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Free Software Foundation Priority Projects

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Re: Free Software Foundation Priority Projects

#31

Post by sbuttgereit »

icebraining wrote: post #17
vpol wrote: post #12

I think there is too much politics behind fsf. Instead of battling for users they are battling for licenses.

The FSF is a political organization; saying it has too much politics behind it is an oxymoron. And choosing to go after users over licenses is also a political decision. Besides, we already have Open Source as a movement that makes the pragmatic argument for free software, there's no need to water down the FSF.

Exactly correct. There are basic philosophical underpinnings to the GNU/FSF approach to open source and as such the FSF's entire purpose is advancing those principles, not just some general sense of "open source".

I personally don't hold their vision and I find their philosophical position flawed. I see tactical use in their licenses when I want to limit certain developer freedoms without having a fully closed source license, but will generally license MIT if creating a genuinely open source piece work.

Re: Free Software Foundation Priority Projects

#32

Post by otalp »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #24

> Encourage contribution by people underrepresented in the community Why is this necessary? There's no force keeping people from contributing, they are just choosing not to. edit: To those downvoting me, can you please explain to me what is wrong with what I said?

Not necessarily minorities in the US(in fact a lot of US minorities are overrepresented in tech), but if you could make say, a few Spanish speaking people in poorer parts of Brazil contribute, they could spread whatever knowledge they gained with their broader community and encourage more people to participate who might have otherwise viewed these things as stuff "genius hackers with degrees" do.

That would be my reasoning. We need to get people who would never see themselves as being able to develop software because they never went to university or don't have the 'brains' to get into it. There's a lot of wasted brainpower because of the false impression that coding is something for an elite few.

Re: Free Software Foundation Priority Projects

#33

Post by finid »

mynegation wrote: post #8

This is the right thing to do and I hope it is not too little too late. Free/libre OSS won the battle for the server, lost the battle for the desktop, but desktop is not (that) relevant anymore. FLOSS phone ecosystem will be hard to next to impossible, in my opinion, but worth going into. Self-hosted server side software has a very good chance of succeeding. For a long time I essentially wanted something like Synolog…

> FLOSS phone ecosystem will be hard to next to impossible, in my opinion

Plasma Mobile is not in a bad state [1]

[1]: https://plasma-mobile.org/

Re: Free Software Foundation Priority Projects

#34

Post by spaceheeder »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #27
mjg59 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The absence of minority representation is itself a factor that deters minority involvement.

I am afraid I don't see how lack of minority representation is a factor in open source software. How does one's race or gender affect whether or not they submit code? edit: Again, if you are downvoting me, please explain so I can understand. I'm not arguing for the sake of argument.

The user you're responding to was trying to articulate that whether or not people submit code is often silently affected by intangibles, like whether or not they think they'll be welcomed into the community and treated with respect and as an equal.

Even if you want to argue that the reasons people have for deciding not to get involved in open source are wrong or that those intangibles shouldn't affect open source projects for some other reason, the fact is that the pattern will nevertheless self-reinforce and affect open source by deterring more hands from coming on deck.

If x% of the white male population is developing on open source, but only x% * y% of the non-white-male population is, and getting people interested in open source isn't a zero-sum game, then making y as close to 100 as possible can only be a good thing. Making a concerted effort to recruit diversely, it is hoped, will have accelerating returns as intentional involvement of diverse contributors will lead to more and more organic involvement of diverse contributors.

Re: Free Software Foundation Priority Projects

#35

Post by otalp »

timonovici wrote: post #29
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #24

> Encourage contribution by people underrepresented in the community Why is this necessary? There's no force keeping people from contributing, they are just choosing not to. edit: To those downvoting me, can you please explain to me what is wrong with what I said?

Putting polical corectness aside, it's important to have as a varied crowd as possible using your software, to figure out what's still missing, where you still fall short. I saw that happening time and time again - something I didn't consider important at all, was essential for other folks. One example - if no blind people use your software, you'll never know how hard or easy it is for them - hence you'll never get a…

Similarly, there's a strong need for more developers tools in varied languages. A lot of great minds are being wasted because they are not proficient in English, and don't have a programming language in a language they know, or have difficulty bridging the gap because of a lack of in-depth tutorials in their language.

