia - I doubt it.

--

-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \  GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \   Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org
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Werner Koch | 12 Mar 18:51
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 17:17, ciaran@... said:

> Well, like the webpages says: "FSFE wants to give to Fellows the opportunity
> to help the N800 become a full Free Software device."

I believe it is a waste of precious time to do that.

Salam-Shalom,

   Werner
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Matt Lee | 12 Mar 19:12

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On Mon, Mar 12, 2007 at 04:17:04PM +0000, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:

> Well, like the webpages says: "FSFE wants to give to Fellows the opportunity
> to help the N800 become a full Free Software device."

Except the link doesn't work, and I'm still not sure this is good
enough. If I win, you're going to ship me some proprietary software. 

I don't think this is appropriate, or wise. Further, it makes me want
to not support FSF Europe.

matt

--

-- 
Matt Lee
Chief Webmaster, GNU Project - http://www.gnu.org/ - Free as in Freedom
Free Software Foundation - Free Software, Free Society - http://www.fsf.org/
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Alfred M. Szmidt | 12 Mar 19:28

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

   > Well, like the webpages says: "FSFE wants to give to Fellows the
   > opportunity to help the N800 become a full Free Software device."

   Except the link doesn't work, and I'm still not sure this is good
   enough. If I win, you're going to ship me some proprietary
   software.

Not to mention that it is recommending this device to others as a
supposedly free alternative; which it isn't.  The sentence alone is
suspect, how does the FSFE know that a developer will get the device,
let alone be capable of writting the needed parts?  This kind of
hacking isn't exactly the easiest; if it was then we wouldn't have
devices with non-free software on them.

How about instead of having a raffle, hire a programmer to actually
replace all the non-free bits instead of distributing non-free
software to Fellows? Seems like that would be a better way to spend
money.

   I don't think this is appropriate, or wise. Further, it makes me
   want to not support FSF Europe.

I have to agree.
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Reinhard Mueller | 12 Mar 21:52
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

Am Montag, den 12.03.2007, 19:28 +0100 schrieb Alfred M. Szmidt:
> how does the FSFE know that a developer will get the device,
> let alone be capable of writting the needed parts?

By asking developers that think that they are capable of writing the
needed parts to register themselves. The Discount codes will be raffled
among these registered developers.

Actually I would have considered the text on the web page clear enough:

"But the Nokia N800 doesn't come with full Free Software: some
applications are still non-free. FSFE wants to give to Fellows the
opportunity to help the N800 become a full Free Software device. So if
you are interested to develop Free Software for the N800 then please
sign up here to be the lucky winner."

But as there is obviously still enough room for misunderstandings, I am
thankful that this was brought up here, so we can clear this up. We
certainly did never intend to advertise the Nokia N800 as a Free
Software device.

> How about instead of having a raffle, hire a programmer to actually
> replace all the non-free bits instead of distributing non-free
> software to Fellows? Seems like that would be a better way to spend
> money. 

We did not spend money on that raffle, all the prizes were donated by
the companies named on the web page.

Of course some might consider it a waste of time to develop Free
(Continue reading)

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Gareth Bowker | 12 Mar 20:03
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On 12/03/07, Alfred M. Szmidt <ams@...> wrote:
> How about instead of having a raffle, hire a programmer to actually
> replace all the non-free bits instead of distributing non-free
> software to Fellows? Seems like that would be a better way to spend
> money.

Just one small point - all the devices in the raffle have been donated to FSFE.

Cheers,

Gareth
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Alex Hudson | 12 Mar 19:36

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On Mon, 2007-03-12 at 14:56 +0000, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
> * 1 Free Software Greenphone from Trolltech

``[T]he phone's license reads in part, "...This device may only be used
with Trolltech's Qtopia Software. You may not use this device in any
other hardware/software combination other than in the combination of
hardware and software that was delivered to you..."''

	-- http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9220906852.html

:/

Cheers,

Alex.
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Matt Lee | 12 Mar 19:42

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On Mon, Mar 12, 2007 at 06:36:20PM +0000, Alex Hudson wrote:

> ``[T]he phone's license reads in part, "...This device may only be used
> with Trolltech's Qtopia Software. You may not use this device in any
> other hardware/software combination other than in the combination of
> hardware and software that was delivered to you..."''

Ouch. Come on guys, what are you playing at?

Here's next year's prize list?

* A Zune
* An XBOX360
* iTunes Vouchers

matt

--

-- 
Matt Lee
Chief Webmaster, GNU Project - http://www.gnu.org/ - Free as in Freedom
Free Software Foundation - Free Software, Free Society - http://www.fsf.org/
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Jonas Oberg | 12 Mar 20:00
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

Matt Lee wrote:

> Ouch. Come on guys, what are you playing at?

Actually, this is news to all of us. Quite obviously, we don't want to
support nor advocate non-free software. Specifically for the N800, it
was always our intent that the recipient should be a technically
knowledgable person with a wish to help liberate the device by erasing
the proprietary software from it, and showing others how to.

I think the page that is linked from the mail would explain this, had
the URL actually worked. :-)

So we'll look into this, and if there's no way to liberate the hardware
before sending it out, we might well have to withdraw those prizes from
the raffle to avoid sending non-free software to anyone.

--

-- 
Jonas Öberg
Free Software Foundation Europe			( Join the Fellowship )
Tel. +46-31-780 21 61  Mob. +46-733 423 962     (   http://fsfe.org   )
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John Sullivan | 12 Mar 19:51

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

Alex Hudson <home@...> writes:

> On Mon, 2007-03-12 at 14:56 +0000, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
>> * 1 Free Software Greenphone from Trolltech
>
> ``[T]he phone's license reads in part, "...This device may only be used
> with Trolltech's Qtopia Software. You may not use this device in any
> other hardware/software combination other than in the combination of
> hardware and software that was delivered to you..."''
>
> 	-- http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9220906852.html

To be clear, they updated their EULA in response to this. See
<http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4872069549.html>. But the device still ships
with proprietary components, and is less free than the OpenMoko.

(I'm not wild about giving away nonfree technical documentation books either.
Or are the 30 German books licensed freely?)

--

-- 
John Sullivan
Program Administrator        | Phone: (617)542-5942 x23    
51 Franklin Street, 5th Fl.  | Fax:   (617)542-2652	
Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA    | GPG:   AE8600B6
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Alex Hudson | 12 Mar 20:11

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On Mon, 2007-03-12 at 14:51 -0400, John Sullivan wrote:
> To be clear, they updated their EULA in response to this. See
> <http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4872069549.html>. But the device still ships
> with proprietary components, and is less free than the OpenMoko.

I didn't realise that; thanks - for the longest time, the version of
Qtopia it shipped with wasn't free software either (Qtopia 4 has only
been available under the GPL quite recently AIUI).

Moko also has the advantage of being designed for actual end-users, not
just people who want a prototype to develop phone software on. FSFE
could do a lot worse than dropping those guys a line to see if they
could get their hands on some hacker's lunchboxes - from what I've seen
of the project (I intend to buy one when P1 ships), they are truly
worthy of support.

Cheers,

Alex.
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Ciaran O'Riordan | 12 Mar 20:13

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows


John Sullivan <johns@...> writes:
> But the device still ships
> with proprietary components

For the PDA we raffled last year, we took delivery of it and removed the
proprietary software before sending it to the winner.

--

-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \  GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \   Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org
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John Sullivan | 12 Mar 20:36

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

Ciaran O'Riordan <ciaran@...> writes:

> John Sullivan <johns@...> writes:
>> But the device still ships
>> with proprietary components
>
> For the PDA we raffled last year, we took delivery of it and removed the
> proprietary software before sending it to the winner.
>

Since it's the communications stack that's proprietary in this case, I don't
think that will work.

There is also a proprietary package manager. It looks like there is a free
software replacement for it, but the replacement is unable to modify even more
things on the phone -- at least that's what I get from reading at
linuxdevices.com; I haven't actually tried myself.

--

-- 
John Sullivan
Program Administrator        | Phone: (617)542-5942 x23    
51 Franklin Street, 5th Fl.  | Fax:   (617)542-2652	
Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA    | GPG:   AE8600B6
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Georg C. F. Greve | 13 Mar 10:58
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

 || On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 15:36:25 -0400
 || John Sullivan <johns@...> wrote: 

 js> Since it's the communications stack that's proprietary in this
 js> case, I don't think that will work.

Do you know a device with a free GSM stack? We'd be glad to help
promote that device. To my knowledge there is no such stack or device
at the moment, including the OpenMoko.

The issue in this case is a thicket of cross-licensed patents that
includes parties that appear to have no interest in resolving that
situation. This is not good, and we'll need to work on that.

Meanwhile we can already give people substantially more freedom on
mobile phones. At the current point in time, the vast majority of PDAs
and mobile phones sold are proprietary from bottom to top.

The GreenPhone already offers significantly more freedom than other
mobile phones, only the OpenMoko appears to be potentially better.

According to my knowledge, which is based on cursory examination, the
Nokia tablets and GreenPhone both are almost entirely Free Software,
although they both fall short by a couple of packages (and the GSM
stack in one case). So their status appears somewhat similar to that
of the Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution.

