Defining Free Software Business

[Ricardo Gladwell]

On Tue, 2006-06-27 at 17:46 +0200, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
>    > More absurd accusations without the the least of proof.
> 
>    Yes but in this case the accusation was intended to be absurd and
>    the burden of proof was on FSF; debian having met their burden of
>    proof.
> 
> Okie, then I accuse Debian of molesting gerbils.  The burn of proof is
> now on Debian to prove the opposite.  

I think you're misunderstanding his point: it's not that he thinks it's
likely that the FSF is purchasing proprietary software. What he is
noting is that, because of the lack of transparency in the FSF finances,
there is no way to tell what the FSF actually spends its money on. The
silliness distracts from the serious point, but a serious point exists
here nevertheless:

If the FSF wants us to be able to look under the hood of our software
and documentation and see how it works, I'm not sure I understand why we
can't similarly be allowed to look under the hood of the FSF.

On Tue, 2006-06-27 at 17:46 +0200, Yavor Doganov wrote:
> > One cannot observe most of FSF's actions.  Its funds
> > could be mainly used buying Lotus Notes for distributing
> > Microsoft Word macro games, for all most of us know.
> 
> I hope that you are not seriously meaning what you wrote here.  Don't
> confuse freedom with democracy.

Neither should we confuse transparency with democracy. Doesn't the FSF
believe transparency is fundamental to freedom as enshrined in the four
freedoms?

Kind regards...

-- 
Ricardo Gladwell
President, Free RPG Community
http://www.freeroleplay.org/
president at freeroleplay.org