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Controversy Arises Over SPI Project, Fighting With Elementary OS
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I would give Elementary OS my support, but the latest "Explicitly pay $0 for free software" controversy that erupted over Reddit, and the blog post from Elementary OS that "explained" it, reeks to me of a GPL violation. I'm going to avoid them until they had a lawyer go through every package's licence to see if they can really get away with what they're doing.
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Originally posted by CTown View PostThe only part that reflects bad on SPI is the aggressive sales pitch claimed by one of the elementary members (but to be fair to SPI there doesn't seem to be recorded proof of this).
What is known is that at 2015-Feb-12, 00:49:07, Daniel For? wrote on Google+, "But I basically said, 'Okay thanks, I'm not sure I'm interested but if you want to continue in email that would be great?' and his response was, 'no what I'm going to do is go blog about how poor your product is'." And on 2015-Feb-12, 18:26:00, Joshua Drake published his blog entry about the "Machiavellian" elementary OS.
Regardless of whom you are inclined to believe, something must have been communicated during the call regarding upcoming blog coverage.
Ultimately this will neither affect SPI nor elementary OS, and all parties involved will continue not looking beyond their own viewpoints. This is just melodrama for people to overreact about. At least this article wasn't systemd clickbait.
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Originally posted by eidolon View PostTo be be fair to Daniel For? of elementary OS, most people aren't in the habit of recording their telephone conversations <insert NSA joke>.
What is known is that at 2015-Feb-12, 00:49:07, Daniel For? wrote on Google+, "But I basically said, 'Okay thanks, I'm not sure I'm interested but if you want to continue in email that would be great?' and his response was, 'no what I'm going to do is go blog about how poor your product is'." And on 2015-Feb-12, 18:26:00, Joshua Drake published his blog entry about the "Machiavellian" elementary OS.
Regardless of whom you are inclined to believe, something must have been communicated during the call regarding upcoming blog coverage.
Ultimately this will neither affect SPI nor elementary OS, and all parties involved will continue not looking beyond their own viewpoints. This is just melodrama for people to overreact about. At least this article wasn't systemd clickbait.
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Originally posted by kenjitamura View PostThe guys blog really doesn't trash Elementary OS.
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Originally posted by curaga View PostThanks asdfblah for the imgur cap, the removed blog post wasn't in Google, archive.org nor Bing caches any more.
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Originally posted by deanjo View Post
- If I go to LibreOffice site and initiate download, I'm getting file I've requested FIRST and ONLY THEN mentioned donation page appears. At this point download already progresses and donation is obviously optional. At very least, this implementation does not breaks users expectations.
- Elementary requires payment BEFORE download starts, which is "a bit" different. While it is not illegal, it is quite strange to yell "100% free" first and then be so aggressive in demanding donation. This is somewhat fraudulent attitude and there is mismatch of expectations, which would hardly lead to good reputation. So in SPI shoes I would rather not to deal with these half-scammers. Who knows what they will invent next time? I wouldn't be surprised if they'll pre-install some adware/spyware/malware next time and argue you can uninstall it.
Extra bonus: you have attempted to fool me, don't you? You linked to donation page itself, it does not starts download, only asks for donation. This looks weird, sure. However, if I revisit download area from LO site, download starts right before this page appears. So, nice try. I'm surely able to test "typical" download use case scenario. I'm not sure if it was hotlinking protection or just wrong copy-paste from you, but whatever: you've attempted to give me false impression. I'm sorry to inform you but it failed. I do not see anything wrong in asking for donation itself after download started. Yelling about "100% free" and then placing hard to bypass payment page is really different story in terms of users expctations mismatch.
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Originally posted by SystemCrasher View PostThere is "little" difference...
- If I go to LibreOffice site and initiate download, I'm getting file I've requested FIRST and ONLY THEN mentioned donation page appears. At this point download already progresses and donation is obviously optional. At very least, this implementation does not breaks users expectations.
- Elementary requires payment BEFORE download starts, which is "a bit" different. While it is not illegal, it is quite strange to yell "100% free" first and then be so aggressive in demanding donation. This is somewhat fraudulent attitude and there is mismatch of expectations, which would hardly lead to good reputation. So in SPI shoes I would rather not to deal with these half-scammers. Who knows what they will invent next time? I wouldn't be surprised if they'll pre-install some adware/spyware/malware next time and argue you can uninstall it.
Extra bonus: you have attempted to fool me, don't you? You linked to donation page itself, it does not starts download, only asks for donation. This looks weird, sure. However, if I revisit download area from LO site, download starts right before this page appears. So, nice try. I'm surely able to test "typical" download use case scenario. I'm not sure if it was hotlinking protection or just wrong copy-paste from you, but whatever: you've attempted to give me false impression. I'm sorry to inform you but it failed. I do not see anything wrong in asking for donation itself after download started. Yelling about "100% free" and then placing hard to bypass payment page is really different story in terms of users expctations mismatch.
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Originally posted by jimbohale View PostHow are they AT ALL being aggressive IN ANY WAY? They are saying that you should pay for their software, which if you can afford it you should but if you can't then you can still use it.
Second, as far as I understand, it is donation. Yet, aggressively enforced donation looks strange enough.
Third, they yell its "100% free". Which looks really ironic granted their methods.
Basically it looks like hidden attempt to sell copies of SW while yelling its "100% free" and overall it sounds like questionable and fraudulent way of doing things. I guess it's not completely illegal, but they can't expect to get good reputation this way.
It's not like they've changed a couple strings, they've written their own window manager, their own dock, their own desktop ffs.
What you guys don't understand is how important ElementaryOS is in converting non-Linux users.
Nobody else has been able to pull it off as well. It is the only Linux distribution my parents can use without any assistance from me.
You do not have to use the terminal if you don't want to, and it's just overall great.
GNOME is frustrating by default and customizing it is annoying from the end-user's perspective, and so is Unity. eOS pulls everything off SO well. Ubuntu couldn't do it, Fedora couldn't do it, Linux Mint couldn't do it.
eOS did and with flying colors, because they understand non-techy end users and that is EXTREMELY important if you want Linux to become mainstream.
They have to make money to exist, and simply emphasizing that you should pay for it if you use it is just not bad in any way. I'm just so disappointed at all of you. There will never be a day where everything is free and good.Last edited by SystemCrasher; 15 February 2015, 03:33 AM.
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