The Mono platform, upon which some parts of Gnome rely, is regarded by some as a patent minefield. There is too much Microsoft IP related to C# and the .NET framework (of which Mono is a partial implementation) for the GNU folks to feel comfortable.
The danger is that Microsoft has a long history of threatening companies that rely on free software that their products infringe a host of never disclosed patents. Novell, the single largest sponsor for Gnome, made an agreement with Microsoft that granted them immunity against patent lawsuits for their clients, but nobody else.
A couple months back they sued Tomtom for using that horrible kludge for supporting long file names on FAT. Microsoft patented this specific kludge.
The subset of C# used in Tomboy and F-Spot is considered "safe" by Mono developers and the FSF alike. Most arguments about "minefields" concern Microsoft-specific libraries, such as WinForms and ASP.NET, which GNOME won't touch with a 10-foot pole.
"Most arguments about "minefields" concern Microsoft-specific libraries, such as WinForms and ASP.NET, which GNOME won't touch with a 10-foot pole."
I am glad to hear that. The risk of Microsoft throwing a wrench on all this effort because some people can't resist being MS-compatible is too high. It's been a long time, if ever, since Microsoft was known for playing fair.
And if some parts won't be touched with a 10-foot pole, why are they there anyway?
I imagine that given the context, they are talking about Tomboy[1] and F-Spot[2]. These run on the Mono platform, which is an implementation of C#. It has patent issues, and RMS has recommended[3] that Free Software projects do not write code that relies on Mono.
No, F-Spot, Tomboy, and Mono are all free software using Stallman's definition. And Gnome does not bundle any proprietary software. The issue is about favourably mentioning non-free software, such as VmWare, on the Gnome blog aggregator.
The suggestion by someone for a split-from-GNU vote is a response to Stallman's email. In his email, Stallman says: (excerpt)
But GNOME is part of the GNU Project, and it ought to support the free software movement. The most minimal support for the free software movement is to refrain from going directly against it; that is, to avoid presenting proprietary software as legitimate.
To which Philip Van Hoof replied: (excerpt)
You, as one of the key FSF people, appear to be keen on enforcing a strict policy on how GNU's member-projects should behave. So ...
I propose to have a vote on GNOME's membership to the GNU project.
Thank you all for the explanations. But, basically rbanffy is right ?
According to that email and what I read here, they want to split just because GNOME promoted proprietary software on their blog ?
But there's one thing I still don't get. Even if they split, what's the big deal ?
It would send a message - that the developers of Gnome don't think being Stallman-like free is not a big deal.
If, however, they do entertain such toughts, I will start using the "free as in Stallman" fork that will, undoubtedly, become available the week following the inclusion of any not-very-free software and that will be maintained by many of the same developers who do it today, with a lot of common code between forks.
