Hi all,

Whist this is a bit entertaining, I think we can all see where it is
headed... On balance, there really is only one practical reason to bring up
the past and that is for the sake of being able to reliably anticipate the
future. So, I have to urge people again to try to move the discussion away
from the particular rights and wrongs of publishing the Builder or other
IndiGoGo(hst)s past, for that matter.

It really does seem most appropriate to take steps to try to discuss the
issue of non-free links/endorsements on neutral territory. That way, nobody
has to be made to feel like points of argument about this are being
directed at them personally, as individuals. Surely everyone here must be
able to recognise that when people feel like they are under attack, that
they tend to get into a reactionary mindset and that this does not lead
anywhere progressive. Let's move on.

Now, to the subject of whether GNOME should or should not link to non-free
websites (as is in line with the subject line of this thread :-)) I think
that most people would agree that in principle it is probably right that we
should take steps to avoid this in future. I have a few suggestions about
that:

   - In personal member blog posts on the blog subdomains, I think it
   should be discouraged somewhere but generally up to whoever is writing the
   post to decide given that something like that is practically impossible to
   regulate, anyway and there is a probably a fine line there between refusing
   to endorse something and censorship when we get into the realm of what
   individuals should or should not be saying or doing.


   - On the wiki: Again, quite difficult to regulate but it when I think
   when we write on the wiki we do represent GNOME (rather than ourselves as
   individuals) a bit more than with blogs as far as how the public interpret
   the content might be concerned,. With that said I can imagine that it could
   be necessary to post links to nonfree sites sometimes (e.g. some
   information on a site regarding issue x, y or z. In that case maybe we
   could think about having some sort of a "trigger warning" ):D. Perhaps that
   seems silly but it might be a nice/amusing way to show "we don't approve"
   without restricting what we can link to in cases where this is too
   impractical


   - For fundraisers (and probably endorsements, in general) it probably
   should be policy not to do it after Builder but again, where this proves
   too impractical perhaps the "trigger warning" idea might be a neat
   compromise.

To elaborate on the point about fundraisers a little further: Also though I
have to wonder whether future fundraisers could maybe be handled in the
same way as the groupon fundraiser was managed.
http://www.gnome.org/groupon/ since that did not seem to be too
controversial at the time. If that sort of thing would mean more work but
ultimately lower fees, then perhaps GNOME could also take an administrative
cut off the top for managing the donations on behalf of the relevant
project developers? It might also be worthwhile for us to set up a
dedicated wiki page guide explaining what alternative fundraising platforms
GNOME want projects to use and compile a list of links on there and have
some recommendations for standard practices. It might also be handy for
those wishing to fund their projects if we compiled and outline the logical
steps a project manager and/or project developer might take to get set up
and seek permission and support with launch etc.

Magdalen
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