Hi Charles,
C. Cossé ccosse@gmail.com writes:
Bastien, why does OLPC participate in GSoC when Google violates your values?
Just to be precise: I'm not from OLPC, I'm from OLPC France, an independant grassroots. Also OLPC did not participate to GSoC, Sugar Labs (https://sugarlabs.org) does.
I guess Sugar Labs partipates to the GSoC for the same reasons the Free Software Foundation does it through the various GNU projects: it's a way to write and promote free software that comes with no strings attached.
But we're comparing apples and oranges here...
My whole view on the pragmatists vs purists debate (which I've been involved in since ~20 years) is this: it's okay to be a "pragmatist" as long as you don't lose track of your main goal. The pragmatist's stance should be transitory and used in a pragmatist way itself... not defended for itself.
I mean, we're all torn by inconsistencies: having a bank account from a company doing it The Wrong Way, buying medicines from companies who just want to make money instead of healing people, eating stuff we shouldn't really eat, etc.
Those inconsistencies should not prevent us from defending something else, so I'm glad there are FB users in the free software movement!
But the question is: should a free software INSTITUTION use FB?
While it may be difficult to leave Facebook at the individual level, I'm sure it is not difficult at all to leave Facebook when you're an institution.
What will FB do: show you picture of the Stallman crying because you leave FB?