[Fedora Board issue tracker] #182: GNOME 3.12 pushes Google and other commercial, non-FOSS "apps" at users

[Eric H. Christensen]

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On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 11:11:51AM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 11:07 AM, Eric H. Christensen
> <sparks at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> >> Maybe I am coming off as a bit pedantic here, but I can't help but feel we are discussing 'non-free web services' based on individual gut
> >> feelings about what that term is supposed to mean.
> >
> > Nope, you are correct in that if we have a gut feeling about something (one way or the other) then we need to be able to clearly define it.
> >
> >> I mean is there anyone here on this list who before this discussion actually had as a personal policy that you don't visit or use any website or
> >> service you don't have the source code to?
> >
> > Maybe not that I don't have the source code for but definitely for their standings in the FOSS community.  I don't usually use Google services, avoid Microsoft anything, and basically host the stuff I really want to interact with myself.
> 
> Google, Facebook, and Twitter all contribute significantly to FOSS
> projects.  Their services may not be libre, but their standings in the
> FOSS community are actually pretty good in my opinion.  So I'm not
> sure that's a good litmus test here.

That's great that these companies contribute to FOSS projects.  I'm less likely to complain about services that are developed as FOSS that they are commericalizing.  Making it easier for our users to start using their closed projects, however, is not okay.  It does not forward our cause for FOSS.  Otherwise we could lump Microsoft into that group since they have made contributions to FOSS projects (including the kernel) in the past.

- -- Eric

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Eric "Sparks" Christensen
Fedora Project

sparks at fedoraproject.org - sparks at redhat.com
097C 82C3 52DF C64A 50C2  E3A3 8076 ABDE 024B B3D1
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