Kindly, I don't get it :) the NSA approaching lgm seems as likely as Santa approaching it. We already accepted Google sponsorship. With adobe doing more and more libre web stuff, they could be a sponsor this year. I don't see a difference between the two on this issue. <div class="gmail_quote">On 1 Jan 2014 12:59, "Gregory Pittman" <<a href="mailto:gpittman@iglou.com">gpittman@iglou.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> Happy New Year! I would like to offer this email as a consideration of a mindset or strategy for LGM in the future. It's not a suggestion to abandon any of the cherished principles of FOSS, but mainly some ideas about how to interact with the proprietary or non-FOSS world out there. In short, I think we should endeavor to embrace (figuratively) the non-FOSS world out there. It's not going to go away, and its relative success is largely out of our control. A starting point might be to make sure we don't have some attitude that suggests "you're either with us or against us." People don't have to either stick with their proprietary software or switch to FOSS, they can use both -- some are compelled to. Even within the FOSS world, things are Darwinian -- you succeed as long as you give people what they want/need, and you can be replaced by some other FOSS project that does a better job. Thus, there is no taint on help, financial or otherwise, that comes from some non-FOSS entity. But we accept help from whatever quarter, as we accept any help, without any "deals" or contracts or preferences. We are going to scrutinize any display of some corporate entity's identity to ensure that it is not construed as an endorsement. Google, for example, has done a lot for open source, but mainly has done a lot for Google. A worst case scenario in 2014 might be for the NSA to approach us as a sponsor (talk about looking the devil in the face!). Even then, let's be realistic, we don't have anything someone can steal, we've already given it away! This isn't intended to apply to anything specific on the agenda right now, but I mainly meant this as something to consider as we look for resources, for help, for acknowledgment of what we do. Greg _______________________________________________ Libre-graphics-meeting mailing list <a href="mailto:Libre-graphics-meeting@lists.freedesktop.org">Libre-graphics-meeting@lists.freedesktop.org</a> <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libre-graphics-meeting" target="_blank">http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libre-graphics-meeting</a> </blockquote></div>