[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       kde-promo
Subject:    Re: [kde-promo] Competitor Review
From:       Tom Chance <lists () tomchance ! org ! uk>
Date:       2004-12-12 10:17:52
Message-ID: 200412121017.52074.lists () tomchance ! org ! uk
[Download RAW message or body]

On Saturday 11 Dec 2004 22:12, steve@orplex.com wrote:
> > And don't let us forget their first point, "Free" (which is also the first
> > point on http://www.gnome.org/about/why.html but there more detailed
> > concerning "all underlying libraries are licensed under LGPL).
> 
> My guess is that they are taking shots at QT's dual licensing -- but
> thinking about it -- is it a good idea for GNOME to talk about FREE more
> than features or benefits of GNOME for the user -- i mean does the casual
> user really care about the subtext of what free means? If you ask me -- joe
> blow cares more about what he get from using it -- i mean if i can download
> both for free -- why do i care about the LGPL? I care more about what lets
> me do what i want with PC better

Two things on this point:

1 - KDE also has a focus on it being Free Software. Quoting the first sentence 
from the homepage: "KDE is a powerful Free Software graphical desktop 
environment".

2 - Let's not get confused between "users don't care if it is Free Software" 
and "it's not important to users if it's Free Software". The former is 
probably true for many people, just because they've never heard of the idea 
before and so it's not going to be important to them. But it *is* important 
to them if it is Free or not, because it means they can share it around, copy 
it to other machines, use it as they wish, file a bug report or maybe hire 
someone to make a change, and so on.

Let's not have this document fall into saying nonsense like freedom doesn't 
matter. It does, otherwise we'd all be working on proprietary software. So I 
wouldn't start suggesting that freedom is important to GNOME and that's a 
competitivge disadvantage, or that freedom isn't important to KDE.

On a totally different point: what about including freedesktop.org in your 
analysis? Since it was mentioned that a competitor can be someone with whom 
you collaborate as well as someone with whom you compete, it would make sense 
to make a note of where freedesktop.org provides us with opportunities to 
collaborate (with Gnome, Xorg, Xfce, MAS, etc.) and also how this affects our 
competitive relationship with Gnome and Xfce.

Regards,
Tom
 
_______________________________________________
This message is from the kde-promo mailing list.

Visit https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-promo to unsubscribe, set digest on \
or temporarily stop your subscription.


[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]