But the area of GNU/Linux distributions is much more mature in terms
of freedom than that of mobile phones and PDAs. The whole area of
PDAs, mobile phones and similar is one that is still very much
(Continue reading)

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Alfred M. Szmidt | 13 Mar 19:55

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

   Do you know a device with a free GSM stack? We'd be glad to help
   promote that device. To my knowledge there is no such stack or
   device at the moment, including the OpenMoko.

What if there is no device with a free GSM stack?  Will the FSF Europe
promote such a device despite it being wrong?

   But the area of GNU/Linux distributions is much more mature in
   terms of freedom than that of mobile phones and PDAs. The whole
   area of PDAs, mobile phones and similar is one that is still very
   much dominated by proprietary software. There is not a single
   device that could be recommended without warning.

Then the only right thing to do is to not recommend any device, just
like one couldn't recommend any GNU/Linux specific system until
UTUTO-e came about (and closely following other 100% free GNU/Linux
poped up).

   The way the Free Software community addressed similar issues in the
   past is to get and (within legal limits) study what you want to
   replace, and replace the non-free components one by one. That is
   how the GNU Project got started, it was a major motivation to
   establish Debian, and other examples exist in other areas.

When the GNU project was started, there was no free software; one had
no choice other than non-free sofyware.  Today we have all the tools
needed to reject all non-free software.  

Debian is also a bad example, since they distribute non-free software
despite there being free replacements (Java for example); there are
(Continue reading)

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Yavor Doganov | 13 Mar 20:58
X-Face

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
> 
> Then the only right thing to do is to not recommend any device [...]

I agree.  Also, writing free applications for non-free platforms is
not a useful activity (the result is making these platforms more
attractive to users).  The right thing to do is writing replacements
in order to make these platforms/devices truly free.

> When the GNU project was started, there was no free software; one had
> no choice other than non-free sofyware.

Even in those unfortunate times, the GNU Project has never recommended
nor distributed (as a "prize" or not) computers (or software) that run
a proprietary Unix variant + free GNU components.  Doing so would
totally undermine the goals of the whole movement.  There was never a
contest "Donate $n to the FSF and you'll get a SunOS box with GCC and
Emacs you could tinker with"

I fear that the valid and worthwile goal of raising funds for FSFE's
activities is being compromised in a similar manner as is done in many
other areas -- for example, people tend to promote not entirely free
GNU/Linux distros because they "help" introducing new users to our
community (i.e. a step back from freedom with the hope of popularity
and "more freedom" in the future).  This path leads to exactly the
opposite outcome and I'm really shocked that namely FSF Europe has
chosen to follow it.
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Gareth Bowker | 13 Mar 21:54

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On 13/03/07, Alfred M. Szmidt <ams@...> wrote:
>    Do you know a device with a free GSM stack? We'd be glad to help
>    promote that device. To my knowledge there is no such stack or
>    device at the moment, including the OpenMoko.
>
> What if there is no device with a free GSM stack?  Will the FSF Europe
> promote such a device despite it being wrong?

No - however I don't personally see a problem with promoting the
creation of Free replacements - and in order to develop these, a
suitable platform is required. Platforms such as the Greenphone or
N800, while not being perfect (they're non-free after all!) are still
the most free platforms available and as such, hopefully, have the
least amount of work to do to reach 100% freedom.

>    But the area of GNU/Linux distributions is much more mature in
>    terms of freedom than that of mobile phones and PDAs. The whole
>    area of PDAs, mobile phones and similar is one that is still very
>    much dominated by proprietary software. There is not a single
>    device that could be recommended without warning.
>
> Then the only right thing to do is to not recommend any device, just
> like one couldn't recommend any GNU/Linux specific system until
> UTUTO-e came about (and closely following other 100% free GNU/Linux
> poped up).

That's true, however before UTUTO-e came along, people still needed a
platform to use to work on. IIRC RMS ran Debian GNU/Linux (I don't
know if he still does) as this was the most Free distribution at the
time. In the same way, the N800 represents, to the best of my
(Continue reading)

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Alfred M. Szmidt | 13 Mar 22:19

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

   > Then the only right thing to do is to not recommend any device,
   > just like one couldn't recommend any GNU/Linux specific system
   > until UTUTO-e came about (and closely following other 100% free
   > GNU/Linux poped up).

   That's true, however before UTUTO-e came along, people still needed
   a platform to use to work on. IIRC RMS ran Debian GNU/Linux (I
   don't know if he still does) as this was the most Free distribution
   at the time.

RMS never recommended Debian to people.

It is one thing that you as a developer have a device with non-free
software and trying hard to replace it or even that you run a system
where you removed all the non-free bits your self, but it is another
thing that a organisation or even a person, supposedly promoting free
software, starts distributing non-free software to its members/friends
in the vauge hope that someone, maybe, when all planets are aligned
exactly right, will replace the non-free software on this device.

I find this quite frightening.  What is next? Free copies of Windows
Vista to people so that they can write a free replacement?

   If there are devices that are already mostly-free, then this seems
   like a better starting point than a device which is entirely
   non-free, or even one that hasn't been designed yet.

I feel that this is missing the point, a device that is `mostly-free'
still has non-free software, and giving such a device to people, let
along recommending it is just as bad as handing out copies of a
(Continue reading)

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MJ Ray | 13 Mar 23:57
Gravatar

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

"Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> wrote:
>    [...] IIRC RMS ran Debian GNU/Linux (I
>    don't know if he still does) as this was the most Free distribution
>    at the time.
>
> RMS never recommended Debian to people.

Firstly, that's contradicting a point that wasn't made: Gareth Bowker
(I think - still ams fails to attribute quotes) doesn't say that he
did.

Secondly, there are many interviews and reports which say RMS used to
recommend Debian (try a web search... for one example result,
http://beust.com/stallman.html).  However, I know reporters sometimes
make mistakes and it's not impossible that there could be so many.

> [...] it is another
> thing that a organisation or even a person, supposedly promoting free
> software, starts distributing non-free software to its members/friends
[...]

It was some time ago that FSF started distributing non-free-software
manuals to people.  I also expect that FSF has often distribued
machines to developers that currently require non-free software, in
the hope that it helps to develop free software for them.  I don't see
a fundamental problem in that, but maybe including such development
platforms as raffle prizes is a bit silly, and maybe the swpat-fans
Nokia have made a platform which will never be free.

Conversely, maybe it's time for those who want to work on replacing
(Continue reading)

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Kaloian Doganov | 14 Mar 00:06

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

MJ Ray <mjr@...> writes:

    join the debian project, who don't *distribute* non-free software
    but merely host it

One could say that he do not distribute child pornography, just hosts
it on his website.

--

-- 
Protect your digital freedom and privacy, eliminate DRM, learn more at
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm
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Alfred M. Szmidt | 14 Mar 00:12

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

   Secondly, there are many interviews and reports which say RMS used
   to recommend Debian (try a web search... for one example result,
   http://beust.com/stallman.html).  However, I know reporters
   sometimes make mistakes and it's not impossible that there could be
   so many.

What a great example, nothing in that actually quotes RMS.

   > [...] it is another
   > thing that a organisation or even a person, supposedly promoting free
   > software, starts distributing non-free software to its members/friends
   [...]

   It was some time ago that FSF started distributing non-free-software
   manuals to people. 

Manuals aren't software to begin with.

   I also expect that FSF has often distribued machines to developers
   that currently require non-free software, in the hope that it helps
   to develop free software for them.  I don't see a fundamental
   problem in that, but maybe including such development platforms as
   raffle prizes is a bit silly, and maybe the swpat-fans Nokia have
   made a platform which will never be free.

You expect, and guess, and assume quite alot about the GNU Project and
the FSF.

   Conversely, maybe it's time for those who want to work on replacing
   non-free software to join the debian project, who don't
(Continue reading)

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MJ Ray | 14 Mar 00:44
Gravatar

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

"Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> wrote:
>    I also expect that FSF has often distribued machines to developers
>    that currently require non-free software, in the hope that it helps
>    to develop free software for them.  [...]
>
> You expect, and guess, and assume quite alot about the GNU Project and
> the FSF.

I'm sure I've read it somewhere, but I can't find it on the new web
sites.  The section "Donated computers" on
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html suggests that it happened
even in that flagship FSF project at first.  Why not in others?

I agree with the comment that it's evil even when justified, FWIW.

>    Conversely, maybe it's time for those who want to work on replacing
>    non-free software to join the debian project, who don't
>    *distribute* non-free software but merely host it and are actively
>    working to free or replace it.
>
> Debian clearly is not working to replace any of its non-free parts
> that are part of Debian.

The donors of scores of man-hours spent on it each week salute you(!)

> Debian still has a non-free Java system despite there being free ones.

Which of the java systems in debian (classpath, ecj, gcj, gij, jamvm,
kaffe, sablevm, maybe more) is non-free?
(Continue reading)

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Alfred M. Szmidt | 14 Mar 00:51

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

   > You expect, and guess, and assume quite alot about the GNU
   > Project and the FSF.

   I'm sure I've read it somewhere, but I can't find it on the new web
   sites.  The section "Donated computers" on
   http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html suggests that it
   happened even in that flagship FSF project at first.  Why not in
   others?

Mark, you do realise that `donated computers' is not the same as
`donated software', let alone `they require non-free software to run'?

   > Debian still has a non-free Java system despite there being free
   > ones.

