[Freedombox-discuss] Keep or Remove the "Anonymous Contribution" Page?

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Quoting simo (2012-11-29 14:38:01)
> On Thu, 2012-11-29 at 11:35 +0100, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> > Quoting Nick M. Daly (2012-11-29 06:16:25)
> > > Jack Wilborn writes:
> > > 
> > > > IMHO, I say that if they want to keep copyright to their code, 
> > > > then we probably don't want it in the FB.  My understanding is 
> > > > that we wanted a copyright free box, has this changed or have I 
> > > > misunderstood?
> > > 
> > > I think you missed something big there.  As far as I know [0], 
> > > that's not a goal at all.  Nobody's even asked me for a 
> > > contributor agreement, much less copyright assignment: we'll cross 
> > > that bridge when we come to it, I suppose.
> > 
> > If "we" are Debian, then we need someone physical and identifiable 
> > in charge of each piece of code, but those can act as proxy for 
> > others keeping anonymous or pseudonymous. Important for Debian is 
> > that all code is freely _licensed_.
> > 
> > If "we" are the FreedomBox Foundation, then it will very much 
> > surprise me if they[0] have different agenda than use Debian for all 
> > software parts of the project.
> 
> Hi Jonas are you saying people that prefer to use other distributions 
> would not be welcome to contribute (and port?) FBX to a different 
> distribution ?

No no, not at all.  Thanks for asking!

My points in my previous post are these:

 a) any contribution to the-freedombox-project-that-I-am-involved-in 
need only have copyright and licensing that match Debian Free Software 
Guidelines (i.e. no transfer of ownership like some projects practice).

 b) To the best of my knowledge, the project led by the Freedombox 
Foundation is the same that I am working on, meaning that the concrete 
goal (not just vision or dream) is a Debian Pure Blend.

In other words: To me FreedomBox is a special branding of one specific 
future way to roll out Debian.

It is really only the branding in the end.  No code!


You are involved with Redhat and Samba, so let me try compare with 
those.  Samba is code.  Redhat essentially isnt't code - it is librarian 
work applied to code.  It would be crazy if Samba existed only in Debian 
or only in Redhat - and would be nonsense to discuss why Redhat isn't in 
Debian, or why Debian isn't in Redhat: They both fit same role for 
different ecosystems.


It would be A-W-E-S-O-M-E if the Redhat ecosystem also took the 
challenge of making their distribution usable as framework for deploying 
userfriendly privacy-aware embedded devices. Please run wild with that!

Personally I would be fine with then renaming this project to 
debian-freedombox.  That would be FLOSS at its best: friendly 
competition - and collaboration at areas where we find no disagreements 
and can share innovations directly.

I cannot speak for the Foundation, however. I don't know if they would 
wanna then be part of both those separate projects going on inside 
different ecosystems, or would worry about depleting their resources 
even more than is already at risk.  And I don't know how they would 
wanna control the brand that they arguably "own": This catchy 
"FreedomBox" term that we all use but not always interpret the same.


An important point to me is that detail of "no code": [Some challenges] 
identified within the FreedomBox project is getting solved by writing 
code.  In my opinion those code projects *never* belong inside the 
FreeedomBox project!  Either they are tied to jugging with Debian and 
should be [developed in Debian], or they are distro-agnostic and belong 
further upstream (sf.net, github.com, whereever).

FreedomBox is not code.  FreedomBox is a concept and its realization 
through the use and improvement of Debian.


Another important point to me is that of "Debian Pure Blend".  Had I 
ended the sentence right above with "...through the use and extension of 
Debian" then the result would be Debian + hacks.  The real grand 
challenge I see in this project is that of making it long term 
sustainable.  And the way I believe works is to transform hacks into 
reusable chunks.  Which to me means improve Debian itself - but also 
only Debian infrastructure is Debian-only - all other code must live 
upstream.


Hope that helps.

 - Jonas


[Some challenges]: Arguably all of our challenges are solved by coding, 
because us geeks only recognize code challenges as such, not e.g. UX or 
marketing or hardware or reality check challenges - but that's a 
different (quite big) issue.

[developed in Debian]: You need not be a formal Debian Member (DD or DM) 
to collaborate directly on Debian infrastructural stuff - that's a myth 
(or at least a thing of the past).
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