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Miguel and Christian, you are wrong when you ad-hominem accuse Evan of working for Caldera or having an agenda instead of addressing the issues. Evan has been a friend of the Linux community for a long time.
Evan has done the GNOME community good by exposing behind-the-scenes politics of the GNOME foundation that should never have happened. This whole Sun secret deal was a mistake and the GNU community does not appreciate this. GNOME Foundation should learn from this mistake and make amends to those who were wronged.
Please read carefully these comments between Evan and GNOME Foundation member, Christian Schaller, at LinuxToday:
She is in marketing and PR, she has nothing to do with the FSF/Gnome, expect to make money.
Almost everyone else on that list, has worked with code gnome, actucally doing something useful. Some people on that list work on gnome without getting paid.
She was paid nicely when she did work for the FSF/Gnome, she refused to work for free.
I don't have anything against her because she is female, the problem I have is she is a marketing/PR drone.
She doesn't give a shit about Gnome or FSF, all she cares about is making her pocket book fat.
You don't beilieve me? You think I am a troll? Read her 75 word statement regarding it.
I have to confess that I have never read so much nonsense in 30+ years of writing software as I've just read on this thread. Who, in the name of all that's Holy, gives a stuff what gender or color the members of the GNOME Foundation are? How does that affect the quality of the product? How does the GPLness or otherwise affect the quality of the software? Who decides who are the best talents to write the stuff? A democratic election?!?
This can't be real. We all know how well democracy works at selecting our political leaders -- we have to put up with it there for, as Winston Churchill said "Democracy is a bad form of Government, but all the others are worse".
This is not how to develop software. We can demand, must demand, and are entitled to demand, excellence. And what do we witness on these/. debates? Mindless juvenile rantings driven and possessed by Stallmanesque agendas which have little or nothing to do with quality of software but a very great deal to do with individual egos and an aimless, ill-defined, socialist agenda over communal ownership, colored by an overt desire to inflict the same on the unwilling.
Its a pretty sad state of affairs when RMS, GPL and ESR are the new holy trinity governing the judgement of software. Incidentally, just who in hell are they? (Let's see who is stupid enough to rise to that.)
Stop modding this guy down. Sometimes the truth just hurts too much. All the Gnome comunnity ever did was knock KDE for not being "free" and for being sellouts. Pot it's me kettle. Gnome users wanna slam KDE for being a unix windows gui. How exactly did Miguel say he designed gnumeric? That application known as evolution reminds me of something I once saw in windows. Gee what was it? Gnome is so dedicated to the linux movement that they are even working on VB for Gnome. Gee wow. Flame me if you will. Mark me down as flamebait if you will, but Stallman and certain members of the Gnome team oh the KDE developers an apology. Oh yeah until such time Miguel can kiss my ass. Stallman, can keep on kissing my ass apology or not.
While I respect your opinion/choice of candidates, I do not agree with your rationale. Vote for her just because she's a woman? Please. I (and I am sure many other Slashdotters agree) would have no problem with a woman on the board, I would certainly prefer that it was for her qualifications, NOT her gender.
I apologize that you feel you are not being represented properly. But if you are going to try to rally others to your cause, please try using some more intelligent rationale.
Just to clarify. Anyone who's a member of the GNOME Foundation was able to announce their candidacy for the board, and no-one screened candidates in any kind of way. Anyone who's contributed to GNOME can be a member of the Foundation. There are currently 330 or so members, and 33 of them chose to announce their candidacy for the election.
I agree with you that we need to continue to work towards having a more diverse community in a number of dimensions (including racially).
Bart
Before you contact Gnome foundation, how about first checking out if there were any AA candidates who were qualified and subsequently rejected by foundation.
Beside, AA constitute only 13 % of population and are not known for being overly involved with technology (as for example people with Asian ethnic background) so is this possible that lack of AA on this foundation might not be result of racism and you are simply too sensitive.
If indeed your allegations are true, we have a problem on our hands. It's unfortunate that something like this would come to pass in the open-source movement, it is not surprising.
The only possible surprise is that the racism is directed against Asian-Americans instead of African-Americans. And since African-Americans bear the brunt of discrimination in this country, especially in the high-tech industry, it's likely that where there is smoke, there is fire. That is, where there is discrimination against Asian-Americans, there is almost certainly discrimination against African-Americans, perhaps at the source code level.
