fsf gets money from google?
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https://www.fsf.org/patrons
google pays fsf money? It is not the best if fsf accepts money from google when fsf calls much of google's software surveillance software.
> It is not the best if fsf accepts money from google
Why? The patrons page states very clearly: "The FSF does not endorse the activities of its patrons."
The FSF is a non-profit organization, legally required to do what it was founded for. It is therefore entirely incorruptible. Donations from Google cannot sway the FSF's actions.
Disclaimer, I am in no way badmouthing the FSF here. I'm just addressing one of your points because there is logical error to it.
You write: The FSF is a non-profit organization, legally required to do what it was founded for. It is therefore entirely incorruptible.
That is completely false. Non-profits and charities are absolutely corruptible and happens all of the time. Let me explain just one way in which it's prevalent.
Imagine you want to bribe a congressman to vote a certain way. How do you do it? You cannot just go to their office with a suitcase full of money and trade money for votes. So, what do you do? Well, it just so happens that the congressman's spouse is the head of a charity. Maybe the charity drills wells in Africa or protects birds in the Amazon. It doesn't matter. So you donate large sums of money to this charity, and low and behold it just so happens that the administration of the charity gets very, very large salaries. Now the congressman's spouse has just brought in a ton of money for the family and it looks clean as a whistle to outsiders.
Why do you think so many charities are based in Washington D.C.
There are myriads of ways that charities and non-profits are corruptible.
Please explain how Google giving money to the FSF could cause the FSF to do something against the interest of its own mission, and get away with it. I don't see it.
You can't just assert that a non-profit organization is similar to a politician. Politicians are individuals, often psychopaths, trying to hold positions in office. Non-profit organizations are organizations that have certain legal requirements on them to invest their resources into doing the job they were founded to do.
Again, I wasn't directing any ire towards the FSF. I was merely challenging your assertion that since they are a non-profit and legally bound to their stated mission that they are incorruptible. Nothing humans do is incorruptible.
I'm sure that the FSF is doing great things with the money that they are receiving from Google.
That being said, it *is* possible that the money donated could influence the direction of the FSF. There are many dragons to slay. Far more than the FSF has the time or resources to fight. And if one of those dragons happens to be something Google related, Google may threaten to stop funding the FSF if the FSF tried to slay it. Now the FSF would have a choice to make. Should the FSF ignore the Google dragon and spend the time and resources instead on going after other dragons? Or should it go after the Google dragon and possibly have to lay off 20% of the employees of the FSF as a result?
Now, I don't know how much Google donates. I don't care. I'm not arguing here that any of this is happening. I'm merely highlighting a very common example of the tough decisions that people have to make when money is involved. It's the same thing with media. Media organizations are funded by advertising. The media does expose`s on corrupt companies. Should the media organization expose the wrong doings on the company that buys their advertising or go after other companies?
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-donations or anti-advertising or anti-non-profits or anti-charities. I'm just saying that claiming that the FSF is incorruptible is false.
>Now, I don't know how much Google donates.<
The page the OP linked to says "patron at $50,000". Like I said, such a small donation (from a company this size) amounts to peanuts and thus is more or less symbolic.
FSF a charity? Charities are more often than not for tax evasion. Besides, Google is only buying face and making merit. In the past influential people paid to the church to ease their conscience and absolve sins. This is the modern variety.
Please visit the page I linked below and stop propagating FUD.
I wasn't consciously spreading FUD. I didn't know FSF was considered a charity. Must be my understanding of English lacking in this respect. I thought it was a non-profit. I checked and they seem to be synonyms. Charities have a bad name.
I have utmost confidence in FSF. Even if I think lowly of the word charity.
I'm sorry about the misunderstanding.
"Charity" and "nonprofit" are not synonymous in the United States (at least). A charity is non-profit but the reverse is not true. The FSF is a charity, a 501(c)(3) organization. It must work in the interest of the public. The Linux foundation I was taking in comparison is a trade association, a 501(c)(6) organization. It is nonprofit as well but it must work in the interest of the affiliated companies.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501%28c%29_organization for more information.
I stand corrected. Maybe I was thinking of foundations. Anyway, never mind that part. I clearly have no clue. Thanks for the heads-up.
Google giving to charity what amounts to peanuts is a symbolic gesture indicative of what? They have a heart? Lip service?
