GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007 [LWN.net]

GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

Posted Mar 12, 2008 3:27 UTC (Wed) by b3timmons (guest, #40286)
In reply to: GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007 by ovitters
Parent article: GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

>You seem to blame GNOME for software used by that designer. I'd rather focus on getting the
content right. I'm not dismissing that using only Free Software would've been better. However,
saying GNOME should've done research beforehand for a criteria you picked sounds strange.

To eat your own dogfood--free software, especially when you are promoting it, does not seem to
be just an arbitrary criterion, does it?

to post comments

GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

Posted Mar 12, 2008 8:10 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (2 responses)

>To eat your own dogfood--free software, especially when you 
> are promoting it, does not seem to be just an arbitrary criterion, does it?

This assumes:
1. GNOME has software for this. There are programs which use GTK+ that could've been used
instead. Howver, these aren't part of GNOME. See http://www.gnome.org/start/unstable. So 'your
own dogfood' is out. I've asked and apparently Scribus was used in the beginning.
2. The report is about the GNOME foundation, to show what we did. It is not to promote Free
Software; it is to tell what was done by the GNOME foundation in a year.

Really, what is with looking at the 'source code' of a PDF to hunt for things to complain
about? You can see the same information using Evince, it isn't hidden. Please discuss the
contents.

GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

Posted Mar 12, 2008 17:45 UTC (Wed) by cantsin (guest, #4420) [Link] (1 responses)

This assumes: 1. GNOME has software for this. There are programs which use GTK+ that could've been used instead. Howver, these aren't part of GNOME. See http://www.gnome.org/start/unstable. So 'your own dogfood' is out.

There is still a performative contradiction to the state of the report that Free Software now offers viable solutions for, quote, "graphic design and illustration".

2. The report is about the GNOME foundation, to show what we did. It is not to promote Free Software; it is to tell what was done by the GNOME foundation in a year.

Yet the Gnome Foundation officially states as its a goal, in more general terms, "to create a computing platform for use by the general public that is completely free software".

GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

Posted Mar 12, 2008 22:45 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link]

> There is still a performative contradiction to the state of the report
> that Free Software now offers viable solutions for, quote, "graphic design
> and illustration".

Might be viable (I have no idea), but it wasn't used by the designer. This is in no relation
to whatever state it might be. It wasn't used for whatever reason (like in an RFC; MAY vs
MUST, etc).

> Yet the Gnome Foundation officially states as its a goal, in more general
> terms, "to create a computing platform for use by the general public that
> is completely free software".

Searching for straws? I don't see the relation to this report. Even if the intention might be
to be able to do everything using GNOME software, then how does it relate to what was used to
create this report? The content is what the foundation did over the last year.


I think your intention is to say that any use of non-free software means that GNOME foundation
is not following its goals. I don't agree with that. Further, you can develop an alternative
while every once in a while using something else.