I am deeply touched by what is happening over there. I feel disgust and guilt with us passively witnessing it and our money and weapons supporting it. I spend a lot of time working and giving away, sharing and receiving to and from a lot of people.
I hope for these people to be able to live decently in the future and for me not to have anything to do with the misery they’re in at the moment.
I don’t want any money or help coming from people who support the actions of the Israeli government.
Thank you for your understanding. This is very important to me.
29 comments:
Do you still not want support for Mint from supporters of Israel's government?
I think the situation is a tad more complicated than that. There are criminals on both sides, but one side tends to be more effective at its crime than another. That being said, considering the difference in magnitude, it is understandable (though wrong) that people condemn one and not the other.
There are two wars going on. On the surface, it is a war between Israel and Palestine. Beneath that, it is a war between the sane factions and the radical factions on either side, in which the radical factions are currently winning.
Very very courageous position Clement
Hi Jim,
If I supported terrorists would you accept me to help you, to finance you and to interact with you?
Both sides in this conflict use terror as a weapon and one is significantly more empowered to reach a solution to the problem than the other one.
It's a moral stand point. You see a lot of people all over the globe complain about China, Russia, and take individual actions to dissociate themselves from them. I don't agree with what Israel is doing and although they're forced to take action and defend themselves I don't believe they have their back against the wall without any other possible alternative.
So people when joining shoulder to shoulder with other people in making this operating system better and better you suddenly realise some of them are actively supporting this, you need to let them know how you feel.
I feel genuinely right about doing this. I've always been very transparent about what I thought and what I wanted. I didn't handle it well and it should have been done here, not on the team's blog, but I still think this is the right call for me.
Bottom line is, if you think something is not right, you should do something about it. A lot of people left this distribution for the exact same reason. They don't want to be associated with my philosophy. We're not on the same page and so why should we join our forces and work together on something which in comparison to this conflict isn't as important?
I can work twice as hard and make this a successful project even with less resources but if I loose my passion, if I can't be myself and people appreciate me without understanding who I am, then I'll get nowhere.
I am troubled right now about this and I need to clear the air and put some distance between me and the people who are going to make it continue. Then I'll feel better about myself and the people around me, and I'll be able to focus fully on what we want to do together.
I hope that makes sense.
Very well, if you don't want support originated in Israel, please remove all FOSS originated in Israel:
1. RTL support from Mint (Hebrew, Arabic, and Thai), since most of that work was done by Israelis.
2. Intel firmware, starting with wi-fi, since it was developed in Israel. You'd do better to remove anything Intel related, including X.org, since who knows what team worked on what.
3. PHP, since it was created by Zend, an Israeli company.
4. Krusader, started by Israeli developers.
5. LKVM - developed by Qumranet, an Israeli company.
6. Hebrew specific stuff: hspell, hocr, culmus fonts, Latex bidi support, freebidi, geresh, etc.
Thanks your for cooperation.
Source:
http://www.shlomifish.org/open-source/resources/israel/list-of-projects/
Notes:
1. By the way, Waltz with Bashir is an Israeli movie.
2. There very existence of a Palestinian People is debatable, since the Palestinian nationality defined itself as opposition to Zionism, and as such, a reactionary movement, rather than self defined:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_nationalism
3. The current state of Gaza (or Hamastan), is the direct result of the armed coup of Hamas against legal Palestinian government, and their choice to engage in armed conflict with Israel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_coup_(2007)
I don't intend to bring any modifications to Linux Mint. As I said before I won't enforce my opinion on others, I'm just happy to let them know what I think.
The movie is a very good one, and if it comes from Israel, then it's a very good Israeli movie. Congrats to the film makers.
For points 2 and 3, I don't see us agreeing on any of this.
Clem--
I'm really not criticizing your point of view or asking you to defend it to me.
Due to the fact that you explicitly asked people who disagreed with you not to use Mint, that means your opinion is not really separable from the distribution.
And it's not clear to me if you're backing off the statement that those that disagree with you should not use Mint or standing firm on that. Your comments could be read in more than one way.
So feel free to have any opinion you want. Just tell me explicitly: Is it your desire that people who support the Israeli government in a way that is counter to your views NOT use Linux Mint?
I'm not judging you, I just want the answer so that I know what I should do.
Thanks,
--Jim
As for points 2 and 3 - I've attached a references from a source that is more or less accepted as reliable and neutral.
The conclusions are depends on interpretation.
Reference for point 1:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltz_with_Bashir
As for my opinion of the movie - it was quite good, except in the ending, where Folman made a cheap literary jump, wrapped everything in the Holocaust basket, and ran away giggling. That was annoying and disappointing, and he could have done better.
Well, imagine what happens if Steve Jobs would "just say people how he fills" about the Israeli-Palastine conflict.
You can't do that, And more importantly - you can't involve Linux Mint in it.
I already downloaded Ubuntu 9.04, and I will reinstall in tomorrow [Cuz in kinda late here in Israel].
The problem I have with people like you, is you judging us before you even know how it feels.
You wrote that our back isn't against the wall, you think there is some other option for us - so please tell me.
Everything we tried over the years got burned, mostly because of Palestine, we can't trust their word cuz they will stub us in the back, and they did it several times.
All we do is to protect ourselves, every response is measured, and we wouldn't sit quietly while they are bombing out cities and kill out citizens.
If you watch the news you see that they are the initiators of the attack, not us.
This land is ours - Jews And Muslims, We are actually brothers if you read the Bible - They lived here so many years and did nothing with the land - we came here and built home cuz it's our land too, THEY STARTED TO FIGHT OVER IT INSTEAD JUST LIVE IN PEACE.
