On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 9:24 PM, Martin Owens <doctormo@...400...> wrote:
On Sun, 2011-10-16 at 21:50 +0400, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
In general I would prefer Inkscape to stay out of policies and politics.
Inkscape should probably stay involved in it's own policies, and that may include policies on free and open source for technical reasons.
While I agree we shouldn't talk politics, I also disagree that we should stop talking Inkscape's own internal politics on Free and Open Source. It's clear that lots of users and many developers care that Inkscape is Free Software and care that development happens with that consideration in mind. That's why we always assumed the consensus was pro-foss, it's weaved into the projects cultural fabric.
your changing what was said, it wasnt that we were pro-FOSS it was
"a project committed to software freedom. Since drivers are software, it seems to me that our policy towards drivers is the same."
we're committed to being a good open source SVG editor. Being pro FOSS is a no brainer. I'm not aware we have 'policies' other than patch first, discuss later.
We're not a FOSS evangelism project, we're not some organisation that talks lots about how good FOSS is but never actually produces any. "I wont work with that as its not FOSS" is just the kind of blinkered attitude that pisses me off. Lets rephrase that shall we, "I refuse to make the most of your hardware because that drivers from a big company." "I insist on making this app not as good as it could be because my politics are more important to me than my product" "Sod the user experience, it can be slow as a dog as long as its open"
The fact that Bryce and co were open to all is the reason I got into inkscape, I was on windows (my laptop still is, my desktop is Ubuntu, my phone and tablet are apple) and the fact that the build worked out of the box for windows was a major draw. The fact that they were welcoming and helped me out on chat when I got stuck was awesome, the fact that other than the odd jibe they didnt try to ram linux down my throat did more to get me interested than any linux geek I ever met.
Of course I might be wrong, and all the developers might be anti-foss and just stick around for the technicals, but I don't think that's true and it's reflected in the goal of the project to make an open source SVG editor, not just an SVG editor.
I never said I was anti FOSS, why the heck would I have ever done anything on inkscape if I was? I simply said that the aim of inkscape was to be a good open source svg editor, not to push politics on people. If playing nice with a non open source API can make us better then I dont have an issue with it. I'm all for open source, I'm just not rabidly pro FOSS to the extent that I'll refuse to even look at a bit of tech which is potentially offering a roughly 10x increase in speed over the other options currently available.
I do admit however that I'm biased as I'd never be found working on the windows port and certainly wouldn't delay the release. I have politics and it does effect how I see situations, if you cut that out of the discussion here then we're all going to be left trying to guess what the hell each of us is actually trying to achieve. Keep it in but keep it respectful.
Martin.
For the record, I'm trying to make a really good open source SVG editor, you can leave all the politics out of it.