The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits is being actively violated by GNOME foundation[2] which is causing free software projects to die[1] while supporting the spread of this harmful mentality to the whole open-source field[3].
Why is the FSF network not taking any action agains it?
Recommendation: Publicly declare GNOME fndn. non-free developer so that distros such as debian puts their software in `non-free` directory and spread the word about these practices.
1. https://github.com/thestinger/termite 2. https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=679658 3. https://stopthemingmy.app/
-- - Krey
On 5/10/21 2:59 PM, Jacob Hrbek wrote:
The freedom to /improve/ the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits is being actively violated by GNOME foundation[2] which is causing free software projects to die[1] while supporting the spread of this harmful mentality to the whole open-source field[3].
As per your own references, this is not what was happening here.
The Bugzilla link shows that the GNOME developers rejected a patch - they are free to do so. Your right to release your improvements does not entail an obligation for upstream projects to accept them. Your right is to release them downstream, through your own channels. If the upstream project accepts the patch so much the better, but that's for them to decide. That's how free software has always worked.
As for the Stop Theming My App page, the people there don't demand legal protections or advocate license changes that would ban theming; they, as far I can see, *kindly request* that distribution packagers please not break their apps' UX.
You can agree or disagree with such a request, but it is in no way counter to the spirit of free software.
Best Carsten
Why is the FSF network not taking any action agains it?
*Recommendation:* Publicly declare GNOME fndn. non-free developer so that distros such as debian puts their software in `non-free` directory and spread the word about these practices.
- https://github.com/thestinger/termite
- https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=679658
- https://stopthemingmy.app/
--
- Krey
Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
This mailing list is covered by the FSFE's Code of Conduct. All participants are kindly asked to be excellent to each other: https://fsfe.org/about/codeofconduct
On 5/11/21 10:23 AM, Carsten Agger wrote:
On 5/10/21 2:59 PM, Jacob Hrbek wrote:
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits is being actively violated by GNOME foundation[2] which is causing free software projects to die[1] while supporting the spread of this harmful mentality to the whole open-source field[3].
As per your own references, this is not what was happening here.
The Bugzilla link shows that the GNOME developers rejected a patch - they are free to do so. Your right to release your improvements does not entail an obligation for upstream projects to accept them. Your right is to release them downstream, through your own channels. If the upstream project accepts the patch so much the better, but that's for them to decide. That's how free software has always worked.
As for the Stop Theming My App page, the people there don't demand legal protections or advocate license changes that would ban theming; they, as far I can see, *kindly request* that distribution packagers please not break their apps' UX.
You can agree or disagree with such a request, but it is in no way counter to the spirit of free software.
Best Carsten
Why is the FSF network not taking any action agains it?
Recommendation: Publicly declare GNOME fndn. non-free developer so that distros such as debian puts their software in `non-free` directory and spread the word about these practices.
- https://github.com/thestinger/termite
- https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=679658
- https://stopthemingmy.app/
--
- Krey
Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion This mailing list is covered by the FSFE's Code of Conduct. All participants are kindly asked to be excellent to each other: https://fsfe.org/about/codeofconduct
but it is in no way counter to the spirit of free software. - Carsten
I disagree, This is agains the spirit of free software as evident by mentioned free software now being *dead*. Let me justify as I think that you didn't read the whole freedom:
""Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.""
To improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public -- Freedom 3
Patch was submitted and is publicly available so this is satisfied
so that the whole community benefits. -- Freedom 3
This is not as GNOME is seemingly intentionally making their libraries to work only with their solutions and even trying to make their library to break 3rd party software (common practice in non-free software) according to the termite project that put in effort to hotfix lot of those changes to make the terminal to work.
Thus the community can't benefit from these changes and i would also like to mention that four freedoms are defined from GNU philosophy and by RMS who is often using this "handcuffed" analogy when comparing free to non-free software:
Stallman has also stated that considering the practical advantages of free software is like considering the practical advantages of not being handcuffed, in that it is not necessary for an individual to consider practical reasons in order to realize that being handcuffed is undesirable in itself. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software#Naming_and_differences_with_Open...]
Which to me clearly recognizes the presented situation and why we should do something about it instead of making our own rules to define those freedoms e.g. https://fsfe.org/freesoftware
-- - Krey
On Wed, May 12, 2021 at 07:14:51PM +0000, kreyren@rixotstudio.cz wrote:
""Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.""
