Free Software Association

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Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Index

  1. Why another Job Site?
  2. How to subscribe to a job offer?
  3. Who can subscribe to a job offer?
  4. Who can post a job offer?
  5. Which criteria are applied to classify a program, language, protocol, specification, software distribution, etc. as Free or Non-Free Software?

  6. How is the Job Site module related to the GNU Herds' association?

  7. Who can join or register?
  8. Can I not be a member of the association because I am a member of a company?
  9. How many votes is a company able to obtain?
  10. A 100-worker company can get 100 voices, while my 3-worker company can have only 3 voices?
  11. Why voting membership is on a yearly basis?
  12. e-Voting

 

 

1. Why another Job Site?

Because no one comply the below proposed conditions:

  • Use a license to cover use of the software over a computer network. We are using the GNU AGPLv3 license. Anyhow, the project is always open to discuss this and any other subject.
  • Moreover, the management of the jobsite must be controlled by its own users using the democratic policy. That will be guaranteed by the GNU Herds association policy. So, being sure the evolution of the jobsite will be controlled and led by its users.
  • Supplying support to engage among companies and persons, it doesn't matter the which or the order, helping the raise of a diversity of business models. That is flexibility.
  • Make it easy the contacts among persons and companies interested in Free Software business.
  • Having a global scope, supporting business models based on long-distance jobs. With future technologies the localisation must not be an obstacle to establish relationships about IT services. So, the goal, already got, to translate the webapp to other languages, and to support the fact that a job offer could be inserted in several languages.

All this taking into account that: "The aims of the Association shall be to assist and encourage people in their paid work as Free Software authors, getting the highest levels of competence and efficiency."

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2. How to subscribe to a job offer?

Note that some offers could allow to subscribe only to some entity types: Persons, Companies or non-profit Organizations.

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3. Who can subscribe to a job offer?

Persons, Companies or non-profit Organizations that have met the conditions imposed by the Qualifications form. That is to say, who has been able to fill it rightly.

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4. Who can post a job offer?

Any Person, Company or non-profit Organization meeting the conditions imposed by the JobOffer form and whose offer fits one of the following requirements:

  • Development or maintenance of software for distribution to the public, if all the software to be developed or maintained is Free Software.
  • Writing or maintenance of documentation for software, if all the software to be documented is Free Software, and all the documentation to be written or maintained is free in the same sense.
  • Development or maintenance of software for private use by specific clients, if the clients will have the source code and rights to modify and distribute it, and if the software to be used for the development is all Free Software.
  • Providing support of software, if all the software to be supported is Free Software.
  • Promotion or marketing of software, if all the software to be promoted and/or marketed is Free Software.
  • Installation of software, if all the software to be installed is Free Software.

Report to association@gnuherds.org about any offer that seems improper.

It is recommended provide the more information possible.

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5. Which criteria are applied to classify a program, language, protocol, specification, software distribution, etc. as Free or Non-Free Software?

  • For a program, read the Free Software definition to know the criteria.
  • For development languages, protocols, specifications, etc. the meaningful question is whether it is supported by software licensed under any of the Free Software Licenses: BSD, GPL, etc. Can you use it with Free Software exclusively?
  • For software distributions, they must not recommend, promote or grant legitimacy to Non-Free Software.

 

Currently, the tags applyed to classify skills are:

  • Free Software
  • Almost-Free Software, only for software distributions.
  • Partially-Free Software, only for software distributions.
  • Non-Free Software

 

For example, applying such criteria to Java:

  • The Java technology-skill is tagged as Free Software due to there are free software Java compilers.

However the below Sun Java technologies are tagged as Non-Free Software because of the license you have to agree to download them is not a Free Software license. Anyhow, most of the Java Sun technologies are GPL'd. Sun has made substantial progress towards freeing the JDK under the GPL. The IcedTea project is filling in the gaps.

  • Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE)
  • Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE)
  • Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME)
  • Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE)
  • Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE)
  • Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME)

 

Applying it to .NET:

  • Microsoft .NET is tagged as Non-Free Software.
  • Mono .NET is a set of tools under GPL, LGPL and MIT, or dual licenses. It is tagged as Free Software.
  • .NET is tagged as Non-Free Software because of the Mono tools are not 100% complete. Mono does not cover all .NET
  • C# is tagged as Free Software due to there are free software C# compilers.