I do not have time, myself, to read through the source code and make sure the comments (not to mention the source itself) is free of racist content. But I urge any right-thinking person to do so, so we can root out this problem at its source.
If there is only discrimination against Asian-Americans, we don't have much of a problem (though the situation is still not good), since Asian-Americans have a strong power base in the United States. But if anti-African-American content is discovered, we should take some kind of action.
Well, as an AbiWord developer, I feel it neccessary to clear up some misconceptions here.
(1) The GNOME Foundation is evil.
This is simple untrue. The GNOME Foundation is a good idea, will be democratically run, and is led by some great people.
(2) GNOME has made official decisons
According to Havoc Pennington and others, no specific decisions have been made by GNOME people. I believe them on this.
(3) Sun actually understands this other than as a way to make money.
Anyone who thinks that Sun is after anything but money is deluding themselves. Sadly, it also appears they still haven't got the open standards idea.
For LOTS more on this, see my posting to abiword-dev, among others, her e. [gnome.org] Sam TH
Since when were elections ever based on qualification? People vote for who they relate to, who they feel will represent them. I may feel that one of the candidates is superbly suited for the job, but if he feels differently on some issues then I do, I probably wouldn't vote for him.
If I showed my support for diversity in the Gnome foundation I would vote for Leslie, not because she is a woman, but because she works for Ogilvy and thus must be one of the tops in her field AND * her expertise is unique among the candidates.*
Equality grants equal * access. *
Everything else should depend not on being equal, but on demonstrated * superiority * for the position, whether the superior person be a man, woman or undecided.
It is still raw, rough around the edges, great fun to dick with and, well. . . just plain looks great, and that DOES matter dammit.
Still, I recommend KDE to my friends because they just want to get their work done. It is solid, usable and just generally 'there' already.
I'm afraid this is WHY the corporate players are backing Gnome through the Gnome foundation. They can still get their fingers in the pie there, they can't in KDE.
Frankly, as a lover of the Gnome I'm afeared for its life now, not reassured by the insurgence of interest and the backing of big boys.
I don't WANT Gnome to become a Linux 'standard.' I want it to be good, I want it to evolve on its own path, I want it to be interesting, I want it to be fun, I want it to be rightous software and yes, I want it to get prettier.
I want all those things for KDE too. I want them for Mac OSX. I want to see NEW ideas for interfaces we havn't even thought yet to come forward and compete for my attention.
I want tons of toys to CHOOSE from and to be free to chooose them all! That's why I use Linux in the first place.
Sun thinks: As part of its formation, the GNOME Foundation has announced that it is adopting OpenOffice.org -- the StarOffice productivity suite that Sun is making available to the open source community -- as the core of the office productivity software for GNOME Office.
Dom Lachowicz thinks:
Michael Meeks clarified to me that the big coroporations were paying large
sums of $$ to get figurehead positions and that we could get the same result
by joining the gnome-foundation mailing list and voting/running for office,
which at least I have done.
Miguel,
Evan's article was flamebait, and didn't include all the facts available at the time. However, you really aren't the best person to speak about GNOME's relationship to AbiWord, given your statements about Abi in this LinuxPlanet article:
http://www.linuxplanet.c om/ linuxplanet/opinions/2310/1/ [linuxplanet.com]
where you say
<quote>AbiWord, yeah. It's fairly larval.</quote>
Needless to say, this sort of thing, combined with the statements coming out of Sun at the time, didn't inspire confidence in us AbiWord developers that we were even on your radar screen (despite being on your web page). Sam TH
for a gnome? I mean... nader ain't that bad, bush will probably get it, and it doesn't really matter in the long run... BUT A GNOME?!?! Who would vote for one? They're just building decorations for pete's sake!!! er... well... I guess you have point there in comparison to the candidates... oh wait... we're talking about software aren't we?
What's the story on that? From the sound of it, the "GNOME Good 'ol Boys" have already made up their mind about some key GNOME decisions, so why are we even bothering pretending this is gonna be a democratic process? I'm confused about how the role of the GNOME Foundation mixes with the private core developer mailing list mentioned in this article.