The FSF accepts money. Not orders. It works for the public interest. It is a charity (not a trade association like the "Linux Foundation"). And an excellent one organization-wise: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=8557
"The FSF accepts money. Not orders."
Wouldn't all political parties argue the same way?
And yet the gouvernmental decisions are heavily influenced by big companies.
name at domain, Dom 01 Mai 2016 21:26:19 CEST:
> "The FSF accepts money. Not orders."
>
> Wouldn't all political parties argue the same way?
> And yet the gouvernmental decisions are heavily influenced by big companies.
The alternative would be to start a blacklist of people and
companies not to accept money from... that way looks really grim to
me. So far I trust FSF enough to continue doing the right thing
regardless of who supplies the money. Only if FSF would start acting
strangely, and there was case for suspecting influence of patrons,
would I consider changing my mind.
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Ignacio Agulló · name at domain
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"The alternative would be to start a blacklist of people and
companies not to accept money from... that way looks really grim to
me."
If the interest of said company is clearly contrary to the actual goal of your charity organization, it may not be a bad idea to blacklist them.
On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with taking money from third parties that support you for a good and obvious reason.
I see the problem though; the loss of money would be huge. I don't know how to make up for this, so maybe the ideal behaviour is just not realistic at the moment.
Besides it's a good thing that the fsf is listing the patrons in public.
It would be very well visible if they'd be influenced too much, so they really can't let that happen. Maybe good enough.
The good part about this is that the nature of free software makes it easy to detect abuse.
For example, say RMS is corrupted by Google and tries to alter the definition of free software. RMS isn't the final word. Free software is free because of the nature of software, not because RMS's definition says so.
Also, say the FSF develops free software that abuses it's users. Say it sends data to Google. By definition you can audit the source code of all free software so it wouldn't take long before someone noticed the abuse and modified the code.
So while the FSF is possibly corruptible, it's also dealing in a product that is, by its nature, one of the most transparent on the planet.
>It is not the best if fsf accepts money from google...
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Actually It's very exciting! Look at it this way: you receive Google's and Big Blue's money and use it against their unjust proprietary softwares and business model.
Payments can corrupt. They can create dependencies and influence decisions. Is there a threshold in terms of what payments are unacceptable? Should fsf accept money that likely was made on software which is contrary to fsf policies? Saying it is not a matter, is ignorance. I think google payments are unacceptable payments. Why google pays does not matter. I think they pay, because they can profit from free software. If payments clearly source from pieces of software which are contrary to fsf stance, fsf should not accept them.
> I think they pay, because they can profit from free software.
Of course they profit from free software. They are using their own gnu+linux distro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu android and Chrome OS contains free software; and also their servers runs on gnu+linux and that's fine. Remember the freedom 0 the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
>Payments can corrupt.
yes they can but the solution is not prohibiting FSF from accepting Google's donations.
the problem is FSF and any other nonprofits operates by humans and humans make mistakes and may corrupt. If you prohibit FSF from receiving Googles money and they want to be naughty! I'm sure they would find a money laundering solution. well, actually I guess nonprofits have no obligation to disclose donors identities. but as Ignacio.Agullo said >So far I trust FSF enough to continue doing the right thing...Only if FSF would start acting strangely...I consider changing my mind.
name at domain wrote:
> google pays fsf money? It is not the best if fsf accepts money from google
> when fsf calls much of google's software surveillance software.
I wonder what how you figure that it's not the best; typically when I
consider, say, a politician's views I will research where they get their
campaign money, their voting record, and their political activity (books,
essays, speeches, etc.). I often learn that their political opinions or
voting record corresponds very well to where they get their campaign money
thus suggesting their positions are being influenced by the money.
But taking this view requires identifying both positions/votes that go with
donations as well as a funding connection. It's not enough to list an
organization I don't trust and then not trust any donation made by that
organization.
Therefore I have to wonder which FSF decisions do you believe are
influenced by Google's donations?
Rehashing what others are saying, the FSF doesn't endorse Google's actions (and continues to criticise them), so I don't see an issue.
Anyone notice a lot of conspiracy-like non-issues springing up lately?
Yeah. I wonder, has a recent influx of people come from a conspiracy theorist background of some sort? Then again, it could just be a coincidence.
I am a translator!
>Religion is about explaining the mysteries of the world and giving people comfort in hard times.