This is not the wording from the latest version of the Free Software Definition by the FSF[0].
so that the whole community benefits. -- Freedom 3
This is not as GNOME is seemingly intentionally making their libraries to work only with their solutions and even trying to make their library to break 3rd party software (common practice in non-free software) according to the termite project that put in effort to hotfix lot of those changes to make the terminal to work.
It is not up to you or the termite project to decide what benefits the whole community.
four freedoms are defined from GNU philosophy
For now, the FSF remains the generally accepted custodian of the Free Software Definition.
Which to me clearly recognizes the presented situation and why we should do something about it instead of making our own rules to define those freedoms e.g. https://fsfe.org/freesoftware
Don't troll, please.
[0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Cheers,
On Wednesday, 12 May 2021 23:52:28 CEST Heiki Lõhmus wrote:
On Wed, May 12, 2021 at 07:14:51PM +0000, kreyren@rixotstudio.cz wrote:
This is not as GNOME is seemingly intentionally making their libraries to work only with their solutions and even trying to make their library to break 3rd party software (common practice in non-free software) according to the termite project that put in effort to hotfix lot of those changes to make the terminal to work.
It is not up to you or the termite project to decide what benefits the whole community.
The problem here is rather familiar in Free Software, and the realm of the "free desktop" in particular, in that the (part of the) community developing the software seems to have its own "vision" about how the software should be used. This software gets packaged up by distributions or by the developers themselves (who have not always been able to cooperate with distribution maintainers) and ultimately lands in front of end-users as some kind of "done deal".
What one then has to consider is how a user may practically exercise their freedom to modify and distribute the software. This can be particularly challenging if the software of interest is part of a virtually monolithic suite or collection of projects and libraries, and I think the "free desktop" projects made considerable mistakes, historically, in their technological choices and assumptions about how they might be able to encourage people to get involved and to contribute.
(For instance, KDE largely shunned dynamic languages for ages, where such languages would have made modification convenient and approachable, and then decided to introduce JavaScript as a kind of scripting solution, which rather came across as condescending whilst failing to appreciate the maturity and diversity of existing dynamic language adoption. My most recent experience looking at the GNOME platform required buying into the use of GNOME Builder, which is not an experience I personally would feel comfortable imposing on others.)
But as has already been pointed out, no-one is being denied their "four freedom rights" in the referenced matter: people can always change the code and redistribute that code to other people, and this must indeed have been going on. It might have been inconvenient to maintain a fork, and the most seemingly efficient outcome might have been to integrate the changes upstream, but the upstream developers are not obliged to accept and maintain any code that is offered to them.
However, what we see is a rather asymmetric relationship with regard to influencing what end-users will ultimately experience. A few people working in a large company (let us call it "Blue Hat") may be able to leverage adoption of that company's operating system distribution to get their "vision" in front of lots of people, and being in such a privileged position, they may be able to reject requests for changes or improvements, claiming that they simply know better than everybody else.
It would be all very well to insist that anyone who has improved on a particular piece of software can merely release it, get the word out, and eventually Blue Hat might come round to adopting it instead of the original upstream edition of that software, but we all know that many social, institutional and technological obstacles would need to be overcome for that to happen. Meanwhile, most end-users just have to take what they have been given, which rather starts to feel like proprietary software.
Some Free Software projects have considerable incumbency advantages, and their developers have considerable power and privilege over end-users because of that. Unfortunately, not enough attention is given in the Free Software movement to the responsibilities that should accompany such power and privilege. If it is not the end-user failing to appreciate a "vision" (and are doing the equivalent of "holding it wrong" [*]) then the excuses of "we're all volunteers" or "we do this for fun" get trotted out.
[*] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8761240.stm
So while I don't believe that in this case anyone is "actively violating" any of the four freedoms, I don't particularly think that the technology concerned is developed in a particularly democratic or respectful way. But again, I don't think these issues are adequately addressed in the Free Software movement, aside perhaps from a degree of attention on development practices and project transparency.
[...]
Which to me clearly recognizes the presented situation and why we should do something about it instead of making our own rules to define those freedoms e.g. https://fsfe.org/freesoftware
Don't troll, please.
Although one can argue it is insincere to portray the FSFE's description of the four freedoms as redefining them, I think care has to be taken to avoid losing or mutating various nuances when rephrasing them. For instance, the "study" freedom on the FSFE's site doesn't correspond precisely to "freedom 1" because it fails to mention changing the software.
Paul