Re: [libreplanet-discuss] What would be your response to these Free Software concerns?

[Advrk Aplmrkt]

Thanks for the information and links, I'll be sure to include them
when I respond to their message. Another thought I had was that if
their target audience are people who are exposed to computers for the
first time, it is critical to communicate the importance of Free
Software with them. And for this to work, the product itself needs to
comprise of Free Software!

On 17/04/2015, Andrés Muñiz Piniella <a75576@alumni.tecnun.es> wrote:
> El 16 de abril de 2015 21:22:43 GMT+01:00, Advrk Aplmrkt
> <avkaplmkt@gmail.com> escribió:
>>Dear list,
>>
>>I have recently learned of a charitable computer project on
>>Kickstarter called Endless Computers:
>>
>>https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1381437927/endless-computers
>>
>>It aims to bring a good and education computing experience to a wider
>>audience in the developing world. I perceive a lot of love and passion
>>behind this project. However, I was concerned about the software
>>freedom behind it, so I emailed the developers.
>>
>>Apparently they have much of their code on GitHub, but is reluctant to
>>run this product on pure Free Software. I think they have
>>understandable concerns (listed in their response below), and I wonder
>>how the folks on this list my reply to those concerns? I don't think
>>just bashing them for not making the software free is constructive,
>>especially when they are actually very well-meaning. Are there
>>tangible examples of how those problems might be alleviated?Thank
>>you!!
>>
> I will start by saying I am no expert so please review.
>
> Why start from scratch when OLPC allready exists?
>
> http://www.laptop.org/
>
> Maybe that will help them feel less need to get proprietary software.
> I have installed TOAST (trisquel version) and it is amazing. Promoting a bit
> of synergy should go a long way. Also there is 'kids on computers'
> http://twit.tv/show/floss-weekly/323 they mainly focus on promoting free
> software.
>
> They have excellent strategies to get by without internet connection.
> Sharing activities in the local network. Imagine that.
>
> The reason behind them using free software is probably conviction and to
> avoid vendor lock-in. Also gives it a bit more global vision to the project.
> The royal academy of the asturian language changed to ubuntu from microsoft
> because microsoft did not support their language.
>
> Also they mention india
> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2903512/india-backs-open-source-software-for-egovernance-projects.html
> This is in recent news.
>
>
>>Their response was:
>>
>>I identify with your concern to make our OS completely free software.
>>We do make a lot of our software available freely at our GitHub repo (
>>https://github.com/endlessm/ ), but unfortunately currently not all of
>>it. The answer for why is complex, it involves a large combination of
>>business, strategy, community and legal reasons.
>>
>>Not all of the content we've shipped on the computers is free data, we
>>sometimes partner with other organizations to get it. We've talked
>>about shipping the software freely available without the assets, but
>>it's not really viable from a legal perspective.
>>
>>Finally, any successful free software project needs a thriving
>>community: our developers come from that world, and we really don't
>>want to do over-the-wall code dumps like Android does. When we open up
>>our software, we want to do it right.
>>
>>We're currently focused on our target market and users, and that means
>>we change fast. We'd likely never accept any pull requests or patches
>>submitted to us. People could inspect and modify and redistribute the
>>code, indeed, but without the ability to contribute back upstream, it
>>seems like an empty promise.
>>
>>As for business reasons, making more of our code free software can be
>>a business risk. We're a small startup with limited funding trying to
>>take on big players. Even big companies sometimes get in trouble with
>>free software. See the recent news about Cyanogenmod being funded by
>>Microsoft to take down Google's Android.
>>
>>http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/microsoft-to-invest-in-cyanogen-hopes-to-take-android-away-from-google/
>>
>>We're currently not willing to take on such risks right now.
>>
>>I hope you'll understand that our goals might be different from yours,
>>and we have gave the question a lot of thought. As we grow and become
>>more successful, we'll be able to make more of our software free
>>software over time.
>>
>>Thanks for the excellent question, and I hope I've given you some
>>perspective on our decision.