   Which of the java systems in debian (classpath, ecj, gcj, gij,
   jamvm, kaffe, sablevm, maybe more) is non-free?

Sun Java.  Then there is also a non-free flash program in Debian,
despite the existance of gnash.

But can we drop this for anotherday?  I'm much more interested in the
whole FSFE recommending and distributing non-free software to people
deal than this old tirade that we have gone through several times now.
:-)
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Matt Lee | 14 Mar 00:16

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 10:57:03PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:

> Conversely, maybe it's time for those who want to work on replacing
> non-free software to join the debian project, who don't *distribute*
> non-free software but merely host it and are actively working to free
> or replace it.

Binary blobs? I believe the kernel Debian ships still contains the non-free
firmwares that gNewSense removes? When Debian ships a browser that doesn't
ask me every five minutes to install non-free software in the form of Flash,
and stops distributing non-free software from its own website, then your
statement would be correct.

matt

--

-- 
Matt Lee
Chief Webmaster, GNU Project - http://www.gnu.org/ - Free as in Freedom
Free Software Foundation - Free Software, Free Society - http://www.fsf.org/
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Kaloian Doganov | 13 Mar 22:24

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

"Gareth Bowker" <tgb@...> writes:

    ...and yet before UTUTO-e, "even" RMS used Debian.

I doubt that RMS used any proprietary software packages on his Debian
system.  At that time one could use Debian without running non-free
software.  Anyway.

The point is not whether you personally would use proprietary software
on your phone, but whether FSFE will distribute non-free software to
users.  This is a very bad (and sad) example.  It looks like it's not
so unethical to distribute non-free software.  Any vendor can point to
FSFE and say: "Even FSFE distributes non-free software, so why don't
we?"

"Fellowship Raffle 2007: Time to give back" -- I'm sick of it.

--

-- 
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Georg C. F. Greve | 13 Mar 23:08
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

 || On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:55:41 +0100 (CET)
 || "Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> wrote: 

 ams> Then the only right thing to do is to not recommend any device,

That is why no device is being recommended.

As was pointed out by others before, this part of the raffle is about
giving developers access to hardware that is coming closest to our
goals and thus give them the best start in making them entirely free.

 ams> When the GNU project was started, there was no free software;
 ams> one had no choice other than non-free sofyware.  Today we have
 ams> all the tools needed to reject all non-free software.

For desktops that is true.

For mobile devices it is unfortunately not yet true and requires more
work by the Free Software community.

 ams> Debian is also a bad example, [...]

Please read my previous mail again.

Your criticism is precisely why Debian is a good example.

Without Debian there would have been no Ubuntu, and without Ubuntu
there would be no Gnewsense. And Gnewsense itself helped influence
others to think about providing pure Free Software distributions.
(Continue reading)

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Alfred M. Szmidt | 13 Mar 23:46

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

    ams> Then the only right thing to do is to not recommend any
    ams> device,

   That is why no device is being recommended.

   As was pointed out by others before, this part of the raffle is
   about giving developers access to hardware that is coming closest
   to our goals and thus give them the best start in making them
   entirely free.

By distributing a device to people that contains non-free software
FSFE is clearly recommending the device.  That is what I thought when
I saw the notice, and I'm quite sure others did the same.  My initial
thought was (before knowing anything about the non-free software) was
how cool that companies like Nokia and others are trying to do the
right thing and respect the rights of computer users.

I find the whole claim that using a lottery based system to get
someone to write a free replacement for these things to be quite
absurd to say the least.  Do you really belive that from a random set
of indiviuals, someone will have not only the time, but also the
knowledge to replace the non-free software bits with something that is
free?

    ams> And this is by distributing devices that contain `almost
    ams> entirely Free Software'?

   Without access to Ubuntu, Gnewsense would not exist.

How do you know?  Gnewsense might have been created either from
(Continue reading)

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MJ Ray | 14 Mar 00:13
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

"Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> wrote:
> [...] In anycase, Gnewsense does not
> contain non-free software, Ubuntu and Debian do. [...]

The gNewSense developers say that it does:
http://bugs.gnewsense.org/Bugs/00001

Just like debian, gNewSense has bugs.  However, it probably has a more
FSF-compatible view of what free software is.

Regards,
--

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Webmaster/web developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop maker,
developer of koha, debian, gobo, gnustep, various mail and web s/w.
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Matt Lee | 14 Mar 00:20

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 11:13:31PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:

> The gNewSense developers say that it does:
> http://bugs.gnewsense.org/Bugs/00001

I believe that is a direct response to Ubuntu's Bug #1.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1

I don't believe it's saying that gNewSense contains any non-free software.

matt

--

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Matt Lee
Chief Webmaster, GNU Project - http://www.gnu.org/ - Free as in Freedom
Free Software Foundation - Free Software, Free Society - http://www.fsf.org/
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Alfred M. Szmidt | 14 Mar 00:22

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

How about sticking to the topic at hand instead of flipping this
thread into something that is not important at this point?  Both of
your messages have had nothing of relevance to say about the whole
issue of the FSFE distributing non-free software to people.

Your petty attempts at point out "bugs" that have been fixed, or are
being fixed are beyond silly.  You know perfectly well that Debian is
_not_ willing to remove any of the non-free software that it is
distributing.  Gnewsense, as well as UTUTO-e will remove it as soon as
humanly possible; so if you found something that is non-free, please
file a bug report so that it can be removed!
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MJ Ray | 14 Mar 02:35
Gravatar

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

"Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> wrote:
> How about sticking to the topic at hand instead of flipping this
> thread into something that is not important at this point?

Yes, how about it?  On that note [another message]:

> Mark, you do realise that `donated computers' is not the same as
> `donated software', let alone `they require non-free software to run'?

I thought one complaint was about the Nokia N800 computers?

Also, note that part of the problem in that "donated computers"
section was that they were running Unix and that sometimes they "could
not replace a machine's operating system with a free one" but once
they could, they "replaced the machine instead".

> Both of
> your messages have had nothing of relevance to say about the whole
> issue of the FSFE distributing non-free software to people.

In fact, I noted that I don't see a fundamental problem in FSFE
distributing these computers, but maybe including such development
platforms as raffle prizes is a bit silly, and maybe the swpat-fans
Nokia have made a platform which will never be free.  But that was
ignored, as people prefer wild claims about free software projects.

I'm happy to stay on-topic if others stop straying into lies about
projects I work on, or asking about them.

Matt Lee <mattl@...> wrote:
(Continue reading)

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Reinhard Mueller | 13 Mar 23:54
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

Alfred,

Am Dienstag, den 13.03.2007, 23:46 +0100 schrieb Alfred M. Szmidt:
> Do you really belive that from a random set
> of indiviuals, someone will have not only the time, but also the
> knowledge to replace the non-free software bits with something that is
> free? 

You might have missed my previous email in which I already made clear
that the Discount codes are raffled among exactly that group of people
that explicity voiced their interest in doing this, not among a "random
set of individuals".

Reinhard

Alfred,

Am Dienstag, den 13.03.2007, 23:46 +0100 schrieb Alfred M. Szmidt:
> Do you really belive that from a random set
> of indiviuals, someone will have not only the time, but also the
> knowledge to replace the non-free software bits with something that is
> free? 

You might have missed my previous email in which I already made clear
that the Discount codes are raffled among exactly that group of people
that explicity voiced their interest in doing this, not among a "random
set of individuals".

Reinhard
(Continue reading)

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Matt Lee | 13 Mar 23:56

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 11:54:27PM +0100, Reinhard Mueller wrote:

> You might have missed my previous email in which I already made clear
> that the Discount codes are raffled among exactly that group of people
> that explicity voiced their interest in doing this, not among a "random
> set of individuals".

And the page to see that is only available to people with a login?

Seriously. Abandon the raffle, rethink and come back with a set of prizes
that don't fall into one of the following categories:-

 * Hardware that runs free software
 * Stuff which goes against the ethics of the people you want money from
 * Pages only accessible to people who've already entered or have accounts
 * Poisons

--

-- 
Matt Lee
Chief Webmaster, GNU Project - http://www.gnu.org/ - Free as in Freedom
Free Software Foundation - Free Software, Free Society - http://www.fsf.org/
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Matt Lee | 14 Mar 00:04

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 06:56:48PM -0400, Matt Lee wrote:

>  * Hardware that runs free software

I meant non-free software. Oops. A prize of an er.. N800 and the Vista
Extreme Ultra boxed set go to Mr Alex Hudson at the back, who
is... running away from the podium as fast as he can.

matt

--

-- 
Matt Lee
Chief Webmaster, GNU Project - http://www.gnu.org/ - Free as in Freedom
Free Software Foundation - Free Software, Free Society - http://www.fsf.org/
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Alfred M. Szmidt | 14 Mar 00:03

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

   You might have missed my previous email in which I already made
   clear that the Discount codes are raffled among exactly that group
   of people that explicity voiced their interest in doing this, not
   among a "random set of individuals".

You, as well as Georg, are clearly missing the whole point.  And it is
distrubing that you are trying to justify these immoral and unethical
actions.

Please abandon the raffle.
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Matt Lee | 13 Mar 23:46

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 11:08:51PM +0100, Georg C. F. Greve wrote:

> As was pointed out by others before, this part of the raffle is about
> giving developers access to hardware that is coming closest to our
> goals and thus give them the best start in making them entirely free.

