[Scale-planning] Free Software Representation at SCaLE

[Lei Zhang]

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 09:09:56PM -0800, Mark Holmquist wrote:
> > If you look at the mission statement on [1], the topic for SCALE is
> > Open Source software. We do not restrict ourselves to only Free
> > Software, nor do we give special consideration to Free Software.
> > SCALE tries to cater to everyone, thus there is a good mix of talks
> > about various aspects of Open Source software.
> 
> I definitely understand this portion--in fact, my suggestion is to
> involve *more* free software, and *not* restrict yourself to Open Source
> or, really, any specific ideal.

In my mind, Free Software is a strict subset of Open Source software,
so we do try to limit ourselves to only Open Source software. I have no
problem with Free Software and I would like to see more of it as well.

> > With regards to your claim that Tom Callaway's talk is the only Free
> > Software talk, I would like to point out Bradley Kuhn from the FSF gave
> > a talk as well. While you may feel Oracle projects are not "perfectly"
> > Free Software, as far as I am concerned, BTRFS is licensed under the
> > GPL, and thus equally as Free as any other software licensed under the
> > GPL.
> 
> True, but MySQL (which was the talk to which I referred, sorry for lack
> of clarity) is an example of software whose free-ness is suspect,
> especially where Oracle is involved!

Software where some parts are open source and some parts are not have
been a hotly debated topic. However, MySQL is a popular open source
database, for some definition of open source, and there is a lot of
interest in it.

I'm not sure what MySQL talk you are talking about, are you referring
to [3]? If so, it's not a talk about Oracle's MySQL, but rather all the
different forks of MySQL, some of which are GPL only, and all of which
exercised the GPL and forked Oracle's MySQL.

We also had a MySQL track on Friday, right next door to an equally long
PostgresSQL (Free Software) track next door. To me, that seems pretty
fair and not favoring one DB over the other.

> > Additionally, Debian probably have had a booth at SCALE every year, and
> > the FSF and SFLC have had booths at SCALE in past years.
> 
> Of this, I am also aware. Your language, though, suggests that this
> year, the latter two decided not to come? Perhaps that is another
> indication of the necessity of what I'm suggesting.

I did not see their booths this year. I'm not in charge of the booth,
but I doubt SCALE would tell the FSF they can't come. The more likely
reason is the FSF did not send people to man their booth this year.
One volunteer I know from the FSF was here, but that person no longer
works for the FSF.

> > If you feel Free Software is under-represented, please encourage Free
> > Software speakers to submit presentations for future SCALE events, and
> > for Free Software groups to apply for a booth at SCALE.
> 
> I will do my best, though my connection to other free software advocates
> is somewhat limited. My real suggestion, though I think I grasped at how
> to word it in my original message, is agnostic or at least all-inclusive
> terms in presentation titles and content, as well as on the website (in
> reference to your mission statement, certainly). That way, advocates of
> one side or another don't feel excluded, and the mission (which applies
> to all people on earth, via your link) is better served! Especially in
> the case where one side or another has important information, even if
> both are represented in equal terms __quantitatively__, it could be said
> that both are injured by feeling out-of-place in the other's
> presentations. Admittedly, this injury is by choice, but the flaming
> that occurs between OSS and FS is certainly not to be ignored.

Since I believe FS is a strict subset of OSS, I doubt "people in the OSS
camp" would be offended by FS.

SCALE is a great place to make personal connections. I also encourage
you to come and participate, rather than staying home because you did
not think there was enough FS material.

[3] https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale10x/presentations/mysql-diaspora