NewsGNOME Foundation Fights with Stallman and Now the Press

GNOME Foundation Fights with Stallman and Now the Press

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There’s a bit of a kerfuffle brewing over at the open source GNOME Foundation.

Evidently it all started when GNOME Founder Miguel de Icaza posted a message about Microsoft’s Silverlight 4 on his personal blog, and via RSS it was published on the Planet GNOME Web site, which is part of the GNU Project.

Open source grandfather Richard Stallman wasn’t happy to see proprietary software promoted on a GNU Project Web site and he said so on the GNOME Foundation mailing list.

A testy discussion ensued between Stallman and several GNOME members including board member David Schlesinger.

Egos were bruised and senior GNOME developer Philip Van Hoof proposed that GNOME leave the GNU Project, Schlesinger seconded the proposal, and then, ITWire’s Sam Varghese published a story about the dust-up.

Using GNOME Foundation mailing list archives, Varghese put together a blow-by-blow account of the bickering between Stallman, Schlesinger and other GNOME foundation members about whether promoting proprietary software should be promoted on a GNU Project Web site.

And today, Varghese reported that GNOME Foundation member Behdad Esfabond is petitioning that access to the mailing listing archives be restricted to members only.

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