That's not a very good point though. 

If you want to get these things made free, put out a call for help on
the website, and ask people to apply giving some vague idea of how
they'll be used, and then decide, privately to give them if you must.

> For mobile devices it is unfortunately not yet true and requires more
> work by the Free Software community.

Does that mean we should abandon our ethics for the sake of
convienience? I can't get my ATI card to work with free drivers, so is
the FSFE going to recommend I use proprietary drivers? By the way, the
machine is an all-in-one unit, so I can't swap out the card. 

What do you suggest I do?

> Without Debian there would have been no Ubuntu, and without Ubuntu
> there would be no Gnewsense. And Gnewsense itself helped influence
> others to think about providing pure Free Software distributions.

I think if Mark Shuttleworth had wanted to build a distro, he would
have done it anyway, regardless of Debian. The fact that Debian
provided a lot of the groundwork is a great resource, but that
doesn't mean people should be recommending Ubuntu or Debian to others.
(Continue reading)

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Georg C. F. Greve | 14 Mar 10:29
Favicon

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

 || On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 18:46:49 -0400
 || Matt Lee <mattl@...> wrote: 

 ml> If you want to get these things made free, put out a call for
 ml> help on the website,

That is why we asked the Fellows who wants to help freeing these
devices, for they are not yet entirely free. So several people, you
included, have applied to get the device to free it entirely, so that
in the future these might become entirely free devices.

 ml> Does that mean we should abandon our ethics for the sake of
 ml> convienience?

No.

 ml> I can't get my ATI card to work with free drivers, so is the FSFE
 ml> going to recommend I use proprietary drivers?

No.

 ml> By the way, the machine is an all-in-one unit, so I can't swap
 ml> out the card.  What do you suggest I do?

It seems there are plenty of better alternatives to be had in that
area, so I'd recommend you get yourself another machine that does not
require you to give up your freedom.

 ml> I think if Mark Shuttleworth had wanted to build a distro, he
 ml> would have done it anyway, regardless of Debian.
(Continue reading)

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Alfred M. Szmidt | 14 Mar 11:56

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

    ml> If you want to get these things made free, put out a call for
    ml> help on the website,

   That is why we asked the Fellows who wants to help freeing these
   devices, for they are not yet entirely free. So several people, you
   included, have applied to get the device to free it entirely, so
   that in the future these might become entirely free devices.

And that is by distributing immoral and unethical software?  Has the
FSF _ever_ distributed copies of non-free software to its members in
the hope that someone will write a free replacement? No.  Why? Because
distributing non-free software to people is _wrong_, no matter what
the reason is.

You simply do not know if these people will write free replacements or
not.  You cannot know.

    ml> I can't get my ATI card to work with free drivers, so is the
    ml> FSFE going to recommend I use proprietary drivers?

   No.

Why not? It is exactly the same situation.

    ml> If I ask the FSFE Fellowship which is a good PDA, am I going
    ml> to be told to buy an N800 because it's almost free software?

   No.

That is exactly what people are being told right now with the FSFE
(Continue reading)

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Georg C. F. Greve | 14 Mar 13:30
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

 || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 11:56:25 +0100 (CET)
 || "Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> wrote: 

 ams> And that is by distributing immoral and unethical software?

As someone else already pointed out, this is about giving people
hardware so they can free it. This is not very different in principle
From (for lack of alternative) getting a notebook that has Microsoft
Windows on it for the purpose of replacing Windows with a fully free
GNU/Linux.

Most of us have had to do this before, including the FSFs, because it
is almost impossible to get the hardware without preinstalled Windows.

That coupling is even more intense in the embedded area.

Is this good? No.

But should we let this stop us from bringing freedom to those devices?

 ams> You simply do not know if these people will write free
 ams> replacements or not.  You cannot know.

We feel that can put more trust in our Fellows because they have
already shown themselves quite determined to promote freedom.

But you are right. We cannot know.

 ams> Why not? It is exactly the same situation.
(Continue reading)

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Alfred M. Szmidt | 14 Mar 13:49

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

    ams> And that is by distributing immoral and unethical software?

   As someone else already pointed out, this is about giving people
   hardware so they can free it. This is not very different in
   principle From=20(for lack of alternative) getting a notebook that
   has Microsoft Windows on it for the purpose of replacing Windows
   with a fully free GNU/Linux.

It is _very_ different, a notebook works without non-free software.
These devices do not.

   But should we let this stop us from bringing freedom to those
   devices?

One does not achive freedom by distributing non-free software to
people.

    ams> Why not? It is exactly the same situation.

   Because it would be a step away from freedom.

   As explained before, the situations are vastly different.

It is exactly the same, and you trying to compare it to notebooks with
Windows preinstalled makes it even more clear why it is the same.  In
all three cases you are distributing non-free software in the hope
that someone will replace it.

    ams> That is exactly what people are being told right now with the
    ams> FSFE distributing this device to fellows.
(Continue reading)

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Kaloian Doganov | 14 Mar 13:56

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

"Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> writes:

    I cannot in good concious recommend people to become Fellows, and
    I suspect that many others on this list feel the same.

Seconded.

--

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Alex Hudson | 14 Mar 14:05

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On Wed, 2007-03-14 at 13:49 +0100, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
>     ams> That is exactly what people are being told right now with the
>     ams> FSFE distributing this device to fellows.
> 
>    It has been implied that we were telling this to people, although
>    we explicitly pointed out that we are not recommending these
>    devices and pass them on only for the purpose of finding people to
>    free them.
> 
> But giving them away you are indeed recommending them, a message
> stating that you are not does not change the fact.

Well, not just that, but in the case of the N800, they're asking people
to buy them, albeit at a subsidised rate.

The new text on the page is an improvement, but it's still a bit odd to
raffle work to people :)

Perhaps in the future the FSFE should consult with people about
hardware; even the fully free router has free software issues:

http://jjinux.blogspot.com/2006/12/linux-netgear-open-source-wireless-g.html

... and I understand it doesn't work with OpenWRT. It's not a freeness
issue, but it's a pain, and there are better options out there.

Cheers,

Alex.
(Continue reading)

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Georg C. F. Greve | 14 Mar 15:05
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

 || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 13:05:23 +0000
 || Alex Hudson <home@...> wrote: 

 ah> The new text on the page is an improvement, but it's still a bit
 ah> odd to raffle work to people :)

That may be true.

But people in the Free Software community oddly seem to enjoy working
to promote freedom, and like to play with the technology. ;)

Freedom is not a burden that needs to be borne like a cross.

 ah> Perhaps in the future the FSFE should consult with people about
 ah> hardware; even the fully free router has free software issues:
 ah> [...]  ... and I understand it doesn't work with OpenWRT.

Last time I looked, OpenWRTs web page claims it was supported in the
most recent branch, and that work was in progress and at least this
router does not have the accursed Broadcom chipset.

Fortunately routers are already a little more advanced than PDAs and
mobile phones in terms of becoming fully free.

And yes: We should (and do) talk to people who are working in these
areas, and are always open to feedback, even when the feedback is that
people disagree with something.

We generally would however prefer to get that feedback in a non-public
form first, because public discussions draw additional resources from
(Continue reading)

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MJ Ray | 14 Mar 15:48
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OpenXML and accountability, was: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

"Georg C. F. Greve" <greve@...> wrote:
> We generally would however prefer to get that feedback in a non-public
> form first, because public discussions draw additional resources from
> ongoing work. I am for instance quite worried about the fact that ISO
> put OpenXML back on the fast track [1] and would prefer to spend more
> time on this issue and others.
> [1] http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/openxml_back_on_fast_track

FSFE can say that this is wrong, immoral, unethical and so on, but I
believe that FSFE leaders should not go around questioning the
accountability or democracy of other groups.  That's the pot calling
the kettle black a bit.

For example, that article mentions "it seems that such processes can
be ignored by lone decisions of the ISO personnel" - well, at least
they have a process.  With the FSFE Raffle of the N800, which several
fellows seem unhappy about, what can they do?  There doesn't seem to
be any process besides non-renewals.  Emailing comments?  Well, even
after the negative feedback started was clear here, the FSFE
Newsletter still went out with the raffle "happy to pass these gifts
on" item included, so email clearly has only minor effect.

I know that there are strong reasons why FSFE is not more democratic,
but this means its leaders need to be careful with the comments from
the above article.  Otherwise, more supporters will look at FSFE and
say the reasons against greater democracy aren't sufficient.

Regards,
--

-- 
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
(Continue reading)

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Georg C. F. Greve | 14 Mar 16:58
Favicon

Re: OpenXML and accountability

 || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 14:48:30 +0000
 || MJ Ray <mjr@...> wrote: 

 mr> FSFE can say that this is wrong, immoral, unethical and so on,
 mr> but I believe that FSFE leaders should not go around questioning
 mr> the accountability or democracy of other groups.

FSFE is an entirely democratic organisation with personal liability
and accountability of all elected executives towards the general
assembly and a large European team (as well as local teams) that
generally work on the basis of consensus of all active people.

It cannot be open or representative for reasons explained multiple
times, but that does not change its democratic basis.

 mr> With the FSFE Raffle of the N800, which several fellows seem
 mr> unhappy about, what can they do?  There doesn't seem to be any
 mr> process besides non-renewals.  Emailing comments?

