Re: [Phpgroupware-developers] The GIF issue

[Miles Lott]

Loic Dachary wrote:
>         The current situation very well shows that the GNU project and
> the FSF have no power, no control over phpGroupWare. The phpGroupWare
> developers decided to join the GNU project and to comply to its policy
> on their own will. They can decide to leave it if, after all, they
> are not willing to comply to the GNU project policy. What kind of
> power does the GNU project or the FSF have over this ?

No, it is only a matter of time until we get bounced for non-compliance.
If this is not the case, then lets stop talking about it.  It is boring
and pointless.

>         I think you can see the parallel between the two situations.

The question of write access to the api is not a moral or ethical one.
It is being done solely for technical reasons, not the least of which
is avoiding a disaster when a developer who is not so versed in the
API makes a change that negatively impacts the performance of one or
all applications.  I guess you could stretch this to say that our
ethics are such that we must exclude disarray ;)

> As it turns out the FSF and the GNU project always do their best not
> to reject people who violate the GNU policy, not to force them to
> comply to it. Instead, even at the cost of a bad public image, they
> ask them to comply to the policy and wait for them to do the change.
> Make no mistake : the current situation of phpGroupWare being a GNU
> project and contradicting the GIF boycott already is a problem.
> There are people who know the GNU policy of boycotting GIF files,
> who know that phpGroupWare is a GNU project and who know that
> phpGroupWare distributes GIF files. As a consequence, all these people
> think : the GNU project has an inconsistent policy.

locate ".gif" | grep -v phpgroupware on savannah sometime...

The facts and your statement here contradict what has been said
previously,
including within your email here.

>         Despite of this problem, neither the GNU project, nor the FSF
> is accusing phpGroupWare of doing damage to the GNU project. Instead
> they just ask that you, please, help by complying to the GNU project
> policy. In fact this is very close to the php3 compatibility policy
> of phpGroupWare. When people do not comply they are asked to, again and
> again. And some people are reluctant to it and claim that php4 is enough,
> that there is no point supporting php3 anymore, that they won't help
> supporting this obsolete version, that php4 legal issues are likely to
> be solved in the months to come.

Again, a technical reason, at least for me.  The main reason I care
about
the php3 compatibility is to not exclude people who either choose OR
have
no choice about the php version installed on their box (or hosting
site).

All this talk about morals and ethics should be balanced with this:
Morals and ethics are ultimately up to each individual.  At least this
is still true in most so-called free countries.  I realize that GNU and
phpgroupware as well as most companies and software projects are not
necessarily free societies.  There cannot be anarchy or totalitarianism
with any expectation of an active and vital (software) community.
I guess these are my ethics...

-- 

Miles Lott - http://milosch.net
phpGroupWare - http://www.phpgroupware.org