gmane.org.fsf.europe.discussion

May Fellowship Interview

Alessandro Polvani — 2012-05-23T22:51:30

Hi all,

This month, for our monthly fellowship interview, we talked with Giacomo 
Poderi. He has worked as a translator and editor for FSFE, as well as 
completing a master’s degree in Philosophy. Currently he’s working on a 
Ph.D in sociology, which looks at the user experience in Free Software 
Projects, focusing on the turn-based strategy game ‘The Battle for Wesnoth’.

Please read this interview on 
http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=590


Thank you,

Alessandro

PDFReaders 2.0 - Your help is needed!

Fioddor Superconcentrado — 2012-05-23T14:04:47

From: Timo Juhani Lindfors <timo.lindfors-X3B1VOXEql0< at >public.gmane.org>
To: discussion-BSDwwRMYa8fNLxjTenLetw< at >public.gmane.org
Date: Wed, 23 May 2012 01:46:32 +0300
+1

The current long list of readers is very confusing.

(I also think that the name pdfreaders.org is bit misleading since it
does not list the most popular pdf reader in the world but I guess
renaming it to free-pdfreaders.org is already too late...)

From: Fioddor

I don't like the idea of a single-product recomendation. FSFE should remain
AND LOOK LIKE neutral.
Neither a transparent auto-detection: people doing a selection for friends,
users surfing the web from their workplace, fast consultation on the go
(mobile set) looking for sw for the home system, ...).

I'd improve the long list turning it into a table with some criteria.
Filtering (e.g javascript) would also be welcome.

Re: PDFReaders 2.0 - Your help is needed!

Heiki "Repentinus" Ojasild — 2012-05-23T13:05:00

There is: This is not a discussion list, this is a list used to
coordinate the campaign. I.e., if you want access, you should be
prepared to work on the campaign, not just discuss matters.

There have been opportunities to discuss the project on this list. See
the archives for Apr 17 and Jan 21. I do not mean it as a discussion
killer, but I can certainly understand why Hannes does not want to try
to keep track of several mailing lists.


Cheers,

Re: PDFReaders 2.0 - Your help is needed!

Craig Errington — 2012-05-23T11:40:56

Is there a reason for this list not being advertised anywhere? Even on
the listman pages?

Perhaps there'd be more people interested in the discussion? But like
others in this conversation, we didn't even know the list existed..

(Sorry to anyone who receives this twice..)

On 23 May 2012 12:29, Hannes Hauswedell <h2< at >fsfe.org> wrote:

Re: PDFReaders 2.0 - Your help is needed!

Hannes Hauswedell — 2012-05-23T11:29:16

No. This leads to many duplicate discussions, resulting in a lot of
frustration and wasted time on all sides[1] -- as this situation already
shows. If you want to discuss the future of pdfreaders in depth, you are
very welcome to join the pdfreaders list, please contact mk< at >fsfe!
If you do not want to do this, you can still write suggestions to
feedback< at >pdfreaders or edit the wiki directly, (e.g. adding Vindaloo to
GNU/Linux section). I will look into the blog's captcha, although I
tried posting multiple comments (even spam-like), and I was never asked
for one.

Re: PDFReaders 2.0 - Your help is needed!

Timo Juhani Lindfors — 2012-05-22T22:46:32

+1

The current long list of readers is very confusing.

(I also think that the name pdfreaders.org is bit misleading since it
does not list the most popular pdf reader in the world but I guess
renaming it to free-pdfreaders.org is already too late...)

Re: PDFReaders 2.0 - Your help is needed!

2012-05-22T20:51:51

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Hi All,

MJ Ray wrote:


I'm too concerned about recommending only one option per OS. This would
cost the neutrality we are striving for (we want neutrality, don't we?).

I also would like to point out that there are some users who do not wish
to browse through a possibly long list of potential alternatives and
then choose one. There are some people out there who just want to use a
software that works (free software would be nice to have, of course).

Perhaps we could leave the list like it is and add a (rather tiny) link
to a recommendation. This way lazy users can just take that one.

Regards,

Phil
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Discussion mailing list
Discussion< at >fsfeurope.org
https://m

Re: PDFReaders 2.0 - Your help is needed!