Emailing comments would have been one idea. That is also how the
general assembly and all the teams of FSFE normally work.

As a matter of fact, *no* Fellow actually got in touch with us prior
to this public debate, and the most verbal people in this debate are
not Fellows, and have not participated in FSFE's work of the past
years in any other way, either.

So yes, for Fellows a good way would have been to get in touch and
raise this as something they see a problem with.
(Continue reading)

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Werner Koch | 14 Mar 17:49
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Re: OpenXML and accountability

On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:58, greve@... said:

> As a matter of fact, *no* Fellow actually got in touch with us prior

I expect that the paid people at last briefly follow discussion@.
They should have noticed that the Nokia stuff has been discussed back
in January.

> to this public debate, and the most verbal people in this debate are
> not Fellows, and have not participated in FSFE's work of the past
> years in any other way, either.

Although I retired as board and active member of the FSFE in December
[1], I did quite some work over the last 6 years.

Salam-Shalom,

   Werner

[1] Though I am still somewhat active in the German chapter.
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Georg C. F. Greve | 14 Mar 18:09
Favicon

Re: OpenXML and accountability

 || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 17:49:40 +0100
 || Werner Koch <wk@...> wrote: 

 wk> I expect that the paid people at last briefly follow discussion@.
 wk> They should have noticed that the Nokia stuff has been discussed
 wk> back in January.

This is unrelated to what I said, though: Prior to this public
discussion noone contacted us directly to raise their problem with the
raffle.

Although the communication admittedly wasn't good enough, and it maybe
also should not have been mixed with the raffle, we always pointed out
that the N800 would only be given to people for the sole purpose of
freeing them.

 >> to this public debate, and the most verbal people in this debate
 >> are not Fellows, and have not participated in FSFE's work of the
 >> past years in any other way, either.

 wk> I did quite some work over the last 6 years.

Very true. And we all are very grateful for that.

I did not consider you among the most verbal people in this discussion
because you (thankfully) wrote much fewer and shorter mails.

But yes, I did take notice that you also saw problems with this,
although I personally would have preferred if you had raised those
issues earlier and in the right channels.
(Continue reading)

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Werner Koch | 14 Mar 18:32
Favicon

Re: OpenXML and accountability

On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:09, greve@... said:

> although I personally would have preferred if you had raised those
> issues earlier and in the right channels.

I learned about the raffle right here at discussion@.  So how should I
have raised my voice on other channels?  As you know I am only
subscribed to the FSFE members list and not on any of the dozens of
other lists.  This has not been announced on the members list.

So many lists and so much information - one only needs to pick the
right one ;-)

Salam-Shalom,

   Werner
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Georg C. F. Greve | 14 Mar 20:03
Favicon

Re: OpenXML and accountability

 || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:32:40 +0100
 || Werner Koch <wk@...> wrote: 

 wk> So many lists and so much information - one only needs to pick
 wk> the right one ;-)

True. That is a problem. And if we had fewer things going on, we might
have caught this one earlier.

Regards,
Georg

--

-- 
Georg C. F. Greve                                 <greve@...>
Free Software Foundation Europe	                 (http://fsfeurope.org)
Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom!     (http://www.fsfe.org)
What everyone should know about DRM                   (http://DRM.info)

 || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:32:40 +0100
 || Werner Koch <wk@...> wrote: 

 wk> So many lists and so much information - one only needs to pick
 wk> the right one ;-)

True. That is a problem. And if we had fewer things going on, we might
have caught this one earlier.

Regards,
Georg
(Continue reading)

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Stefano Maffulli | 15 Mar 08:34

Re: OpenXML and accountability

On Wed, 2007-03-14 at 17:49 +0100, Werner Koch wrote:
> On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:58, greve@... said:
> 
> > As a matter of fact, *no* Fellow actually got in touch with us prior
> 
> I expect that the paid people at last briefly follow discussion@.
> They should have noticed that the Nokia stuff has been discussed back
> in January.

Infact, at that time in January we had already received the stuff from
Nokia and we realized we had a problem.  The solution we elaborated was
to keep the n800 available only for developers.  We chose to *trust* the
Fellows that declared to be *able* and *willing* to fix the freedom
issues.  

It is clear now that not only the solution was suboptimal but also it
was communicated poorly.  

I can reassure that measures are being taken to prevent this problem
from happening again next year: we are changing the process and
establish more control and double-check points along it.  If you give me
some time I promise I will publish the process publicly for comments.

Thank you
Stefano
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Alfred M. Szmidt | 14 Mar 18:22

Re: OpenXML and accountability

   As a matter of fact, *no* Fellow actually got in touch with us
   prior to this public debate, and the most verbal people in this
   debate are not Fellows, and have not participated in FSFE's work of
   the past years in any other way, either.

I find this extremley insulting.  I'm a GNU developer and a GNU
maintainer, I can only take this as that the FSFE does not care about
what GNU developers do, and does not consider it part of FSFE's work;
despite the FSFE stating that the GNU project is one of its primary
projects.

Just because someone hasn't shelved out money because of financial
reasons to the FSFE and become a Fellow, does not mean that one is not
participating in the FSFE's work for the past 10 years.
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Georg C. F. Greve | 14 Mar 20:01
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Re: OpenXML and accountability

 || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:22:15 +0100 (CET)
 || "Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> wrote: 

 ams> I find this extremley insulting.

It certainly was not my intention to insult you or anyone else.

I had hoped that the amount of time spent on this discussion should
give you an idea that we are taking you and this issue very seriously
indeed. I assure you: We do not take this lightly, at all.

Regards,
Georg

--

-- 
Georg C. F. Greve                                 <greve@...>
Free Software Foundation Europe	                 (http://fsfeurope.org)
Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom!     (http://www.fsfe.org)
What everyone should know about DRM                   (http://DRM.info)

 || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:22:15 +0100 (CET)
 || "Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> wrote: 

 ams> I find this extremley insulting.

It certainly was not my intention to insult you or anyone else.

I had hoped that the amount of time spent on this discussion should
give you an idea that we are taking you and this issue very seriously
(Continue reading)

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Matt Lee | 14 Mar 18:45

Re: OpenXML and accountability

On Wed, Mar 14, 2007 at 04:58:34PM +0100, Georg C. F. Greve wrote:

> As a matter of fact, *no* Fellow actually got in touch with us prior
> to this public debate, and the most verbal people in this debate are
> not Fellows, and have not participated in FSFE's work of the past
> years in any other way, either.

I'm a fellow, in so much as my card doesn't have an expiry date and I
just recently got an email asking me to pay you some more money, and
my login still works, so I assume I'm good? 

Why should anyone get in touch with you in any way other than public
debate? I'd say you're lucky people are discussing it on a mailing
list you're on. Once something is on the web, who's to say where they
should and should not discuss things?

I wasn't aware of this until it was posted to the website and
someone alerted me to the mailing list, which I was already subscribed
too. 

I'm sorry I've not participated in any of the FSFE's work directly,
but I'm already fairly busy with my work for the GNU project, but if
you can think of a way I can help you in future, please let me
know. I'm pretty good with raffle tickets, tombolas and other forms of
gambling, too. 

matt

--

-- 
Matt Lee
(Continue reading)

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Georg C. F. Greve | 14 Mar 20:15
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Re: OpenXML and accountability

 || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 13:45:34 -0400
 || Matt Lee <mattl@...> wrote: 

 ml> Why should anyone get in touch with you in any way other than
 ml> public debate?

Because a public debate often creates more friction and is more time
consuming than a direct mail to the people involved, which is usually
the most effective way of solving a problem.

 ml> I'm sorry I've not participated in any of the FSFE's work
 ml> directly, but I'm already fairly busy with my work for the GNU
 ml> project,

Yes. Many of us have spent much time working for the GNU Project,
myself included. That is very important work and I am grateful that
you are doing it.

If you were also finding time to work with FSFE, we'd be very glad,
maybe you could occasionally work with Gareth.

Regards,
Georg

--

-- 
Georg C. F. Greve                                 <greve@...>
Free Software Foundation Europe	                 (http://fsfeurope.org)
Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom!     (http://www.fsfe.org)
What everyone should know about DRM                   (http://DRM.info)
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Kaloian Doganov | 14 Mar 19:39

Re: OpenXML and accountability

"Georg C. F. Greve" <greve@...> writes:

    As a matter of fact, *no* Fellow actually got in touch with us
    prior to this public debate, and the most verbal people in this
    debate are not Fellows, and have not participated in FSFE's work
    of the past years in any other way, either.

    So yes, for Fellows a good way would have been to get in touch and
    raise this as something they see a problem with.

Are you saying that we should fund an organization that distributes
proprietary software in order to be able to protest against this
activity?  Adherents of the Free Software Movement are against
proprietary software distribution no matter who does it — Microsoft,
Nokia, Debian Project or FSF Europe.  Proprietary software distributed
by FSF Europe is not friendlier other proprietary software.  It is
even more harmful, because it is done in the name of our freedom by
the people who should lead us, not betray us.

I don't understand why you want to ship those devices at all costs.
Please, drop the raffle while you still can.

    And if they were overly unhappy with the reaction to their getting
    in touch that it undoes all the things they agree with, they could
    have decided to not renew their Fellowship.

