Logo timeline

[josX]

I answered the stanza's of the posts all here together.

> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Marc wrote:
> please don't get personal, that doesn't help anyone.
> On Wed, May 09, 2001 at 08:40:35AM +0200, josX wrote:
> > You are kidding, right ;-)!
> No, they are not. Please note, I've used "they", because I'm _not_ a member
> of the FSFE.
> > You know what I think about you FSF-E?
> > You are here for the money, and for the power too.
> Hmmm, which money and which power? 

1. Power to talk to the press, attention, spotlight.
2. Collecting donations
3. Working together with companies, sponsorships, all kinds of deals.

>                                    If the core team members would list the
> amount of money, that they have spent so far for creating the FSFE, you
> would be surprised. I bet with you, that they spent a lot of their own
> private money to get this thing going. So in that sense, they already lost
> money. So if you mean, they are here to loose money for promoting free
> software, you're perfectly right.

It's called investment. First you pay a little, than the big bucks are
roling in. Not very difficult to get into the loop once the money starts
rolling (see above about which money).
 
> Power? They don't have any power over the hackers. We still decide on our
> own, if we want to do something or not. It's entirely up to us. And there is
> no way, that they could change that. So which kind of power do you mean? You
> would never accept the FSFE to tell you, what to do. Neither would I. So
> which power? They don't have any and they will never get any. No need to
> panic.

I am not afraid of that, but they will use the hackers as a /power-base/,
not as the ones they aim at. It is the reason they can claim against
companies for being legitemate in negotiations/deals: "we represent free
software in europe". Companies like that: small groups that can be hold
accountable and be manipulated.
 
> > Press release: ""this is the source for ```Authorative''' information
> > regarding free software in Europe?????"
> Well, that sounds really good to me. What's the problem? Obviously they
> promote themself to be the "authoritative" source of information. And that's
> good. It is exactly the idea behind it. The FSFE should promote free
> software in Europe. Apart from that, your opinion is as authoritative as
> theirs. Everybody can claim that. So why not the FSFE? That's not a law,
> that's just a statement from an organization. If they will succeed to really
> become the main source of information in Europe will depend on their work
> and their decisions. And it will be _our_ choice, if we support them or not.
> > The non-democratic core-team has spoken it's veto.... and GEE this is the
> > FIRST dicesion you ever make !!! so we can get used to your dominance
> > soon?
> It's not the first decision, because a lot of decisions have already been
> made to found the organization at all. And before this decision was
> announced, Georg wrote several mails to this list expressing, why they don't
> like the logos proposed so far. It was clear, that they would decide in such
> a way. I wasn't surprised by it at all. And yes, I don't like this
> minimalistic text logo either. Dominance? I guess the same arguments apply
> as for "power" above. So I won't repeat them here.
> > You are not hackers, you are not free software, you are a bunch of shrude
> > managers seeking to exploit free software. A big villa huh? with a nice
> Please... do you really think, you could impress politicians and companies
> with a group of unshaved, unwashed long hair guys housing in tents in the
> middle of nowhere? I doubt. I met some of them some time ago somewhere in a
> pub and I can assure you, they are not "shrude managers". What do you think,
> if you look at my home page (http://www.aston.ac.uk/~eberhama/)? Am I a
> "shrude manager" too? Do you think, I run around like this every day? I
> don't. I even don't wear a suit when I give a lecture in front of 150
> students. But I still think, that my official web page needs an official
> picture. Don't get fooled by things like this. If you want to see, how I
> normally look like, see http://alpha.greenie.net/vgetty/. The links are
> outdated, because Marc Schaefer is maintaining and enhancing vgetty. But the
> picture there, is how I really run around. Surprised? Well, that's the idea.
> Politicians should see the picture, they expect. This doesn't say anything
> how people really are. But since they've managed to fool you, they will
> probably also succeed to fool politicians and that's really good news!

1. I see no point in trying to influence politics: it won't work, not 
   now not ever.
2. There is no need to be non-democratic to achieve this.

> > garden huh? expensive restaurant? .... I see you put your money where you
> Did you check the other pages of the Villa Vogelsang too
> (http://www.villa-vogelsang.de/engl/index-en.html)? It is a completely
> independant Hotel, that is _donating_ services to the FSFE. The local Linux
> Users Group has a regular meeting there every Tuesday. Yes, you can just
> come and enjoy it. No entrance fee, no drinks you need to buy, nothing. But
> you will always get a presentation on some Linux stuff. Once a month the
> meeting is dedicated to beginners. Why not?

How handy.... an independant Hotel "donating"...
Don't you know /anything/ about bisnis? What about exposure, what about deals
like "get some pictures of our hotel in the press-release, and you can stay
there once in a while...". This is how the money game goes, and I see you
are already sucked in (asuming for a minute that was not your aim, which I
am /heavily/ suspecting). Possibly same for the LUG, dunno. And if this is
an exception.... sorry, this is the way these things go, and it fits it like
a glove on a hand.