 

Applying it to some software distributions:

  • Debian GNU/Linux is Almost-Free Software because it contains Non-Free Software BLOBs in its kernel.
  • Debian GNU/Hurd is Free Software because it does not ship anything that is Non-Free Software.
  • Debian GNU/NetBSD is not classified yet.
  • Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is not classified yet.
  • Debian is Almost-Free Software. Debian is a general term which refer to Debian GNU/Linux and all Debian ports. The Debian project offers the download of some Non-Free Software packages from its archives and website.
  • Ubuntu is Partially-Free Software because it is made of many programs; some are free and some are not.
  • gNewSense is Free Software because it does not ship anything that is Non-Free Software neither work to provide easy access to Non-Free Software. A Non-Free Software BLOB not removed from gNewSense is a bug. The gNewSense's policy is to delete any non-free software found in the Linux kernel or elsewhere in the GNU/Linux system.
  • OpenBSD is Almost-Free Software because although it does not ship anything that is Non-Free Software it provides for easy installation of Non-Free Software through the ports system. Not many packages though: Java and a few others.
  • FreeBSD and NetBSD are Almost-Free Software because provide for easy installation of some Non-Free Software products through the ports system. Besides both contain Non-Free Software BLOBs in its kernel too.
  • Mac OS X is tagged as Non-Free Software.
  • Microsoft Windows Vista is tagged as Non-Free Software.

Note that not all BLOBs are Non-Free Software, because BLOBs can be data (not compiled source code) licensed under a Free Software license. However, we need to verify that it really is data, because the non-free object code is typically dressed up as data.

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6. How is the Job Site module related to the GNU Herds' association?

The Job Site module is controlled by the association. Any new module will be controlled by the association too.

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7. Who can join or register?

Any entity type can join the association or just register into the web application and use its services. Showing a Free Software contribution is not a requirement to register or join. It is just a requirement to be able to vote at the association.

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8. Can I not be a member of the association because I am a member of a company?

You can. You can be in any case an "associate member" or a "voting member".

The association's Charter reads: "There shall be two kinds of members, voting members, to be known simply as a member, and non-voting members, to be known as an associate member."

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9. How many votes is a company able to obtain?

A company could be able to get:

  • only one vote as 'company' and
  • any number of votes as 'people' (their workers), all having individually contributed to free software.

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10. A 100-worker company can get 100 voices, while my 3-worker company can have only 3 voices?

The company gets 100 voting-voices only if each one of its workers has individually contributed to the free software community, and each one of its workers take the personal decision to join and vote at the association.

The association's Charter reads: "To qualify for voting membership one must show a contribution to the Free Software movement."

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11. Why voting membership is on a yearly basis?

Not doing it so could make it impossible to dissolve the association due to making all turnout figures low. The membership renew process is automated to reduce bureaucracy.

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12. e-Voting

Initially, GNU Herds' members can vote showing their hands, sending an email.

 

The GNU Herds' official voting mechanism is not intented to:

  • be used as a country voting system.
  • be used as the FS community voting system. The FS community does not need a voting system. As Barry Fitzgerald exposes: "Free Software embodies democracy in an anarchistic, classical democracy kind of way. The freedom of the community is itself the force of democracy".

The GNU Herds' official voting mechanism is only intented to:

  • be used as voting system to this Association. The voting mechanism must be used as a tool to keep GNU Herds moving in the right direction, helping members guide the board members. It can also be used to get opinions about ideas, etc.: binding vote, opinion vote.

See references to documentation.

 

Options:

There are several projects which try to solve the e-Voting trouble. The goal of each project can be different. Some of them has modified its aims or are stalled:

  • GNU.FREE: The development has been discontinued due to "creating an Internet Voting system sufficiently secure, reliable and anonymous is extremely difficult, if not impossible".
  • Glasnot. It seems to support the Condorcet method and even "a mix of secret and public ballots".
  • demexp
  • Some free GNU/Linux distributions use it own voting system.
  • AMPU. Stalled since March 2002.
  • Voting Systems Toolbox. It is dormant.
  • GVI. It is interested in exploring alternative voting methods.
  • EVM. It is too young to have released any useful code.
  • eVACS. It has already been used in at least one election for the Legislative Assembly in the Australian Capitol Territory in October 2001 and is approved for use in future elections.
  • JFreeVote. It is a already implemented, working solution for electronic voting.

 

References to documentation:

  • Voting System Requirements. A 16 page nontechnical paper, on 16 requirements that a voting system "must" meet. Read it to know a bit more about efforts underway at coming up with secure voting (and what may constitute a definition of secure voting). Consider in particular the requirement that anonimity be maintained.
  • We want remark:
        Lorrie Faith Cranor
        Caltech
        Electronic Voting
    Note that all those systems are country voting oriented.

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Please send any feedback to association@gnuherds.org. For example, you may send reports of technical problems such as broken links, bad page rendering, etc. We would also welcome any criticisms or suggestions. GNU Herds works for you!