Of course, the unhappy Fellows will leave the Fellowship (after their
membership expires).  And others (like me) may decide not to become
Fellows at all.  That's a perfect way to filter out the determined
members of the Free Software Movement: they won't fund and entity that
(Continue reading)

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Reinhard Mueller | 14 Mar 17:41
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Re: OpenXML and accountability, was: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

Am Mittwoch, den 14.03.2007, 14:48 +0000 schrieb MJ Ray:
> Well, even after the negative feedback started was clear here, the
> FSFE Newsletter still went out with the raffle "happy to pass these
> gifts on" item included

The newsletter didn't list the prizes at all. It only mentions that
there *is* a raffle, and I didn't consider this discussion as a negative
feedback against that fact.

But you are of course right - if the newsletter had explicitly mentioned
the Nokia tablet, I would certainly have changed it as a result of this
feedback.

Thanks,
Reinhard

Am Mittwoch, den 14.03.2007, 14:48 +0000 schrieb MJ Ray:
> Well, even after the negative feedback started was clear here, the
> FSFE Newsletter still went out with the raffle "happy to pass these
> gifts on" item included

The newsletter didn't list the prizes at all. It only mentions that
there *is* a raffle, and I didn't consider this discussion as a negative
feedback against that fact.

But you are of course right - if the newsletter had explicitly mentioned
the Nokia tablet, I would certainly have changed it as a result of this
feedback.
(Continue reading)

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Georg C. F. Greve | 14 Mar 14:49
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

 || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 13:49:35 +0100 (CET)
 || "Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> wrote: 

 ams> It is _very_ different, a notebook works without non-free
 ams> software.  These devices do not.

Exactly. You explained very well why the situations are different.

Notebooks now work with Free Software after people got them while Free
Software was not running on them and made Free Software run.

Embedded devices are behind in terms of freedom compared to notebooks.

 ams> That is exactly what people are being told right now with the
 ams> FSFE distributing this device to fellows.

Getting your hands on hardware that you want to run Free Software on,
even if you have to buy these devices, is the only practical way to
get Free Software to run on them.

 ams> But giving them away you are indeed recommending them, a message
 ams> stating that you are not does not change the fact.

What you state as fact is an allegation based on disregard of stated
intention. But intention is central for recommendations, and the
recommendation here is very clearly and expressedly that these devices
should *not* be seen as devices that are good enough.

So what you may have meant to say is that FSFE is setting a bad
example if it passes on hardware to people who want to set it free.
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Alfred M. Szmidt | 14 Mar 15:37

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

    ams> It is _very_ different, a notebook works without non-free
    ams> software.  These devices do not.

   Exactly. You explained very well why the situations are different.

   Notebooks now work with Free Software after people got them while
   Free Software was not running on them and made Free Software run.

   Embedded devices are behind in terms of freedom compared to
   notebooks.

And yet the FSF, nor anyone else who cared about freedom distributed
laptops with non-free software to people in the vauge hope that
someone might write a free replacement.  The FSF wasn't distributing
Flash to developers when Gnash was started, nor was the FSF
distributing Sun Java to developers when there was no free Java.

It is beyond bewildering why the FSFE is doing this, and trying to
justify these actions.

    ams> That is exactly what people are being told right now with the
    ams> FSFE distributing this device to fellows.

   Getting your hands on hardware that you want to run Free Software
   on, even if you have to buy these devices, is the only practical
   way to get Free Software to run on them.

More excuses, Georg.  The probobaility that someone knoweldgeble
enough to write this missing pieces will win the raffle is about as
probable as me getting hit by a meteorite.  I might understand this
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Georg C. F. Greve | 14 Mar 17:19
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

 || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 15:37:55 +0100 (CET)
 || "Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> wrote: 

 ams> The probobaility that someone knoweldgeble enough to write this
 ams> missing pieces will win the raffle is about as probable as me
 ams> getting hit by a meteorite.

As was explained multiple times in this thread: These devices are only
given to people who have registered themselves as developers who are
capable and willing to work on the devices.

Maybe random distribution is not the best way to decide between them,
but the chances that some good will come from their work seem much
higher than you describe.

 ams> I might understand this whole thing _if_ the FSFE was activley
 ams> looking for one or two people too actually work on this,

You mean in the sense of putting out a call for qualified developers?

This would be an alternative, and maybe even a better one.

 ams> The FSFE is still distributing them to people!  How is this not
 ams> recommending them?  It doesn't matter how clearly, and
 ams> expressdely you state that it is not `good enough'.

The critical point here is that FSFE is willing to pass a very limited
amount of these devices along to Free Software developers for the
singular purpose of making them run with Free Software.
(Continue reading)

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Alfred M. Szmidt | 14 Mar 17:29

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

    ams> The probobaility that someone knoweldgeble enough to write
    ams> this missing pieces will win the raffle is about as probable
    ams> as me getting hit by a meteorite.

   As was explained multiple times in this thread: These devices are
   only given to people who have registered themselves as developers
   who are capable and willing to work on the devices.

The FSFE is still distributing non-free software to people through
public channels.  This gives the wrong picture to everyone involved.

    ams> I might understand this whole thing _if_ the FSFE was
    ams> activley looking for one or two people too actually work on
    ams> this,

   You mean in the sense of putting out a call for qualified
   developers?

Yes.

    ams> The FSFE is still distributing them to people!  How is this
    ams> not recommending them?  It doesn't matter how clearly, and
    ams> expressdely you state that it is not `good enough'.

   The critical point here is that FSFE is willing to pass a very
   limited amount of these devices along to Free Software developers
   for the singular purpose of making them run with Free Software.

The FSFE is still distributing non-free software to people through
public channels.  And directly (no matter how many statements,
(Continue reading)

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Georg C. F. Greve | 14 Mar 20:09
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

 || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 17:29:37 +0100 (CET)
 || "Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> wrote: 

 ams> Can anyone sign up for the raffle? Yes.  Can anyone claim to be
 ams> a developer? Yes.  So despite your claims that this is not
 ams> `general' distribution, it is exactly that.

So I take it that if we added some more layers of security to ensure
that the devices will actually be used for their intended purpose,
namely to make them run with fully Free Software, this would take care
of the issue you are seeing?

What if we asked people to send in some kind of application instead of
distributing them by random? What if we introduced some kind of
obligation to report back on the progress made in freeing it?

Regards,
Georg

--

-- 
Georg C. F. Greve                                 <greve@...>
Free Software Foundation Europe	                 (http://fsfeurope.org)
Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom!     (http://www.fsfe.org)
What everyone should know about DRM                   (http://DRM.info)

 || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 17:29:37 +0100 (CET)
 || "Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> wrote: 

 ams> Can anyone sign up for the raffle? Yes.  Can anyone claim to be
(Continue reading)

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Alfred M. Szmidt | 14 Mar 20:37

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

    ams> Can anyone sign up for the raffle? Yes.  Can anyone claim to
    ams> be a developer? Yes.  So despite your claims that this is not
    ams> `general' distribution, it is exactly that.

   So I take it that if we added some more layers of security to
   ensure that the devices will actually be used for their intended
   purpose, namely to make them run with fully Free Software, this
   would take care of the issue you are seeing?

In my opinion? No.  It would not.  The end result is the same, FSFE is
distributing non-free softawre to people, and asking them to pay to
get this non-free software.

   What if we asked people to send in some kind of application instead
   of distributing them by random? What if we introduced some kind of
   obligation to report back on the progress made in freeing it?

While this makes things it a bit better, it still does not make it
right.  What would happen if nobody does replace the non-free software
on these devices? Does the person(s) send it back to the FSFE?  Do
they keep it? Do they get a refund?  This opens up alot more problem
than it solves, and probobly alot more work on FSFE's side that could
be spent doing something more useful.
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arc | 14 Mar 22:07

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

Alfred M. Szmidt ha scritto:

> While this makes things it a bit better, it still does not make it
> right.  What would happen if nobody does replace the non-free software
> on these devices? Does the person(s) send it back to the FSFE?  Do
> they keep it? Do they get a refund?  This opens up alot more problem
> than it solves, and probobly alot more work on FSFE's side that could
> be spent doing something more useful.

A solution: what if we ship those devices only AFTER some developers has
replaced the proprietary parts?

Another solution: can we replace those prizes with something else?
Is it possible to do that at this time?

Come on, let's discuss peacefully about that!

We're in discussion@ after all :)

--

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email:   arc (at) fsfe.org
website: http://www.chi3.org
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Alfred M. Szmidt | 14 Mar 22:32

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

   A solution: what if we ship those devices only AFTER some
   developers has replaced the proprietary parts?

   Another solution: can we replace those prizes with something else?
   Is it possible to do that at this time?

These are very good ideas indeed!
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Bernhard Reiter | 15 Mar 10:15
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On Wednesday 14 March 2007 20:37, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
>    So I take it that if we added some more layers of security to
>    ensure that the devices will actually be used for their intended
>    purpose, namely to make them run with fully Free Software, this
>    would take care of the issue you are seeing?
>
> In my opinion? No.  It would not.  The end result is the same, FSFE is
> distributing non-free softawre to people, and asking them to pay to
> get this non-free software.