The reporter you quote there chose to "selectively" quote Dom, and "selectively" quote Havoc.
Although both wanted to convey a different story, the reporter chose to push forward his own agenda. You can mail Dom and ask him, and you can mail Havoc and ask him.
You can read the archives of the gnome-office-list where the discussion and a complete explanation can be found:
What an amazingly biased and sexist statement! Let me get this straight - you're recommending we vote for a candidate purely on the basis of their gender? That is absolutely the worst way of deciding who to appoint. You didn't mention what qualifications this woman has, or why she would be a better choice than any of the other candidates. Have the last hunderd years of the Women's Rights movement not taught you that it should be ability that matters, not gender? How very disappointing.
GNOME Community *thanks* Evan (Score:1)
Evan has done the GNOME community good by exposing behind-the-scenes politics of the GNOME foundation that should never have happened. This whole Sun secret deal was a mistake and the GNU community does not appreciate this. GNOME Foundation should learn from this mistake and make amends to those who were wronged.
Please read carefully these comments between Evan and GNOME Foundation member, Christian Schaller, at LinuxToday:
http://linuxtoday/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-10-25- 014-04-OP-DT-GN&tbovrmode=1#talkback_are a [linuxtoday]
The GNOME foundation has acted irresponsibly, IMHO, and should apologize.
Re:Vote for LESLIE PROCTOR (Score:1)
Tee hee. (Score:1)
Bruce
Re:Who would vote... (Score:1)
Re:Just because she's a woman? (Score:1)
3 replies below my current contempt
Politically Correct Software. (Score:1)
This can't be real. We all know how well democracy works at selecting our political leaders -- we have to put up with it there for, as Winston Churchill said "Democracy is a bad form of Government, but all the others are worse".
This is not how to develop software. We can demand, must demand, and are entitled to demand, excellence. And what do we witness on these
Its a pretty sad state of affairs when RMS, GPL and ESR are the new holy trinity governing the judgement of software. Incidentally, just who in hell are they? (Let's see who is stupid enough to rise to that.)
MightyMicro
--
Re:Oh joy, Perens is there (Score:1)
*ahem* (Score:1)
Maybe they are going to have a complete seperate announcement just for me or something.
Re:Oh joy, Perens is there (Score:1)
The slashdot game comes crumbling down. Cripes does this suck.
Vote for gender or qualifications? (Score:1)
I apologize that you feel you are not being represented properly. But if you are going to try to rally others to your cause, please try using some more intelligent rationale.
Re:Absence of African-Americans Disturbing (Score:1)
Re:Just because she's a woman? (Score:1)
Re:Absence of African-Americans Disturbing (Score:1)
Beside, AA constitute only 13 % of population and are not known for being overly involved with technology (as for example people with Asian ethnic background) so is this possible that lack of AA on this foundation might not be result of racism and you are simply too sensitive.
Gnome 5.1 doesn't exist (Score:1)
It's very sad to see more and more lame messages on Slashdot :-(
GNOME 5.1 has never existed.
But if somebody discovers it we should take an action, of course :-)
Damn (Score:1)
I am,
Re:Gnome is too racist for the good of Linux (Score:1)
The only possible surprise is that the racism is directed against Asian-Americans instead of African-Americans. And since African-Americans bear the brunt of discrimination in this country, especially in the high-tech industry, it's likely that where there is smoke, there is fire. That is, where there is discrimination against Asian-Americans, there is almost certainly discrimination against African-Americans, perhaps at the source code level.
I do not have time, myself, to read through the source code and make sure the comments (not to mention the source itself) is free of racist content. But I urge any right-thinking person to do so, so we can root out this problem at its source.
If there is only discrimination against Asian-Americans, we don't have much of a problem (though the situation is still not good), since Asian-Americans have a strong power base in the United States. But if anti-African-American content is discovered, we should take some kind of action.
I am,
Re:So what's this I hear about AbiWord? (Score:2)
(1) The GNOME Foundation is evil.
This is simple untrue. The GNOME Foundation is a good idea, will be democratically run, and is led by some great people.
(2) GNOME has made official decisons
According to Havoc Pennington and others, no specific decisions have been made by GNOME people. I believe them on this.
