When I booked my flight to Barcelona last June, I filled out a form served by a Windows server. Each phone call I made was on a proprietary-software GSM device, routed through a Microsoft partner telco. The MiniDV camcorder which I used to film the conference has proprietary, closed firmware and the codec is patent-encumbered. I captured the video on a nonfree system before transcoding it to Ogg Theora with Free Software. The calculations were of course performed by a microprocessor designed with proprietary software tools.
What I want to say is that we have a far way to go yet to further the cause of Free Software in hardware and embedded systems, so we have to start somewhere. Educating/counseling/encouraging manufacturers ready to make the transition and making gadgets available to developers are, to my mind, good ways to start. All this raffle kerfuffle! I mean, will anyone confuse a raffle with formal certification of a device?
Perhaps the marketing needs tuning: "This Device Needs Liberation"
What I want to say is that we have a far way to go yet to further the cause of Free Software in hardware and embedded systems, so we have to start somewhere. Educating/counseling/encouraging manufacturers ready to make the transition and making gadgets available to developers are, to my mind, good ways to start.
It is a terrible way to start, one does not distrubute and promote non-free software in the hope that someone might write a free replacement. This is no different that say Ubuntu packaging Nvidious binary blobs, in the hope that someday there will be a free driver.
All this raffle kerfuffle! I mean, will anyone confuse a raffle with formal certification of a device?
Clearly people have done so, me included.
On Wed, 2007-03-14 at 01:13 +0100, Sean DALY wrote:
Perhaps the marketing needs tuning: "This Device Needs Liberation"
I think that's exactly the issue. The "special conditions" are not publicly accessible, and there's no indication of a freeness issue.
Further, we're being asked to put animated .gifs which proclaim the "3 nokia internet tablet" without any mention of the special conditions.
The whole thing is about rewarding Fellows, and I think the points raised about rewarding them with non-free software is pertinent. Given that Fellows rewarded with N800s will be _paying_ for them, it puzzles me why it can't be made clearer.
Cheers,
Alex.
Alex Hudson home@alexhudson.com writes:
The whole thing is about rewarding Fellows, and I think the points raised about rewarding them with non-free software is pertinent. Given that Fellows rewarded with N800s will be _paying_ for them, it puzzles me why it can't be made clearer.
And also, why one have to donate 120 EUR to FSFE in order to have "the opportunity to help the N800 become a full Free Software device"? What's the point here? FSFE is collecting money from people who what to contribute their labour?
Obviously, this is just a distribution of shiny gadgets formally camouflaged as free software development activity.
|| On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:31:58 +0200 || Kaloian Doganov kaloian@doganov.org wrote:
kd> And also, why one have to donate 120 EUR to FSFE in order to have kd> "the opportunity to help the N800 become a full Free Software kd> device"? What's the point here? FSFE is collecting money from kd> people who what to contribute their labour?
The Fellowship is a community of people dedicated to freedom to an extent that they contribute in various ways, including supporting the work for Free Software financially.
It seemed that these would be good candidates to not give in to the temptation of only trying to get the devices as shiny hardware, but would take seriously the need to use them to get more freedom.
Regards, Georg
On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:33, greve@fsfeurope.org said:
The Fellowship is a community of people dedicated to freedom to an extent that they contribute in various ways, including supporting the work for Free Software financially.
By winning a price which allows 3 fellows to support Nokia with 97 Euro [1]? Nokia being a Free Software Company? As much as Microsoft is one [2].
Shalom-Salam,
Werner
[1] For the N770 Nokia donated the 97 Euros to the GNOMe foundation, I didn't noticed such a statement for the N800. [2] I noticed more copyright assignments for the GNU project by Microsoft than by Nokia.
|| On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 08:02:23 +0000 || Alex Hudson home@alexhudson.com wrote:
Perhaps the marketing needs tuning: "This Device Needs Liberation"
ah> I think that's exactly the issue. The "special conditions" are ah> not publicly accessible, and there's no indication of a freeness ah> issue.
Yes. I think you have a point here.
We'll be working to make this message clearer.
Regards, Georg
>> Perhaps the marketing needs tuning: "This Device Needs >> Liberation"
ah> I think that's exactly the issue. The "special conditions" are ah> not publicly accessible, and there's no indication of a ah> freeness issue.
Yes. I think you have a point here.
We'll be working to make this message clearer.
Please drop the raffle! You are still going to distribute non-free software to people. Try to set a good example for others to follow. Would it be OK for Ubuntu to distribute non-free drivers with their system with a message that makes it clear that they are hoping that someone will someday write a free replacement? Of course not! So why is the FSFE doing this?
Non-free software is simply not acceptable, that the FSFE is giving the message that it is is sad, and really makes me wonder what the goal of the FSFE is, freedom or promoting non-free software to people.
On 3/14/07, Alfred M. Szmidt ams@gnu.org wrote:
Please drop the raffle! You are still going to distribute non-free software to people. Try to set a good example for others to follow. Would it be OK for Ubuntu to distribute non-free drivers with their system with a message that makes it clear that they are hoping that someone will someday write a free replacement? Of course not! So why is the FSFE doing this?
Non-free software is simply not acceptable, that the FSFE is giving the message that it is is sad, and really makes me wonder what the goal of the FSFE is, freedom or promoting non-free software to people.
As a FSFE Fellow, I renew firmly my support to the FSFE.
However, I think the FSFE should admit a lack of (social, more than technical and ethical) analysis of this raffle; then, although with some little merit about "hardware liberation", to prevent useless fractures between FSF and FSFE, non free hardware should be removed from the raffle and returned to the "donor" with a big "NO THANKS"; furthermore we shouldn't accept anything from a Company who support sw patents (http://eupat.ffii.org/acteurs/nokia/index.en.html).
PS
FSF members, FSFE fellows, GNU developers and anyone caring and working for freedom must be heard, and have the right, earned with work (always better than money) to be taken in account.
bye --- Stefano Spinucci FSFE Fellow