The process is a high chance that there is more freedom in the end. 
Compromises like this - take proprietary stuff to liberate it - have been 
made by GNU hackers and FSF before, e.g. running on proprietary operating 
system when the other have been unpractical.

>    What if we asked people to send in some kind of application instead
>    of distributing them by random? What if we introduced some kind of
>    obligation to report back on the progress made in freeing it?
>
> While this makes things it a bit better, it still does not make it
> right.  What would happen if nobody does replace the non-free software
> on these devices?

Then it is likely that it was too hard. 
We cannot be sure that it can be done, until somebody has done it. 
Writing a report about this, will be quite an effort. If this person
has demonstrated the technical abilities the time of the report will be worth 
more money then the device itself.

> Does the person(s) send it back to the FSFE?  Do they keep it?
(Continue reading)

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Kaloian Doganov | 15 Mar 11:46

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

Bernhard Reiter <reiter@...> writes:

    The process is a high chance that there is more freedom in the
    end.  Compromises like this - take proprietary stuff to liberate
    it - have been made by GNU hackers and FSF before, e.g. running on
    proprietary operating system when the other have been unpractical.

This is not the first time when FSFE representative used FSF and GNU
Project as an excuse for distributing proprietary software.  This is
non sense, since neither FSF nor GNU had ever distributed proprietary
software.

Please, choose a better example when justifying your actions.  You're
not like FSF, you're like Linspire or the Debian Project, etc.

    It is just a proposal for doing something useful with the devices.
    Sending them back will also not be good, as the necessary public
    reasoning will be quite a lot of work and negative one as well.

Of course sending them back to the vendor is not nice, and it looks
like according to FSFE's values, distributing proprietary software is
much more acceptable.  You value your "public image" more than
software freedom.

Making a mistake is one thing.  Trying to justify it in this way, so
persitently, is something quite different -- it shows that you have
betrayed our values.

--

-- 
Protect your digital freedom and privacy, eliminate DRM, learn more at
(Continue reading)

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Sam Liddicott | 15 Mar 13:12

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

* Kaloian Doganov wrote, On 15/03/07 10:46:
> Bernhard Reiter <reiter@...> writes:
>
>     The process is a high chance that there is more freedom in the
>     end.  Compromises like this - take proprietary stuff to liberate
>     it - have been made by GNU hackers and FSF before, e.g. running on
>     proprietary operating system when the other have been unpractical.
>
> This is not the first time when FSFE representative used FSF and GNU
> Project as an excuse for distributing proprietary software.  This is
> non sense, since neither FSF nor GNU had ever distributed proprietary
> software.
>
> Please, choose a better example when justifying your actions.  You're
> not like FSF, you're like Linspire or the Debian Project, etc.
>   
Like most disagreements, the different proponents use the same word to
represent different concepts.
Words to watch out for here are "distribute" "your" "our" "FSF".

There is a difference difference between distributing munitions for use
and distributing munitions for destruction.
Of course in the second case the word "distribute" may not be the right
word because the recipient group is so small and select.

There is a difference between distributing a proprietary OS for
convenience in another task, and distributing a proprietary OS because
you're trying to remove it and merely haven't finished yet; and that is
what this is about.
(Continue reading)

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Bernhard Reiter | 15 Mar 13:17
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On Thursday 15 March 2007 11:46, Kaloian Doganov wrote:
> Bernhard Reiter <reiter@...> writes:
>
>     The process is a high chance that there is more freedom in the
>     end.  Compromises like this - take proprietary stuff to liberate
>     it - have been made by GNU hackers and FSF before, e.g. running on
>     proprietary operating system when the other have been unpractical.
>
> This is not the first time when FSFE representative used FSF and GNU
> Project as an excuse for distributing proprietary software.  This is
> non sense, since neither FSF nor GNU had ever distributed proprietary
> software.

I am not so sure, there have been machines used and also put at places
that probably had some proprietary software in there, may it be firmware, 
bios or microcode. In addition I think that the humans in those fine 
organistation will have one or the other mistake just like I did
and everybody else does.
Also the question is what constitutes "distributing"?
I am not sure, but the FSF could have helped to get small number of 
devices from vendor to the developer for the purpose of liberating it.
This is different from a distributing larger quanitities.

> Please, choose a better example when justifying your actions.  

I have not chosen a concrete example, but and argument to show you the limit
that sticking to rule like a dogma will sometimes not help your own cause.
Like Guide van Rossum writes in the Python Style guide 
(http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/):
A Foolish Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Little Minds
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Alfred M. Szmidt | 15 Mar 15:17

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

   > In my opinion? No.  It would not.  The end result is the same, FSFE is
   > distributing non-free softawre to people, and asking them to pay to
   > get this non-free software.

   The process is a high chance that there is more freedom in the end.
   Compromises like this - take proprietary stuff to liberate it -
   have been made by GNU hackers and FSF before, e.g. running on
   proprietary operating system when the other have been unpractical.

The process is that there is a random chance of more freedom at the
end.  You simply have no clue if these people will be able to liberate
these devices.  You have no knowledge about these developers are
capable of.  People have suggested several ways that the FSFE could do
better instead of having a raffle that gives out non-free software to
people, my personal favourite is that the FSFE gives it to the first
person(s) to liberate the device in question, and on top of that, you
should give them a life time membership in the FSFE.  _That_ would
make it a high chance of more freedom in the end, but not by
distributing things randomly, and on top of that asking people to pay
for it.

   > While this makes things it a bit better, it still does not make
   > it right.  What would happen if nobody does replace the non-free
   > software on these devices?

   Then it is likely that it was too hard.  We cannot be sure that it
   can be done, until somebody has done it.  Writing a report about
   this, will be quite an effort. If this person has demonstrated the
   technical abilities the time of the report will be worth more money
   then the device itself.
(Continue reading)

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Bernhard Reiter | 15 Mar 15:40
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Giving proprietary devices to hackers fo liberation (was: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows)

On Thursday 15 March 2007 15:17, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
> The process is that there is a random chance of more freedom at the
> end.  You simply have no clue if these people will be able to liberate
> these devices.  You have no knowledge about these developers are capable of.  

Your answer does not fit the threat of the discussion anymore.
I was discussing your opinion about 
not doing a raffle but have developers apply with provisions 
that they will do work to free those devices.

>    > While this makes things it a bit better, it still does not make
>    > it right.  What would happen if nobody does replace the non-free
>    > software on these devices?
>
>    Then it is likely that it was too hard.  We cannot be sure that it
>    can be done, until somebody has done it.  Writing a report about
>    this, will be quite an effort. If this person has demonstrated the
>    technical abilities the time of the report will be worth more money
>    then the device itself.
>
> So since it was too hard, then it is OK to distribute such devices?

> And distribute non-free software to people?  I'm really questioning
> what the heck is wrong with the FSFE, are you really only looking for
> money to fund non-free software or are you trying to spread freedom?

> Distributing the device will do even less good: The FSFE ends up
> supporting non-free software and distributing devices that contain
> non-free software to Fellows.
(Continue reading)

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Gareth Bowker | 15 Mar 15:53

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

On 15/03/07, Alfred M. Szmidt <ams@...> wrote:
> The process is that there is a random chance of more freedom at the
> end.  You simply have no clue if these people will be able to liberate
> these devices.  You have no knowledge about these developers are
> capable of.  People have suggested several ways that the FSFE could do
> better instead of having a raffle that gives out non-free software to
> people, my personal favourite is that the FSFE gives it to the first
> person(s) to liberate the device in question, and on top of that, you
> should give them a life time membership in the FSFE.

How does someone liberate such a device without having the device to work with?

>  _That_ would
> make it a high chance of more freedom in the end, but not by
> distributing things randomly, and on top of that asking people to pay
> for it.

If someone tells me that they have the technical ability to free a
device, then I'm going to trust them. If that person also shows a
commitment to Free Software, whether by being a GNU contributor, an
FSFE Fellow, member of FSF, whatever, that adds more credence to their
claim, IMHO. So when FSFE say "look, we have some vouchers for
non-free devices here that can be made free with a little bit of work.
We'll give them to people capable of doing that work, so tell us if
you're interested in working on this". I don't understand why, when
someone has already shown support for FSFE's work by supporting us,
that we should then not believe them when they tell us they can carry
this work out. Why do you believe FSFE's fellows are so dishonest?

You keep insisting that we'd be distributing the device randomly and
(Continue reading)

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Alfred M. Szmidt | 15 Mar 16:34

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

How about instead of trying to justify these actions, listen to the
several suggestions people have given about how the FSFE could do
better?
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Sam Liddicott | 15 Mar 18:04

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

* Alfred M. Szmidt wrote, On 15/03/07 15:34:
> How about instead of trying to justify these actions, listen to the
> several suggestions people have given about how the FSFE could do
> better?
>   
I don't think anyone is trying to justify the actions, they are trying
to explain how the actions don't go against the FSF doctrine of
distributing non-free software to someone who uses the word "distribute"
when a non-free device is given to a hacker to liberate.

Why don't you try and justify your claim that saying "here, hack this
non-free device" contravenes the doctrine of not distributing non-free
software.

Sam
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Georg C. F. Greve | 15 Mar 17:01
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Raffle update (was: Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows)

 || On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 16:34:57 +0100 (CET)
 || "Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> wrote: 

 ams> How about instead of trying to justify these actions, listen to
 ams> the several suggestions people have given about how the FSFE
 ams> could do better?

