[odf-discuss] Fwd: W3C Lead on CDF says OpenDocument Fellowship Position on CDF Makes No Sense

[Christian Einfeldt]

I am a little bit concerned about fragmentation of both the FOSS community.
I am not addressing this comment to any one particular person on this list.
Rather, my comments here are more general in nature.

I was sad to see Novell make its deal with Microsoft, but I was equally sad
to see the FOSS community backlash against Novell.  And I was sad to see
that Miguel de Icaza called MOOXML a superb standard, but I was equally sad
to see the FOSS community backlash against the founder of GNOME and
Evolution.  Robust debate is one of the things that makes us strong as a
community, but there is a fine line between robust debate on one hand, and
fragmentation on the other, which is suboptimal.  It is fragmentation that
caused the Unix wars, and the Unix wars was one piece of the puzzle that
allowed Microsoft to gain its monopoly on the desktop market.

It is inevitable in any open and free society that there will be pitched
disagreements.  But let's also recall that the tactic of divide and conquer
has long proven an effective tool when used by a central power to weaken
nascent challengers and thereby prevent the rise of democracy.  I don't have
any concrete solutions as to how to deal with deep problems such as
describing the best response to Novell's deal with Microsoft.  Clearly, Eben
Moglen has identified some of the problematic aspects to that deal in his
"Be Very Afraid Tour" speech on YouTube, which is linked below.  But it is
fairly clear to me that, regardless of the merits of the Foundation's
approach to ODF or Novell's deal with Microsoft or GNOME's support of MOOXML
as an ISO standard, we need to keep one eye on maintaining the strength of
our ties to one another at the same time that we are sorting out the very
complex task of creating a world that is free of monopolies and digital
lockdown.

So while I wish that Novell had not made a deal with Microsoft the way they
did, I personally do not think Novell is evil.  And while I wish that Miguel
had not said that MOOXML is a superb standard, I have great respect for
Miguel and I also like him personally.  I have known and admired Sam Hiser
and Gary Edwards for years, and while I didn't agree with the Foundation's
view of the CDF / ODF debate, I would also like to urge caution in the way
that we express our disagreements with Sam and Gary and Novell and Miguel
and GNOME.  In a free society, there will also be strident debate.  But
let's take a moment to pause right now at this juncture, now that the
Foundation has closed, to think about how we are going to balance the
competing tasks of holding robust debate and holding our community together.

IMHO, it was rather nice of Gary Edwards to ask Ryan to let us know that
OpenDocument Foundation was available, and it was also nice of Gary to offer
to give us a few tips as to how to establish a 501(c)(3) non-profit, etc.

Let me tell you this story, because I think that it highlights the
complexities that we face.  As many of you know, I am volunteering as a
level one tech FOSS support for a public middle school here in San
Francisco.  We were visited by one of the member of the Board of Education
who, when she saw our Edubuntu thin client lab, asked about the possibility
of deploying a similar pilot project elsewhere in the San Francisco Unified
School District (SFUSD).  In discussing how we might proceed with such a
project, this Board member, who is a technophobe, mentioned that it would be
imperative to be able to work with Microsoft.  She specifically mentioned
the Novell - Microsoft deal as an example of the kind of collaboration that
she would expect going forward.

She specifically said, and I quote, that she was not going to support or
vote for any projects that would "pull the rug out from under" the SFUSD
tech staff who are familiar with Microsoft products.  She also said that
when she saw reports of the Novell - Microsoft deal in the business section
of the San Francisco Chronicle, she thought, "oh, Linux must be making a lot
of progress" because she felt that Microsoft would never make a deal with a
Linux vendor unless it was FORCED to do so.  She said that her trust of
Linux as a viable solution was increased as a result of the realization that
Microsoft was being FORCED to make deals with its opponents.  She felt that,
in the past, Microsoft would simply have killed its Linux opponents like
they did with Netscape.  So even though she was a technophobe, she was a
businesswoman who at least had some impression of the players in the market,
and her esteem of a Linux provider like Novell was enhanced when she saw
that Microsoft had to bite the bullet and make that deal, rather than just
strangling Novell outright, as she said she knew Microsoft would like to
do.

To summarize, all I'm saying is, can we please exercise some caution as we
sort out how we are going to break the Microsoft monopoly and bring Free
Software to the global mainstream society.  We are bound to disagree deeply
at times.  But let's recall what Novell and Miguel and Sam and Gary have
done for us in the past, and let's also remember that we will need to call
on them again in the future for help.  Let's not damage our relationship
with people whose help we will need again in the future.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/pipermail/odf-discuss/attachments/20071114/0466aee8/attachment-0001.htm