Re: [Gnustep-marketing] GNUstep Foundation

[Alex Perez]

On Fri, 1 Oct 2004, MJ Ray wrote:

> On 2004-10-01 07:39:15 +0100 Nicolas Roard <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > Le 1 oct. 04, à 01:02, MJ Ray a écrit :
> >> They should care/help because GNUstep is part of the FSF's GNU project. I 
> >> think you are extrapolating too far from that one web page.
> > they "should" care but they don't. They have enough work of their own, and 
> > plenty of others projects to think about..
> 
> What are you basing this on? Why does everyone else seem to have "go away" 
> emails from FSF, but no-one has posted one?

I don't understand what it is you're trying to say here, so I will ask you 
to re-phrase/re-iterate, because to me it makes no sense.

> 
> > ... ok... so, you agree that we need our own group for promote GNUstep, and 
> > we need to do our own fundraising as well.
> > Instead of doing that individually, it's then quite logical to create some 
> > entity to do that. That's why we advocate a GNUstep Foundation.
> 
> The GNUstep Foundation was originally proposed only to handle funds, not to 
> promote or do fundraising itself. I think I am justified in questioning this 
> feature creep. Everyone seems to have their own different desires for a 
> GNUstep Foundation, which makes discussing it like being swamped with 
> custard: the only way out is to eat it, but I'm not hungry for it.

You are more than welcome to question it, but what you seem to not 
understand is that this is a discussion about the possibility of creating 
this foundation. As such, a discussion on what exactly its scope will be 
is necessary. You need to be able to accept the fact that not everyone is 
going to have the same idea of what the Foundation's roule should be 
(assuming we even need one, which I think we do). We're all just hashing 
this out, and you're accusing us of "feature creep" in the design process, 
which is completely unwarranted. It might be warranted if we founded a 
foundation and expanded its scope multiple times afterwards, but that's 
not what is happening. Please, keep an open mind. This is just all 
preliminary discussion, subject to change.

> 
> > If nobody really bother to use the FSF for doing the fundraising and the 
> > promoting, it's quite logically because FSF and GNUstep has different 
> > goals, 
> > and the FSF is not architectured to deal with that. [...]
> 
> Why is this logical? It hasn't happened, therefore this one reason is the 
> cause?!?

It's logical because if the FSF were interested in accepting money for 
GNU sub-projects, they would have a mechanism for doing so on their 
website, which they do not. I have no problem with Adam going to the FSF 
and asking themif they can collect and disseminate money to us, but 
frankly they would likely take a cut for their administrative costs.

> Nevertheless, using the FSF for fundraising and promoting is not my proposal. 
> Again, this has gone off-topic.

Accusing people of wandering is not constructive. Wandering in a 
discussison such as this is acceptable.

> 
> > And frankly, I prefer to have GNUstep people in charge of that than FSF 
> > people not involved in the project.
> 
> Why would it not be FSF appointing people involved in the project, as present?

If the FSF is involved with taking money for us, it is inevitable that 
someone who has NOTHING to do with the GNUstep project would be handling 
money destined for us. That's his point. I'd also prefer not to have this 
situation be the case unless it buys us something.

> > I really don't understand your problem. You act like this foundation will 
> > be 
> > totally separated from the project and like the people possibly in charge 
> > won't be steppers, and that foundation could take over the project. [...]
> 
> That is how I have understood the explainations until today. According to 
> those, 
> the foundation will hire and fire developers,
No.
> and the foundation must have non-developer managers to be seen as legitimate.

Uh, no. Keep pulling stuff out of your arse, why don't you...

> I am worried that this foundation has the unthinking uncritical support 
> of developers, so the real GNUstep will be left as a poor relation, like
> the AI lab after LMI and Symbolics.

You're letting your paranoia run unchecked, in my opinion. I am sure you 
will disagree, but you are more than welcome to.

> > I don't really think we can have worse marketing than what we have now [...]
> 
> Marketing was not a suggested role of the foundation.
Yes it was! What is your problem?

> Also, I think you are being rude to those who have tried in the past by 
> calling their efforts "nothing".
And you aren't being rude?? Maybe I'm missing something here...

> We need to do more marketing, but setting up a corporation is a huge piece 
> of work and long-term investment which will do little to help with it.

This is an opinion which I personally disagree with. Setting up a 
non-profit entity, at least here within the USA, is quite easy in most 
states. Maintaining it is not difficult either. I was running a for-profit 
corporation at the age of 18 here in the state of California, and Greg 
runs one currently in Maryland. It's not rocket science, and the skills 
needed to run a non-protif 501(c)(3) or 527 in the USA are nearly 
indistinguishable from those required to run a normal corporation.

Proper marketing requires money. The moment you bring more than small 
amounts of money into the picture, you need an entity so the people who 
manage the money can be held accountable if embezzlement ever happens. If 
we just set up a random paypal account then there is very little 
accountability, since whoever sets up the "GNUstep" account can just 
legally walk off with that money, since it's in their name. I am not 
suggesting that ANYONE would do this, just explaining why such an entity 
is necessary.

Multiple people have noted that you seem to have this uncanny ability to 
latch on to one little thing and not let go. Raising concerns we welcome; 
indiscriminate criticism we do not. We're all on the same side here, 
fighting for the same ultimate goal. Never lose sight of that.

Respectfully,
Alex Perez