Brett Glass brett@lariat.org wrote:
I agree wholeheartedly that such discussion shouldn't be a constant distraction or devolve into a "flame war." I have taken great pains to express my point of view very carefully and to make sure that nothing I've posted could be construed as "flamage."
Well, I for myself can only say that you have certainly failed in this. For me, your posts had from the first beginning the character of somone on a crusade against RMS, the FSF and anything connected with it. Although some of your remarks would have been at least interesting, that fanaticism in wording your opinion about xGPL, making claims about what someone elses intentions "doubtlessly" are, and trying to come up with the worst doom scenarios, made it virtually impossible for me to accept and listen to any of your other more serious statements. The subject of what direction Wine should go, seemed obviosly just the coat hanger on which you continued this, your personal crusade!
So as far as I'm concerned you have certainly not reached your goal. I'm certainly not a xGPL fanatic, but it personally feels not right to me that people spend their time on something to work on and any company can come in and take whatever there is and make profit out of it, without contributing something back. And with that I don't mean the questionable marketing hype of letting those people say: "Hey you know, they made their great product out of our project and I'm so proud that I have spent months and months of my own time to allow them to earn big bucks!" And don't say that they earn the money only for the additional value that company has put in. If it wouldn't be for the developer in the project, that company would not have a product at all to sell as you have actually also agreed on.
I agree, as I have said above, that the developers have the right to make the decision. But because they are doing the entire project for the benefit of users as well as for themselves, they certainly should care about how users feel. What's more, if they are seeking bug fixes or help with development, they certainly should care how potential contributors feel. Finally, they should care about how advocates of the project feel. While advocacy does not expand the code base, it does expand the base of users and testers. Hence, it plays an important role in any collaborative software project.
You should have started the whole discussion more in this style. This would have helped a lot more than trying to bring in your personal feelings about the FSF and xGPL. Even if the FSF is what you say, it does really not help to bring that topic up in such an emotional tone. It only polarizes everyone, and hinders the solution of the original problem, which might cause the person who is responsible to take a decision out of frustration rather than out of great consideration.
I agree. If anyone has considered any of my messages to be a "flame" rather than rational discussion, I apologize; nothing I've written was meant to be a "flame." I really do want to be able to continue to work with, advocate, and (hopefully) contribute to, WINE, and this has been the reason for the volume of passionate messages I've posted over the past few days.
Well I did actually. This is probably my problem, but your apology is accepted anyhow ;-)
And now I go back and continue to work on my first of hopefully a series of contributions to Wine!
Rolf Kalbermatter
At 05:29 AM 2/12/2002, Rolf Kalbermatter wrote:
For me, your posts had from the first beginning the character of somone on a crusade against RMS, the FSF and anything connected with it. Although some of your remarks would have been at least interesting, that fanaticism in wording your opinion about xGPL, making claims about what someone elses intentions "doubtlessly" are,
The intentions of which I speak are as stated directly by the author. There is no doubt whatsoever as to what those intentions are.
The subject of what direction Wine should go, seemed obviosly just the coat hanger on which you continued this, your personal crusade!
I'm not on a "crusade" at all. However, I think it's important to prevent WINE from becoming part of Stallman's crusade. Which it will, if it adopts his license.
I'm certainly not a xGPL fanatic, but it personally feels not right to me that people spend their time on something to work on and any company can come in and take whatever there is and make profit out of it, without contributing something back.
Please don't fall prey to the fallacy propagated by Stallman. As I've demonstrated in earlier messages, such companies can only benefit from their OWN work, not from yours. What you're doing, if you contribute to truly free software (not what the FSF misleadingly labels "Free" software with a capital "F"), is benefiting the world and advancing the state of the art. This is good and you should be praised for doing it. But you're not giving companies a free ride at all. They'll still have to work their posteriors off, and even then may not be successful. If they succeed, they'll have earned it with their own sweat, not yours.
--Brett
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Brett Glass -
Rolf Kalbermatter