As written yesterday: We have listened and have understood what you
were trying to say about the raffle and were working to fix things.

Being a democratic organisation, this needs to be done with at least a
little time for people to comment and agree, but can be done fairly
quickly when things are important enough.

The message below has just gone out to all Fellows.

The web pages have already been updated.

Regards,
Georg
Favicon
From: Fellowship of FSFE <fellowship@...>
Subject: Update for the 2007 Fellowship Raffle
Date: 2007-03-15 15:51:25 GMT
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Alfred M. Szmidt | 15 Mar 17:14

Re: Raffle update (was: Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows)

Thank you for doing the right thing.
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arc | 15 Mar 17:28

Re: Raffle update

Alfred M. Szmidt ha scritto:
> Thank you for doing the right thing.

Thank YOU for providing us support and suggestions.
FSF and FSFE are ONE community of people working together for freedom.

We're improving, year by year, to make things better but we can do it 
only with your support.
No matter if the person who makes suggestions is a Fellow, a GNU project 
man, a FSF man!
We're ALL in the same community and we ALL share the same values.

Let's spread freedom.

Together.

arc

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arc | 15 Mar 17:14

Re: Raffle update

Georg C. F. Greve ha scritto:

> we have decided to take the following items out of the raffle
> 
>    * 1 Qtopia Greenphone by Trolltech
> 
>    * 3 Developer Discount codes for Nokia N800 Internet Tablets, by Nokia
> 
>    * 2 Free Software based routers KWGR614, by NETGEAR
> 
> and will pass them to developers for full liberation at a later stage.

[cut]

 > They will be replaced by 15 copies of "Free Software, Free
> Society" and the remaining items in the raffle will be raffled as
> planned.

I agree with that but what about adding some signed copies of Free 
Software Free Society and/or maybe some tshirt like this one?

http://fsfe.org/en/order

It's just a suggestion.

arc

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Ben Finney | 15 Mar 17:18

Re: Raffle update (was: Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows)

On 15-Mar-2007, Georg C. F. Greve wrote:
> As written yesterday: We have listened and have understood what you
> were trying to say about the raffle and were working to fix things.

Thank you for your patience, and for considering the message's 
importance enough to discuss it at length here in the face of some 
unbecoming behaviour.

> The message below has just gone out to all Fellows.
> The web pages have already been updated.

> Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 16:51:25 +0100
> From: Fellowship of FSFE <fellowship@...>
> 
> Dear Fellows,
> we have decided to take the following items out of the raffle
> 
>    * 1 Qtopia Greenphone by Trolltech
>    * 3 Developer Discount codes for Nokia N800 Internet Tablets, by 
>    Nokia
>    * 2 Free Software based routers KWGR614, by NETGEAR

I think this is the right decision. I hope that FSFE can find a way to 
continue to actively promote the liberation of these proprietary 
devices.

Thanks for communicating this clearly, and especially for 
communicating the reasons for this action.

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Stefano Spinucci | 15 Mar 17:40

Re: Raffle update (was: Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows)

On 3/15/07, Georg C. F. Greve <greve@...> wrote:
> Dear Fellows,
> we have decided to take the following items out of the raffle
>   * 1 Qtopia Greenphone by Trolltech
>   * 3 Developer Discount codes for Nokia N800 Internet Tablets, by Nokia
>   * 2 Free Software based routers KWGR614, by NETGEAR
> and will pass them to developers for full liberation at a later stage.

Thank you.

This was the right thing to do.

---
Stefano Spinucci
FSFE Fellow
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MJ Ray | 14 Mar 15:31
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

"Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@...> wrote:
> It is _very_ different, a notebook works without non-free software.

Does it?

"Some desktop machines can run a free BIOS, but we don't know of any
laptop that can do so."
-- http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/free-bios.html

If so, which ones?  I expect I'll buy a new notebook in the coming
months and I'd prefer one which works without non-free software.

ObTopic: I think this is a question of degree, not as black/white as
some suggest.  I feel that Nokia-support is inappropriate, but other
fellowship-problems are more of a blocker to me, so I'm probably not
the target audience for the raffle.

Regards,
--

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Neal H. Walfield | 14 Mar 18:03

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

At Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:29:13 +0100,
"Georg C. F. Greve" <greve@...> wrote:
> We would tell you that no PDA is good enough today, but that it would
> be very important to have one that runs only Free Software.
> 
> We would also tell you that there are some devices on which this seems
> possible, but that they are not yet good enough and require more work.

I've been told that Familiar, thanks to SDG Systems, has excellent
support for the IPAQ H2210 (about 300EUR) and the HX4700 (500-600EUR).
The only part not supported by free software is the WLAN driver in the
HX4700.

Do you exclude these because you are not aware of them or because of
some other issue?

Neal
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Georg C. F. Greve | 14 Mar 19:56
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Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

 || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:03:12 +0100
 || "Neal H. Walfield" <neal@...> wrote: 

 nhw> I've been told that Familiar, thanks to SDG Systems, has
 nhw> excellent support for the IPAQ H2210 (about 300EUR) and the
 nhw> HX4700 (500-600EUR).  The only part not supported by free
 nhw> software is the WLAN driver in the HX4700.

This sounds very good.

 nhw> Do you exclude these because you are not aware of them or
 nhw> because of some other issue?

We were simply not aware of them. Did you have a look at them and
could confirm that they are truly fully Free Software?

Regards,
Georg

--

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Georg C. F. Greve                                 <greve@...>
Free Software Foundation Europe	                 (http://fsfeurope.org)
Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom!     (http://www.fsfe.org)
What everyone should know about DRM                   (http://DRM.info)

 || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:03:12 +0100
 || "Neal H. Walfield" <neal@...> wrote: 

 nhw> I've been told that Familiar, thanks to SDG Systems, has
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Neal H. Walfield | 14 Mar 20:45

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

At Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:56:38 +0100,
"Georg C. F. Greve" <greve@...> wrote:
>  || On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:03:12 +0100
>  || "Neal H. Walfield" <neal@...> wrote: 
> 
>  nhw> I've been told that Familiar, thanks to SDG Systems, has
>  nhw> excellent support for the IPAQ H2210 (about 300EUR) and the
>  nhw> HX4700 (500-600EUR).  The only part not supported by free
>  nhw> software is the WLAN driver in the HX4700.
> 
> This sounds very good.
> 
> 
>  nhw> Do you exclude these because you are not aware of them or
>  nhw> because of some other issue?
> 
> We were simply not aware of them. Did you have a look at them and
> could confirm that they are truly fully Free Software?

Before writing the email you cited, I asked one of the developers what
components were non-free.  He gave me the information that I included.
I have no reason not to trust him, however, I have not verified this
information.

Neal
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Yavor Doganov | 14 Mar 00:47
X-Face

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

Georg C. F. Greve wrote:
> 
> That is why no device is being recommended.

Quite on the contrary -- I initially thought that the list of devices
are such that 100% respect our freedom and FSFE organized this
campaign precisely because of that.

> As was pointed out by others before, this part of the raffle is
> about giving developers access to hardware that is coming closest to
> our goals and thus give them the best start in making them entirely
> free.

Our goals have always been 100% freedom.  Not 99%, not 99.9%.  100%.
I feel extremely uneasy to remind this to you.  There are other ways
of giving access to developers that want and can write free
replacements without promoting these devices.

> Without Debian there would have been no Ubuntu, and without Ubuntu
> there would be no Gnewsense. And Gnewsense itself helped influence
> others to think about providing pure Free Software distributions.

Listen to yourself!  gNewSense would never exist if Debian and Ubuntu
were 100% free GNU distributions.  To praise Debian/Ubuntu for
providing a solid code base to build (actually, to "strip" the
non-free bits) a truly free OS, that has always been the initial goal,
is disgusting.  The sole existense of distros like gNewSense, whose
task is not creative development, but cleaning the dirt created by the
others, is shameful for our community.  All GNU/Linux, GNU/Hurd and
GNU/kFreeBSD systems, all variants regardless who is developing them
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Kaloian Doganov | 13 Mar 21:16

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

"Georg C. F. Greve" <greve@...> writes:

    We need to build a stronger presence of the Free Software
    community in this area.

Yes, indeed.  But this does not mean shipping proprietary software to
users (or "developers").  In fact, I was considering making a donation
to FSFE and becoming a fellow, but after reading this discussion, I've
decided not to do so anytime soon.

I would be ashamed to support organization that organizes distribution
of proprietary software.  That's a Raffle to disgust more Fellows.

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Ciaran O'Riordan | 15 Mar 12:59

Re: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows


John Sullivan <johns@...> writes:
> (I'm not wild about giving away nonfree technical documentation books either.

I don't remember any replies to this, so I should say neither would we be,
and we won't.

People do not win books of their choice from linuxland.de, they win specific
books (donated by linuxland.de) which are either non-tech (about licences,
free culture etc.), or are technical but free.

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Sam Liddicott | 15 Mar 08:47

RE: 3rd Fellowship Raffle to attract more Fellows

You talk perfect sense.

Again we have the clash between those who want to filter non-freedom and those who want to provide freedom.

To me this is the difference between bombing a prison and opening the doors
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Gmane