MJ Ray — 2012-05-22T17:20:27

Hannes Hauswedell <h2< at >fsfe.org>

OK, right, so as we can't actually join the discussion on the closed
pdfreaders list and the blog evilly locks out visually-impaired users,
can we just continue discussion on discussion< at > please?

It works and I'd really welcome this being discussed openly.
pdfreaders.org is a great site and really useful in helping people
realise that the Microsoft/Adobe/... system is not the only one.

I would like to support Erik Albers's point that only offering a
single recommendation on the homepage defeats the recent work asking
people to stop the Adobe adverts;

- and also note that the viewing platform may not be the one we want a
recommendation for.


On the substance of https://wiki.fsfe.org/PDFreaders/todo2012/Overview-Page

Vindaloo still works fine on GNU/Linux - the frontend may not have
been updated since 2005, but the underlying Poppler library has, so
the app's kept improving in use.  It isn't currently listed for "Free
Operating Systems" (why not?).  I can't comment on OSX -

Re: PDFReaders 2.0 - Your help is needed!

Heiki "Repentinus" Ojasild — 2012-05-22T16:08:17

I suppose you will write to mk.


Cheers,

Re: PDFReaders 2.0 - Your help is needed!

Hannes Hauswedell — 2012-05-22T16:07:06

Sorry about that, the list is pdfreaders< at >lists.fsfe.… but you can just
send to feedback(< at >)pdfreaders.org that redirects to our list and allows
posting from non-members!

Re: PDFReaders 2.0 - Your help is needed!

MJ Ray — 2012-05-22T16:02:00

Hannes Hauswedell <h2-VaTbYqLCNhc< at >public.gmane.org>

Where do we find that?  I guessed and tried
https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/ and
http://pdfreaders.org/about.en.html but it's not listed on either.

Thanks,

Re: PDFReaders 2.0 - Your help is needed!

Hannes Hauswedell — 2012-05-22T11:14:27

Please join us on the pdf-readers list to discuss this, as we will lose
track of different discussions else!

Thank you!

Re: PDFReaders 2.0 - Your help is needed!

Erik Albers — 2012-05-22T10:10:30

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Hi everyone,

On 05/21/2012 04:37 PM, Hannes Hauswedell wrote:
do you really think that is a good idea to have just one
recommendation for the auto-detected platform? I see some problems in
this practice, as it could be understood as an advertisement.
I mean, imagine you are an administrator of some ministry and then you
receive a mail from FSFE that you are actively doing advertisement for
an American company named Adobe Systems and that you should replace
this with a link to pdfreaders.org. Then you go there and you see an
advertisement for another program ...
I think I would maybe delete the link to Adobe but not link to another
advertisement. A platform however, that gives you the opportunity to
choose a pdfreader on your own seems neutral and will maybe receive
more support.

Again, I also think you save yourself a lot of work, if you do not
recommend a single solution :)
And even if you come to the point that there is a common sense which
program should be

Re: Groundhog day: Leaflet for Software Patents

Erik Albers — 2012-05-18T12:45:55

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On 05/16/2012 11:58 PM, Hugo Roy wrote:
I did some changes again, thanks for your good work! Please have a
look at the actual version. I created a third option for the
introduction. The text reads like:

"Software patents, thus, are a real threat to users freedom,
innovation and the whole Free Software community."
This is a simple sentence, addressing the most important topics and
therefore (hopefully) attracts readers. There is no need to come up
with detailed arguments or information in the introduction. The
introduction should be a short, attractive message to get readers to
go on reading. Now it reads like:

"FSFE is working toward a world where software does what users want it
to do. Software patents, however, create legal and financial risks
that block most people from being able to safely participate in
software development and distribution. Software patents, thus, are a
real threat to users freedom, innovation and the whole Free Software
community."

The

Re: [Policy-team] Groundhog day: Leaflet for Software Patents

Erik Albers — 2012-05-18T10:58:11

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First, thank you all very much for your spontaneous efforts to improve
our leaflet about software patents, you are great!

