GNOME fndn. is actively violating the Freedom 3

[kreyren at rixotstudio.cz]

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.
>>
>> 1. https://github.com/thestinger/termite
>> 2. https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=679658
>> 3. https://stopthemingmy.app/
>>
>> --
>> - Krey
>>
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> 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_Source]

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
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