[Dfey-nw-discuss] Re: [Fsfe-uk] DFEY and GNU Generation?

[Tim Dobson]

Hey :)

See comments inline.

MJ Ray wrote:
> We've occasionally seen posts from DFEY – Digital Freedom in Education
> and Youth - on fsfe-uk and I think the last one mentioned something
> about a Google event.

Somewhat I guess. The event is Young Rewired State 
(http://rewiredstate.org/young). The event is at the Google offices in 
London, but sponsors include the Guardian and various government 
departments. There's a list on the website, I don't want to copy and paste.

> The H Open reports that the Free Software Foundation are applying
> Google Highly Open Participation Content to the GNU Generation
> community, aimed at people between the ages of 13 and 18.
> http://www.h-online.com/open/FSF-launch-GNU-Generation--/news/113992
>
> The comments there criticise the logo, but not for the reason I would.
> I thought it just looked a bit childish for 13-18.  Am I out of touch?

To be honest, from my point of view my initial question is "does it 
matter"? If it gains momentum with that logo in place surely it doesn't 
matter.

Max has also just posted to the Gnu Generation mailing list, in light of 
that article, pointing out that the image included is not their logo, 
but this page is aimed at generating a logo:
http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/GNU_Generation_Logo

I have no sense of design (or so I'm told) and so the DFEY logo 
competition was generally perceived to be a good idea, if only in that 
it meant that we got http://dfey.org/wiki/Logo_competition instead of my 
*ahem* fantastic designs. (http://dfey.org/wiki/File:Tim_Dobson_1.png).

Our new logo has suffered quite a bit of feedback, not all good with 
people suggesting it looks like something out of startrek, the logo of a 
trainer manufacturer; I've even been asked "why do we only have 3 bars 
of signal?" (A: "because we've not got the message completely across 
yet! ;) ").

> Anyway, my main questions:
>
> How will DFEY interact with this, if at all?

Sure. My initial thought when I heard the first announcements about GNU 
Generation was "Are they trying to occupy the same space as us?".

After talking with Max, it's clear the the direction of each group is 
distinct and that any relationship would be symbiotic.

> Some of you may know that I'm not a fan of Google, its no-download
> services and business methods.  It wouldn't be the first time that
> no-download web service software was used to develop the GNU project,
> after all - see wiki.list.org.  

Ouch. I hadn't seen that. That *is* annoying.

> Should we be worried by this apparent Googlisation of a new FSF project, though?

Possibly. I don't really think this is a risk per se. Though we do need 
to be careful about network technologies, especially stuff built for 
Google Apps, AWS etc. we do need to recognise the positive effect that 
GHOP and GSOC do have on the community.

> In general, does Google get an easy ride from FSF contributors?

Google gets an easy ride from EVERYBODY (well except you :P ). It's a 
shame Wikia gave up on it's efforts to create a free search engine, even 
if the software it was built with is available.

I'm not sure what the answer is.

Perhaps when Matt Lee is done creating a free facebook he could focus on 
search technologies. :P

Tim