Politics, Linux, and Blog Planets

October 1, 2007 | Posted in Linux, OSS, Politics, Software:, Tech, ubuntu | Comments: 6

There are lots of open source projects out in the wild, that have their own blog planets. A planet, is essential a collection of blogs, usually of people involved in the same project. Gnome is a windowing environment for Linux, and other Unix like operating systems. Gnome’s founder, Miguel de Icaza, had a lot of clout and respect in Linux circles, until he decided to waste the last 7 years or so of his life reverse engineering Micrsoft’s Java and Flash clones.

Miguel has some pretty extreme political views, most of which I agree with if I happen to catch them, but they piss off a lot of people because he continually posts his political blogs on Gnome planet. This brings up an interesting question, should people be posting politically charged content in software blog planets?

My view is simple, I go to Planet Gnome to read about the latest developments on Gnome. I don’t care about Miguel De Icaza’s view that Israel has an unjust influence on US foreign policy, even if I totally agree with it. If I care about someone’s political opinion, I will take the time to visit their blog directly. I go to Planet Gnome to read about Gnome, and laugh at whatever Microsoft product Miguel is porting now.

  • iain

    “My view is simple, I go to Planet Gnome to read about the latest developments on Gnome.”

    I think we’ve found the source of any problem…Your view is invalid as thats not what planet gnome was EVER for. If you want to read about the latest gnome news you might want gnomedesktop.org or planet.gnome.org/news

  • http://linuxreview.net/blog/ Brad C.

    I couldn’t agree more. This has annoyed me for a very long time. My only wish would be that they used some sort of tagging system to filter out unwanted content on the various planets and try to keep the content relevant to whatever planet I am following.

  • http://alexvalentine.org asv

    Iain,

    I never said MY view == the rationale for Gnome planet. I’m simply stating why I visit Gnome Planet. I’m interested in software, not reading about Software Developer’s opinions on the Middle East.

  • http://blondechris.com Chris Cunningham

    I’m interested in software, not reading about Software Developer’s opinions on the Middle East

    And? The content has always been like this. I don’t understand what’s so technically difficult about just using Google Reader or a desktop aggregator instead of going to Plent and kvetching that it doesn’t do what you want it to.

    – Chris

  • http://lpetr.org/blog/ Leo Petr

    Indeed. I think that feeds that go to planets should only contain on-topic stuff. I run http://planetDB2.com/, and I’d really prefer not seeing personal/political stuff in there. I’d even describe such things as unprofessional, though that word applies less to free software blogs.

    Myself, I keep my programming blogging and my personal/political blogging as separate as possible.

  • iain

    “I never said MY view == the rationale for Gnome planet. I’m simply stating why I visit Gnome Planet. I’m interested in software, not reading about Software Developer’s opinions on the Middle East.”

    And thats why you’re getting annoyed and upset. Your view of what planet is for is not the same as what planet is actually for. The problem is not with Planet, the problem is with your use of it. For a bad analogy it’d be like me going to the corner shop to buy bread and complaining they also sold washing powder.

    @Leo: Thats your planet, you can set the rules/guidelines for what is included on it. Planet GNOME has an anything you want policy, as it is an insight into people’s lives. I like that people are taking Jeff’s planet idea and turning it on its head and then saying what the original planet should be like.