Allow me to use an example to show you how I arrived at these questions and how I think this differs from GNU. Going to https://www.gnu.org/home.en.html tells me in the first line what GNU is trying to accomplish: "GNU is an operating system that is free software <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html>—that is, it respects users' freedom. The development of GNU made it possible to use a computer without software that would trample your freedom." As a random person, I can understand what they are trying to do: build the components required for an operating system.
However, when we go to https://www.gnome.org/foundation/ we see: "The GNOME Foundation is a non-profit organization that furthers the goals of the GNOME Project, helping it to create a free software computing platform for the general public that is designed to be elegant, efficient, and easy to use." So the GNOME Foundation furthers the GNOME Project. But nothing I can find on the website mentions what the GNOME Project is about. I can find the GNOME Project on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_GNOME_Project which lists the project's goals. I will copy them here: The project focuses on: - Independence – the governing board is democratically elected and technical decisions are made by the engineers doing the work. - Freedom – development infrastructure and communication channels are public, the code can be freely downloaded, modified and shared and all contributors have the same rights. - Connectedness – work spans the entire Free software stack. - People – emphasis on accessibility <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_accessibility> and internationalization <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization>. GNOME is available in more than 40 languages (at least 80 percent of strings translated)[11] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_GNOME_Project#cite_note-gnome312releasenotes-11> and is being translated to 190 languages. But this still does not give a definitive, concrete view of the actual programs under the GNOME umbrella. Why does GNOME have gtk+ and desktop UI programs but also a calculator and cookbook? Is a goal of GNOME to support all non-critical software of a computer (that is, pieces GNU is not supporting)? Can a math library be apart of GNOME? Video games? Is there anything keeping LibreOffice or Octave from becoming a part of GNOME? I don't mean for all those to be answered, but meant to be guide for discussion and thought. Thanks! -Josh On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 5:26 PM, Richard Stallman <r...@gnu.org> wrote: > [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] > [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] > [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > > Since a similar question arises for the GNU system as a whole, our > experience > might be pertinent to discuss here. > > -- > Dr Richard Stallman > President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org) > Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org) > Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html. > >
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