On 05/18/2012 12:05 PM, Hugo Roy wrote:
I agree. "Innovation" is a buzzword when it comes to talk with
politicians about software patents. Because one of the most repeated
arguments from our opposition is that patents boost innovation. And
therefore patents are needed for nations economy to be innovative.
IMHO it is important for our work to try reframing this argument and
open up peoples mind: that the freedom of creation produces much more
innovation than a patent system who serves monolistic economies. Such
a system, instead, reduces innovation in the hands of just a few
players holding the patent rights.
If we ever like to persuade the majority of a Parliament about the
negative aspects of software patents, I think "innovation" will be a
key argument to get them on board.

cheers,
Erik

- -- 

Erik Albers                               [

Re: [Policy-team] Groundhog day: Leaflet for Software Patents

Hugo Roy — 2012-05-18T10:05:52

Innovation is sort of the point of the patent system. So maybe this
paragraph should stay there to explain that software patent actually
work against innovation in software.

One strong point in favour of keeping this paragraph is that most people
don't actually understand that writing software is a substantially
different activity than producing drugs for instance. Patents are trying
to cover an activity (writing software) which wasn't meant to be covered
by the patent system, applying patent to it is actually
counterproductive.

Again, this is a side-issue of software freedom. But Software freedom is
directly impacted by lack of possibility left for innovation.

Now I draw your attention to this: the current paragraph about
innovation is not well written in my opinion (and this largely my fault)
so native English speakers are really needed here because they will do a
much better job of putting in one or two sentences what would take me 5.

Thanks,
Hugo

Re: Groundhog day: Leaflet for Software Patents

Ciarán O'Riordan — 2012-05-18T09:49:43


Well, let's look at who judges our software:

Who will judge if we have developed software that we want?  We will.  We
use our software and it either does what we want, or we change it or
file bug reports (or complain on slashdot and other forums we created).

Who will judge if we have developed innovative software?  The patent
office.  Or, if the patent office ignores software, then no one will
judge if our software is innovative.  If innovation was important to us,
and no one was examining our software for innovation, then FSFE would
have to hire someone to monitor how innovative free software is.  But
they won't, because it's not important.  Clearly innovation was never
the point.


Put another way: Are we happy when we have innovative software that
doesn't do what we want?  No.  Are we happy when we have non-innovative
software that does do what we want?  Yes.  (Example: a free clone of an
existing proprietary package.)

All things being equal, scientific progress is good, and it will happen,
but it's

Groundhog day: Leaflet for Software Patents

Heiki "Repentinus" Ojasild — 2012-05-17T19:08:40

Innovation is the point of software freedom: Without innovation, there
would come time when there would be no need for new software, no need
for software developers to be able to alter the code.

On 17 May 2012 12:45, Ciarán O'Riordan <ciaran< at >member.fsf.org> wrote:



--
Heiki "Repentinus" Ojasild
FSFE Fellow (en) / FSFE ühinglane (et)
<repentinus< at >fsfe.org>
<https://wiki.fsfe.org/Fellows/repentinus>
<http://blogs.fsfe.org/repentinus/>

Re: Groundhog day: Leaflet for Software Patents

Ciarán O'Riordan — 2012-05-17T12:45:46

I can't do any more on this.  Exams coming up.

Whichever intro is used, it should explain how swpats are bad for:

1. Free software - important for users
2. Software freedom - important for developers

1. Free software is harmed because swpats give an advantage to companies
   with money and lawyers.  This category is the least likely to
   spontaneously give freedom to users of their software.  Spontaneous
   offers of freedom (and pressure on large companies to also give
   freedom) comes from individuals, academics, hobbyists, and (to a
   lesser extent) SMEs.  Anything that helps big companies and harms
   small developers, will reduce the amount of free software in the
   world.

2. Software freedom is damaged because it becomes illegal to develop or
   distribute certain types of programs.

For FSFE both are important, but users might only see the value of #1,
and developers might only see the value of #2, so both should be
explained.

The harms of software patents can also be explained with two othe

Re: Groundhog day: Leaflet for Software Patents

Hugo Roy — 2012-05-16T21:58:47

Le mercredi 16 mai 2012 à 16:45 +0200, Erik Albers a écrit :

Ciaran and I have given 2 proposals for the introduction and I also
brought various substantial changes to the document with comments that
need your attention.

Best,

Re: [Editors] Groundhog day: Leaflet for Software Patents

Craig Errington — 2012-05-16T15:31:57

Hi All,

I have just done some grammar tidy up on a few lines.

Made a suggestion in the comments too.

Craig (ce)

On 16 May 2012 15:45, Erik Albers <eal< at >fsfe.org> wrote: