questionary - who developes FS/OSS

[Jan-Oliver Wagner]

On Mon, Jul 30, 2001 at 03:43:29PM +0200, schilling at fokus.gmd.de wrote:
> >On Sat, Jul 28, 2001 at 01:01:29PM +0200, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> >> >unfortunately, this thread has developed in an unhappy way.
> >> 
> >> If you would say that it _started_ in an unhappy way, I could agree.
> 
> >it started with someone expressing his feelings and asking
> >questions. I would not call that unhappy.
> 
> 
> Right! It did not start by proovable facts that may have become 
> a base for a real discussion. It started with unproovable feelings!
> For this reason, it is obvious that the "discussion" _started_
> in an unhappy way.

feelings are unproovable, so are opinions. Both should still be
recognized seriously. Involving opinions is nothing unfair as long
as you do not offend you opponent.

> >it would further help a serious discussion if we all
> >use a more friendly way in our language.
> I hope you take your suggstion for serious and in future use proovable
> facts when you stay in this discussio, or at least express your feelings.
> 
> >> >Probably I am one of the guys you have talked about.
> >> >One of those who were said to 'not trust BerliOS'.
> >> >To my taste this term does not really express my point.
> >> 
> >> A note to make this discussion understandable for people outside
> >> your brain. Please don't use words like 'taste'. Statements with
> >> unprovable feelings are an improper way to run a discussion.
> 
> >If I express a feeling it is as much truth as any other
> >opinion presented here.
> >(btw, 'unprovable feelings' are an essential part of our being and
> >they drive most of our activities.)
> 
> If you _express_ a feeling, things way be different! But you did not
> express your feelings so it seems that you have no real interest on
> a discussion that may have a result that helps us for the future.
> 
> If you cannot express feelings, please keep them secret as nobody
> may understand them.

I fail to see why you permanently offend people.

> >Is this the way to seriously discuss matters?
> >How can you ignore the arguments for my personal decision
> 
> Sorry, if you give _arguments_ it may be possible to have a discussion.

I gave an argument. You can read it in my E-Mail you actually
answered to:
http://mailman.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2001-July/001564.html
I thought I must not go into the fs-oss discussion and repeat
the pro-fs arguments. To give you my very short summary on this:

oss is the technically biased marketing term for fs.
It puts technology in the foreground and the philosophy of
freedom into the background. Educating in the philosophy of
freedoms is essentially more important than technology only.
A society must have and keep a broad base of people who
understand and discuss their freedom. As this is true
for any type of freedom, it is nowadays for software as well.
If I want to support the discussion of freedom in our
society, I can not choose BerliOS for my projects, because
it is technically biased and even does not mention the
deeper ideas behind free software.

A lot people expressed the matter better than myself.
Some are here on the list.
You will find the fsf viewpoint at their web site:
www.fsf.org

> >with just saying they are off-topic?
> >I intentionally put the fs/oss argument in the first place because
> >it is the base for my personal decision not to take BerliOS as
> >development platform. I made this decision long before
> >this thread started. I wanted to help BerliOS with letting them
> >know about the reasons for my decision (something, marketing guys
> >pay a lot for :-).
> 
> So how about telling us the reasons for your decision? 
> It then may be possible to start a real discussion.

see above.

> >> >2.	I recently discussed some technical and communication
> >> >	problems of BerliOS and even offered my help (on this list
> >> >	in correspondence with someone of the GMD/BerliOS circle).
> >> >	I got no answer, which might be by chance, but this actually
> >> >	dows downgrade BerliOS. (I asked for the direct contact to discuss
> >> >	critics to BerliOS; there seems to be no apropriate contact
> >> >	information on the BerliOS pages. Free software people
> >> >	don't like anonymity.)
> >> 
> >> Please keep with the truth! You did receive an answer but either did not
> >> read it or ignored it.
> >> 
> >> Fortunately this is easy to proove by reading:
> >> 
> >> http://mailman.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2001-July/001353.html
> 
> >First, I don't like the language.
> 
> This is a language that has been introduced by you into this thread!
>  
> If you are using a rough tone, then you should be prepared to get an
> answer adequate to your tone - sorry.

I fail to see where I might have offended you (I definitely never called
you a lyar, neither directly nor indirectly). 

> >Well, I guess that you are the contact. Due to your
> >improper attacking of my person for expressing personal opinions
> 
> I am not attacking your person but the way you are trying to have a discussion.

You said you can not take _me_ serious, you did not say you can not
take my discussion serious. Well, I call it a personal attack and definitely
not suitable for a discussion.

> >I currently feel not motivated to support BerliOS by sending
> >critics (hope you treat direct critics in a more friendly fashion
> >than here on this list).
> 
> If you know in advance that you don't like to support BerliOS and it's
> fs/oss activities, why then did you take part in this discussion?
> 
> It sounds that you know in advance that you don't like to support BerliOS
> and you are looking now for a reason to base your dislike on.
> 
> There are people in this mailing list who realized that there have been
> missunderstandings. I hope that you will in future do too.

I said that I would not go with projects to BerliOS, but that I would
offer help to say what I think is wrong with BerliOS
(I hope you count critics as support).
Only after your offending language against myself
I lost motivation to do so.

Really, I don't understand why you do not welcome any bit
of comment and (even emotional) critics for consideration to
improve BerliOS. Instead you offend people (and you call
yourself a mediator, your job should be to calm people down
and not to upset them).

OK, and finally you made me so curious on BerliOS that
I give you feedback:

- The service agreements
http://developer.berlios.de/docs/site/tos.php
say, that they are subject to change without notice.
I am not a lawyer, but to me in reads like it is possible
to e.g. start taking fees from those who run projects at
BerliOS without warning them before doing so.

- (oh wow, you really changed it!) I was about
to say that "importance" rating for the companies
at http://sourcebiz.berlios.de/ is quite vague when
counting clicks. Now you use "Attention" - far better.
I criticised this on the fsfe list and seems to have heard :-)

Jan

-- 
Jan-Oliver Wagner               http://intevation.de/~jan/

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