Re: Policy on software used to create desktop theme?
On Wed, 2016-10-26 at 16:06 +0200, Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> Juliette's contributions are high quality contributions, placed under
> Free Licenses.
Nobody is arguing that. But there must be room to the question if we can
progress a little further after so many years of development and great
tools at our disposal.
Many talented artists do high quality design work with free software. We
don't need to preach water and drink wine.
> She even went as far as describing why she's using the tools she's
> using ...
I expect most of us could tell similar stories.
> (Great job at welcoming both real life feedback, and at welcoming
> newcomers and new contributors, by the way.)
Well, if Juliette still does feel like a newcomer after winning the
desktop design contest a second time, then something else must have went
very wrong.
And being considerate isn't the same as trying to suppress every
critical thought.
> Should we ban every contribution built on setups using: ...
Well, in many cases this in fact might be a good idea. (It surely would
have been nonsense twenty years ago. But what was true then doesn't have
to be true now.) Besides, you are comparing practically invisible
details from insanely many packages with something that is put out as
the representation for all of it.
It might be hard to ensure nothing ever is created using non-free tools
in normal packages. But nobody has suggested to test everything for
traces which might hint the use of proprietary tools. We only propose to
ask designers to submit layouts they have created with free software.
(Maybe some might try to trick us but this is not the point. By asking
to use free software only we acknowledge the fact that we can expect
good results from work done with free tools.)
> Entirely worthless.
I strongly disagree. If we want free software to be taken serious in the
professional field too, we need to overcome such practices. We can't
convincingly on one hand argue that free software enables us to do
everything we need to be done and (unnecessarily) use non-free tools at
the same time ourselves. This is like teaching children to clean up but
not doing it ourselves. This can't work. Such behaviour rightfully can
be described as hypocrisy. (We tell others to switch to free software
but we ourselves do use it only when it's convenient?)
Once more: This is not meant as attack against people doing their first
steps. I am happy for everyone moving away from limiting tools and
systems. (I myself started from being taught to use only Adobe.) But at
the same time I wouldn't deliberately ask novices to represent the work
of my department in a crowd of (often hostile) professionals trying to
defend their anti-social excluding ways. This can't lead to a good
outcome - especially if the novices don't follow our code. In the best
case they can illustrate a good will. But I want them to represent the
practice. And without actually doing it, this is impossible.
Your argument places social considerations over the free software issues
itself. In my eyes this turns sensible priorities for the Debian project
upside down: The project is mainly about free software and cares only in
addition to that about social inclusion. Don't get me wrong: I think
it's good to act socially responsible. But if somebody asks me to step
down from my main objective to reach the second objective, then I will
refuse. (I know the whole point of free software is not technical, but
ethical. Nevertheless, you can't take a stand for free software by using
something else. This is just not convincing.)
In future I don't want to put the result of proprietary tools in our
showcase in an attempt to represent the work of the free software
community. This is just not necessary any more. It was probably
different back when the Debian logo was created. But this isn't true
today. As professional designers we are not dependent on non-free tools
any more.
At least the people who are representing our ideas can be asked to work
only with what the free software world has to offer. Nobody forces
anyone to make proposals. But we can (and should) ask artists to only
submit work created with free software. Only this way we can truly argue
that we do not depend on proprietary tools. There is no need for a
compromise any more. We should consciously celebrate this achievement.
Best,
Onsemeliot
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