> > mouth is... /literaly/, not figuratively. Why don't you sell the villa to
> > generate funds so we can buy computers for the kernel-hackers? Why don't
> > you use that money to start printing free stickers to be given away 
> Because the Hotel doesn't belong to them. 

No, they belong in part already to the Hotel.
Are you crazy/blind !?!

>                                           It just offers them to host
> events. And I'm sure, they didn't have to pay very much for it, if at all.
> But I don't know.
 
> > Don't think you can kid everyone.
> They just want to kid politicians. 

It won't work, because the only one to kid them, is becoming them. You
succeed good at that, yes.

>                                    And I think, they do really good. They
> even managed to fool you. Isn't that a good start really? They even
> convinced you, which wasn't the goal. But be assured, they are just normal
> people as you and me. They are _not_ managers. And they are _not_ rude.
> Trust me, you are part of this team too, as we all are. But if you want to
> change something, you have to present it in an appropriate form. That's all,
> that has happened. Do you sleep better now?
> _______________________________________________________________________________
> "Georg C. F. Greve" <greve at gnu.org> Wrote:
> 
>  || On 09 May 2001 08:48:07 +0100
>  || Jo=E3o Miguel Neves <jneves at ieee.org> wrote:=20
> 
>  >> Up to now a couple of logos have been ruled out so far by members
>  >> of the core team who feel strongly about not choosing such a logo:
> 
>  jmn> I think you've just made a political error: you've ruled out
>  jmn> this logos without any justification (at least in the view of
>  jmn> anybody that didn't went to the meeting). Could you please
>  jmn> correct that ?
> 
> Okay, let me try.=20
> 
> One part was always personal taste. We feel we cannot use anything
> that one FSFE member feels totally unhappy about since they need to
> live with it more than anyone else.
> 
> This is essentially what ruled out the new GNU logo Loic had a
> designer do.
> 
> Other crucial points (essentially raised about Anja drafts) were:
> 
>  - A logo is a symbol for a organization/company/initiative.=20
> 
>    When selecting a logo, it is important to chose something fresh
>    that will get associated with you.

And I asume you find your text-logo fresh, and that of Anja stuffy ?
 
>    Both the "bridge metaphor" and the "Europa on the bull" themes have
>    been used a million times by so many people that people will
>    associate all kinds of things with it but _not_ the FSF Europe
>    (unless they were subscribed to this list).
> 
>    They are "used up" and only people building bridges or
>    organizations dealing with ancient European myths could truly use
>    them.
> 
>  - In order to be able to get free software in the press and make sure
>    the legal systems will be in favor of free software instead of
>    making free software illegal because they weren't aware of it, we
>    need to work with politicians and the press.
>    This requires a logo that will look professional to politicians &
>    the press.
 
No it does not. Logos should represent that where the org stands for,
not the target audience as if it were some commercial for politicians/
managers. The group/ideas it stands for should be happy with the Logo,
not politics. But I suspect you to want to present a nice picture to
politics/managers, not? so you can ride along with them.
 
> The FSF Europe has the vision to not just hack a few lines of code
> today, we want to fundamentally change things and make sure free
> software will prosper on the long-term scale. This requires thinking
> in 30-year perspectives.

And that's why I am afraid of you.
You are a trojan horse. Well, you are not in the city yet....(I hope).
 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> m.a.eberhard at aston.ac.uk Wed May 09 10:27:40 2001 Wrote:
> On Wed, May 09, 2001 at 10:03:34AM +0200, josX wrote:
> > > Your remark just made me think about that:
> > > As far as free software are concerned, we all know the legitimity 
> > > and leadership of people in the community come from the achievment done 
> > > in developping free software.
> > > Hilaire
> Indeed a very good point. Jos, please tell us a bit more about yourself and
> what you've done so far for the free software community as a whole. Which
> "actions" have you taken so far?

Does it matter for the things at hand?
This is the adress of my website: http://www.xs4all.nl/~joshb
 
> > A very high quality Logo from Anja.... very nice indeed.... into the
> >  garbage-bin. Reason? veto *no comment*
> That's not true. Georg did explain the opinion of the core team in detail in
> a previous mail. It would have been nice, if that explanation would have
> been repeated in the posting you refered to. Maybe that's another good
> advice to the core team: Don't post in a hurry! Don't assume, people are
> aware of previous mails, so repeat important points. This would surely avoid
> a lot of confusion.
> > The first decicion was a veto without eplanation, execpt that it was
> >  "felt in the core-team" *no comment*
> The feelings were clearly expressed in a previous mail.

I showed the pictures to my brother (who is unaware of anything btw) because
he is good at sniffing out things by seeing the physical appearance, and
he said "They look like bisnis-man, very relaxed and discussing something
seriously. They don't look like old hackes with long beards but that may
be an old idea... . They don't look like criminals".

Why are you positioning yourself as being managers/politicians. Why can't
you simply be like we all are. You are /not/ going to influence politics
one iota, they are going to eat you whole wheter you like it or not, but
I even suspect you'll love it because you can't possibly be that stupid.

Jos
--