Re: [Fwd: hggdh2 deactivated by matthew.revell]

[Scott Kitterman <scott@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Monday 25 February 2008 16:13, Cyrus Jones wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 11:36 PM, Martin Pool  wrote:
> >  (I'm a Canonical employee but this is my personal opinion.)
> >
> >  This team was previously much smaller, I believe, and treated as being
> >  under the kind of non-disclosure where you would normally want people
> >  signing under their real name.  Now the beta is rather more open and
> >  more about opting in for new features, so perhaps it's time to
> >  reassess that policy.
> >
> >  --
> >  Martin
>
> I believe I understand. However, I believe a non-disclosure policy is
> against the ethics of free software. NDA's are a major characteristic
> of non-free/proprietary software. And that is exactly what people like
> Richard Stallman are against. As Scott K said, "This kind of
> arbitrary, irrelevant requirement is quick typical in corporate
> proprietary development efforts.  I think the mistake people make
> sometimes with Launchpad is to believe it's anything else." Either
> Launchpad should revise this policy or it should not appear to be
> "anything else" than proprietary software and proprietary-like
> development. As Martin Pool said, the Launchbad testers has become
> more open, but I believe that the use of pseudonyms which are specific
> ideas should be acceptable. I see a lot of attempted clarification,
> but no one has clarified whether the use of pseudonyms, specifically
> when they establish an identity, are acceptable.
>
> An example as I stated previously: someone uses a pseudonym (looks
> like an ordinary name) throughout the Internet, web, and free software
> projects. The "fake name" is mentioned everywhere that person is
> involved or has made a contribution. The person's legal name is not
> mentioned at all on the web, at least not in any public area. In this
> sense, the pseudonym is more useful than the real name, and should be
> perfectly acceptable. The pseudonym is more of a person's real name on
> the Internet than that person's legal name. In fact, if such a case
> exists, the use of the pseudonym should be recommended over the
> person's legal name, which is irrelevant, unless one wants to get in
> legal matters, which is not free software development.
>
The deep irony here (IMO) is that in another Canonical sponsored project 
(Ubuntu) I'm a core-developer and I have effective root access to the 
computers of everyone running the current development release and there is no 
real name requirement there and here real name is a requirement to 
participate as a tester because of trust issues.

Scott K