Actually, from my studies I think the definition had a lot more to do with practical rules of a society and the practical behaviors people must follow to live in a society. Religions have actually always had very little to do with the unknown, the divine, the celestial, etc..What they do deal with is not in the sky but on earth.
What you are talking about stands **only** for primitive, ancient religions, the religion that existed **before** society.
and the "US Government" gives money to Tor.
I don't see an issue here except for the fact that I imagine there are people at Google that like the FSF - that's certainly not impossible.
If Google is donating money to the FSF without strings attached, then one needs to decide whether to accept tainted money. Recipients cannot help being influenced by their donors, and to think otherwise is quixotic.
If, however, the money is a payment from Google for FSF's allowing it to embed its tracking links in FSF's web pages, then shame on the FSF for allowing Google to spy upon the FSF's patrons.
Can anyone tell me which is the case?
Paul
There is no such thing as a "tracking link". Hotlinked images only enable tracking as a side effect of what hotlinking is: to load the image, you need to contact whatever server has the image, and that server needs to send you the image. So obviously, that server needs to know your IP address, and since images are typically loaded automatically, the server is presumably also going to know when the page was loaded.
The FSF is using images hosted on its own servers, not hotlinking them from other places. You can tell just by looking at the page source or by using Inspect Element.
name at domain wrote:
> If Google is donating money to the FSF without strings attached, then one
> needs to decide whether to accept tainted money. Recipients cannot help
> being influenced by their donors, and to think otherwise is quixotic.
What precisely is the evidence that says the FSF is doing something that
gives us reason to believe Google's donations are objectionable?
> Can anyone tell me which is the case?
Absent evidence, which is the objector's responsibility to identify, neither.
This thread is becoming full of FUD.
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Ignacio Agulló · name at domain
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Becoming? It was FUD from the get-go.
I am a member!
"Recipients cannot help being influenced by their donors"
You are trying to compare this issue with campaign reform and similar corruption issues. But there are at least two big differences: ease of impeachment, and number of issues.
It is easier for politicians to break their promises to the people once they are elected, because they know that it is very hard to be impeached. Also, everybody knows--people and politicians--that there are many issues representing many different groups of people. Some issues will receive greater emphasis than others, it is unavoidable. They can break promises on some issues, and offend some people and not others. This makes these politician's vulnerable to bribery.
By contrast, it is impossible for the FSF to break its promise to its people since there is only a single issue shared by everybody. Also, even if they did break their promise, the members can reject them immediately ('impeach' them) and join, or form, another organization.
In other words, any deviation from its single issue will be obvious and they would be universally censured. It is like getting a drop of tomato sauce on a pure white t-shirt--you can't miss it. If you have a complex t-shirt, with lots of colors and patterns, it is easier to hide a tiny stain.
But you are right about one thing, the FSF is doing some things for its donors:
https://www.fsf.org/patrons/benefits
I asked fsf.
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Subject google aspatronage.
Can I get fsf'spolicy on this?
Money can smell. Canmoney smell that much, that you should not receive
it?
Fsf resents howgoogle generates money by surveillance and selling the
gatheredinformation. How does fsf explain that it is acceptable to
receivegoogle funds?
Fsf answered.
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Thanks for your concern. You will note at the top of
https://fsf.org/patrons that we don't endorse the activities of our
patrons. Additionally, benefits for FSF patrons are very limited: we
don't give companies who donate to us anything in exchange other than an
appropriate level of public thanks - you can read all of the things we
offer in exchange for patronage here https://www.fsf.org/patrons/benefits.
The FSF is a charity. No charity would survive if we audited where all
donated money comes from. Members who are employed by Google, Microsoft,
and other companies give us a lot of money, as well. We need resources
in order to change the world -- when we accept funding from a patron, we
believe we are turning that funding in to good actions. When a patron
gives us money, we know that money is not being reinvested in the
company's other work.
We do have to be careful not to become dependent on funding from sources
that also do things opposed to our work. But Google donates less than 5%
of our budget, so if they get upset at something
we do and take away their funding, we will not suffer too badly
financially. Most of our funding comes from individuals, and we are very
glad about that.
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I continue to think, that google money smells to much and fsf should not receive it. It could be a matter of culture. Some posts here are alike and maybe written by americans. Could be americans have lower standards about smelly money.
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