Re: Free Software Foundation Priority Projects

#36

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

cperciva wrote: post #30
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am afraid I don't see how lack of minority representation is a factor in open source software. How does one's race or gender affect whether or not they submit code? edit: Again, if you are downvoting me, please explain so I can understand. I'm not arguing for the sake of argument.

Humans are herd animals. They tend to look at what other people like them are doing, and do likewise. It's unfortunate that people look at trivia like gender and ethnicity in such circumstances; but it's a fact of human behaviour. If potential contributors look at a project and don't see anyone who "looks like them", they're unlikely to contribute; so projects which want to maximize contributions are well advised to…

I view this issue differently, and I would love your opinion on my view.

First on sex/gender: I feel that hormonal differences create psychological differences in the norms between genders. This is why men are generally more aggressive and violent(see higher incarceration rates) and women are more nurturing. These differences lead to people in general choosing careers that reflect their psychology, and forced diversity hurts those that do best in their field.

Then on ethnicity, I feel many of the differences come from both differences in opportunity(which should be overcome) and differences in cultural and social norms, which lead to people choosing different careers.

In my opinion, forced diversity hurts those who would normally gravitate towards those fields because they are displaced by someone who doesn't necessarily want to be there, but just sees opportunity.

Again, I'm not looking to fight. I'd love you opinion on why I'm right or wrong.

Re: Free Software Foundation Priority Projects

#37

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

otalp wrote: post #32
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #24

> Encourage contribution by people underrepresented in the community Why is this necessary? There's no force keeping people from contributing, they are just choosing not to. edit: To those downvoting me, can you please explain to me what is wrong with what I said?

Not necessarily minorities in the US(in fact a lot of US minorities are overrepresented in tech), but if you could make say, a few Spanish speaking people in poorer parts of Brazil contribute, they could spread whatever knowledge they gained with their broader community and encourage more people to participate who might have otherwise viewed these things as stuff "genius hackers with degrees" do. That would be my rea…

I like this and agree with this argument. Most arguments for "diversity" are simply based on race and gender in the US, but your argument really was help me understand why true diversity on a global scale would help.

Re: Free Software Foundation Priority Projects

#38

Post by orblivion »

While doing all of this catch-up is important, I think it would help FOSS politically (as it were) if there were something new and exemplary to come out. Signal is a good example (once they fix the Google thing, and BTW someone finally took up Moxie on the offer and there's a PR in progress). Maybe Sandstorm too (Plug and play web apps that are secure? That's kind of novel and useful if you think about it. And IMO they're doing a bang-up job with UI) If FOSS can shine, maybe it'll attract more help with the catch-up.

Re: Free Software Foundation Priority Projects

#39

Post by soneca »

otalp wrote: post #32
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #24

> Encourage contribution by people underrepresented in the community Why is this necessary? There's no force keeping people from contributing, they are just choosing not to. edit: To those downvoting me, can you please explain to me what is wrong with what I said?

Not necessarily minorities in the US(in fact a lot of US minorities are overrepresented in tech), but if you could make say, a few Spanish speaking people in poorer parts of Brazil contribute, they could spread whatever knowledge they gained with their broader community and encourage more people to participate who might have otherwise viewed these things as stuff "genius hackers with degrees" do. That would be my rea…

"a few Spanish speaking people in poorer parts of Brazil"

Am I missing something here or you really think we speak spanish in Brazil????

Re: Free Software Foundation Priority Projects

#40

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

spaceheeder wrote: post #34
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am afraid I don't see how lack of minority representation is a factor in open source software. How does one's race or gender affect whether or not they submit code? edit: Again, if you are downvoting me, please explain so I can understand. I'm not arguing for the sake of argument.

The user you're responding to was trying to articulate that whether or not people submit code is often silently affected by intangibles, like whether or not they think they'll be welcomed into the community and treated with respect and as an equal. Even if you want to argue that the reasons people have for deciding not to get involved in open source are wrong or that those intangibles shouldn't affect open source pro…

Differences in rates between will always exist. Instead of trying to shoot for equality between every single social class(which will never exist anywhere), we should consider fostering an environment that accepts its inequity in a positive manner.
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