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

[Sam Hiser]

terrific story from Christian and it shows how important it is to consider
the views from outside our little echo-chamber.

On Nov 14, 2007 11:25 AM, Christian Einfeldt <einfeldt at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.
>
>
>


-- 
http://www.PlexNex.com
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