(3) Sun actually understands this other than as a way to make money.
Anyone who thinks that Sun is after anything but money is deluding themselves. Sadly, it also appears they still haven't got the open standards idea.
For LOTS more on this, see my posting to abiword-dev, among others, her e. [gnome.org]
Sam TH
Re:Just because she's a woman? (Score:2)
So what about Sun? (Score:2)
Ogilvy is a God, so. . . (Score:2)
Equality grants equal * access. *
Everything else should depend not on being equal, but on demonstrated * superiority * for the position, whether the superior person be a man, woman or undecided.
As a geek I love Gnome because. . . (Score:2)
Still, I recommend KDE to my friends because they just want to get their work done. It is solid, usable and just generally 'there' already.
I'm afraid this is WHY the corporate players are backing Gnome through the Gnome foundation. They can still get their fingers in the pie there, they can't in KDE.
Frankly, as a lover of the Gnome I'm afeared for its life now, not reassured by the insurgence of interest and the backing of big boys.
I don't WANT Gnome to become a Linux 'standard.' I want it to be good, I want it to evolve on its own path, I want it to be interesting, I want it to be fun, I want it to be rightous software and yes, I want it to get prettier.
I want all those things for KDE too. I want them for Mac OSX. I want to see NEW ideas for interfaces we havn't even thought yet to come forward and compete for my attention.
I want tons of toys to CHOOSE from and to be free to chooose them all! That's why I use Linux in the first place.
Re:So what's this I hear about AbiWord? (Score:2)
Sun can say whatever they want, as they will not be a part of the board.
Don't forget other minorities. (Score:2)
Don't forget native americans, mormons and amishes.
Re:So what's this I hear about AbiWord? (Score:2)
Sun thinks: As part of its formation, the GNOME Foundation has announced that it is adopting OpenOffice.org -- the StarOffice productivity suite that Sun is making available to the open source community -- as the core of the office productivity software for GNOME Office.
Dom Lachowicz thinks: Michael Meeks clarified to me that the big coroporations were paying large sums of $$ to get figurehead positions and that we could get the same result by joining the gnome-foundation mailing list and voting/running for office, which at least I have done.
Re:So what's this I hear about AbiWord? (Score:3)
Evan's article was flamebait, and didn't include all the facts available at the time. However, you really aren't the best person to speak about GNOME's relationship to AbiWord, given your statements about Abi in this LinuxPlanet article:
http://www.linuxplanet.c om/ linuxplanet/opinions/2310/1/ [linuxplanet.com]
where you say
<quote>AbiWord, yeah. It's fairly larval.</quote>
Needless to say, this sort of thing, combined with the statements coming out of Sun at the time, didn't inspire confidence in us AbiWord developers that we were even on your radar screen (despite being on your web page).
Sam TH
I've seen pics of some of these people (Score:3)
These people are all a little too tall to be Gnomes.
Who would vote... (Score:3)
----
So what's this I hear about AbiWord? (Score:5)
LWN highlighted an article that I'm surprised didn't get posted to slashdot:
http://www. zdn et.com/enterprise/stories/main/0,10228,2644950,00. html [zdnet.com]
What's the story on that? From the sound of it, the "GNOME Good 'ol Boys" have already made up their mind about some key GNOME decisions, so why are we even bothering pretending this is gonna be a democratic process? I'm confused about how the role of the GNOME Foundation mixes with the private core developer mailing list mentioned in this article.
Re:So what's this I hear about AbiWord? (Score:5)
Although both wanted to convey a different story, the reporter chose to push forward his own agenda. You can mail Dom and ask him, and you can mail Havoc and ask him.
You can read the archives of the gnome-office-list where the discussion and a complete explanation can be found:
Dom's explanation is here:
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-office-list/
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-office-list/
Best wishes,
Miguel
Just because she's a woman? (Score:5)
What an amazingly biased and sexist statement! Let me get this straight - you're recommending we vote for a candidate purely on the basis of their gender? That is absolutely the worst way of deciding who to appoint. You didn't mention what qualifications this woman has, or why she would be a better choice than any of the other candidates. Have the last hunderd years of the Women's Rights movement not taught you that it should be ability that matters, not gender? How very disappointing.