Software patent protest, could kde participate ?

[Andy Fawcett]

On Tuesday 26 August 2003 14:16, Neil Stevens wrote:
> On Monday August 25, 2003 12:18, Stephan Kulow wrote:
> > Am Monday 25 August 2003 20:55 schrieb Alexander Neundorf:
> > > I very much agree.
> >
> > OK, we'll redirect www.kde.org/* to
> > http://swpat.ffii.org/group/demo/index.en.html for a day.
> >
> > Does anyone have strong objections?
> >
> > Greetings, Stephan (after having talked to the sysadmins :)
>
> I don't think it's wise to cut people off from information about
> getting and downloading KDE.
>
> Turning KDE into a platform for political statements damages the
> confidence people can have in the software development and *support*
> effort.

Also, I am sure, at least one of the hundreds of KDE developers, not to 
mention the thousands of users, probably finds software patents far 
less objectionable than the original poster.

Is it right to offend them, by making this change?

No, I'm not suggesting a vote.
No, I'm not saying don't make the change for the day.

What I am saying is, please consider the fact that other people might 
disagree with you, and that you might be offending someone from within 
your own community.

KDE's general feeling towards software patents has long been shown in 
things like the hotspot on the webpage. I don't personally feel that it 
has anything else to gain (or offer) by making such a change for this 
one day.

Hmmm, and now I have written all that, IS this thread actually on-topic 
for kde-core-devel? I'm not totally sure it is, it would be much better 
to be on the -cafe, or maybe even on -policies.

Andy (going to try not to say anything else on the matter)

-- 
Andy Fawcett                                     | andy at athame.co.uk
                                                 | tap at kde.org
"In an open world without walls and fences,      | tap at lspace.org
  we wouldn't need Windows and Gates."  -- anon  | tap at fruitsalad.org