They bombed our night clubs and buses,
only because we are stronger means we not allowed to protect out selves?
You all remember the Holocaust, and say that we do the same thing to Palestine's, but in isn't true, we only protect out selves, we have this right.
As a IDF Soldier, I can assure you, that any military action performed in order to protect Israel goes through a lot of thinking and performed for minimum innocent casualties.. but of course they attack you surrounded with children and woman.
I really can't understand you all, think there is a better solution for it? tell me about that.
The only solution possible is disarm them from weapon, and talk - but they would cuz they brain washed since age 1.
Clem, to say that I'm profoundly disappointed in your total lack of discretion in making this issue a political football to be booted around on this forum would be a gross understatement. What were you thinking? I hope you understand after reading these responses that nothing positive will come out of you using Linux Mint as a soapbox for your political views, and that the net affect is the unnecessary alienation of many Linux Mint users. This was not a smart thing to do.
I can appreciate the passion you might feel on the issue but this simply is not the place to air out those thoughts. Besides, both the Israli and the Palestinians are culpable. What am I to think when I hear of Palestinian militants launching rockets from populated neighborhoods knowing full well their actions were endangering many innocent Palestinians, and Israel responding in an equally uncaring way toward those innocents by dropping a 2000 lb bomb on the militants when a 200 pounder would do the job? Who's right? Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass about your politics, only your distro. It's a good one and I will continue to use it.
Actually, Israel is not is a better position to stop it, as they are stuck in a catch-22.
Even if Hamas did not exist, and it was in fact false-flag operators launching attacks from within Palestine, the response would be the same. Bomb Palestine.
It's the least-worst option from their point of view, surrounded by nations who are actively pursuing Nuclear weapons and sworn to wipe them from the face of the earth.
Terrorism fueled by religious conviction is the most dangerous kind, and there is no good way with a happy ending to stamp it out. You should seriously go to the Middle East and get some experience and first-hand wisdom behind your state protected opinions, because while you are there you will find out what it's like to be at the mercy of mob mentality. There, you have no rights, you have no protection, and you might find that for all it's flaws your own nation is really not that bad.
Where you get off saying Israel has some "responsibility" to handle the situation differently is wish-thinking; when you get attacked, you fire back. Platitudes and half-measures aren't going to work against zealots. You should read the Koran if you want to know their "side" of the story, I can guarantee you wont like what you find.
You are siding with the terrorists because you think Israel should just suck it up and be the "bigger man" and do what exactly? Give up? Let in a flood of Muslims so they can be bred out of existence and lose their national identity? Be bombed without reprisal?
There is no good answer. If the Palestinians are being used as meat shields, they should move. If they are really not attacking Israel, they should prevent people from firing rockets.
Why does the Palestinian conflict bother you more than say...ethnic cleansing in Africa? Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka?
The Palestinians have not held up their side of the bargain in any of the agreements Israel has made with them. They tried talking. They gave them land and tried ignoring them. They have done due diligence, and still receive rocket fire.
This is a holy war on the part of the Muslims, and if you think it's not then you really need to visit the middle east. The Palestinians are pawns in a power struggle that you better HOPE Israel wins. Because once Israel goes down, they will be emboldened, and they will spread, and they will go country by country until they get their world-wide caliphate.
And we will be slaves, or dead. Don't let a few weeping mothers fool you into thinking that the ultimate goal of Islam is anything different than world domination by Bearded Ignoramuses.
PS: If you visit Palestine, I hope you make it back without ending up on a Youtube video getting your head removed by one of "god's warriors".
Ok, that's reasonable enough. Let me answer in a few points:
- I don't have the power to force people into not using Mint. If they want to use it, they will. It's free and freely re-distributable and there are no conditions associated with it.
- I like it to be that way and I don't intend to change it. Mint is important, people even more, freedom even more. This is important and it goes beyond disagreements.
- The idea that what I do directly or indirectly contributes to the events in Israel troubles me. I don't like to think of it.
The real problem isn't to have people agreeing with anything as a condition to use a product, it's to have the feeling that what I do indirectly helps the conflict, or people who help it themselves.
Sorry, my answer above was for Jim.
ztomer: Actually I meant to ask you. I heard the role played by Ariel Sharon in the movie was far from being accurate. How so? And if he played a role in these events, what was it?
@ ztomer
BTW, claiming that most of RTL support were/is done by Israelis is unsupported claim, for example GNU FriBiDi though originally written by Dov Grobgeld (Israeli) has long been maintained by Behdad Esfahbod (Iranian, which is somehow ironic). Pango, which is the foundation of i18n support in GTK+2 has been developed by Owen Taylor with help of many others and now maintained by Behdad too. Various patches and bug reports regarding RTL support in GTK, Qt, Gnome, KDE has been done by too many people; Arabs, Iranians, Pakistani, Israeli and people who don't even speak any RTL-written language natively and I don't dare to say that most of them are Israelis (or any other nationality for that matter), not to mention that nobody can tell about the political stance of any of those people yet to consider using or not using their work based on it.
That said, I can see Clem here trying to loudly separate himself from a certain group of people that support what he considers an inhumanly act against fellow humans. Though I don't usually let may ideological or religious stance get in the way of my technical work, I can understand his point and I've got that feeling before.
Clem--
I don't know if your comment at 4:17 is in response to me, but it really doesn't answer my question.
I understand that Mint is free and you can't force people to stop using it. I know you're troubled to think you might be supporting or being supported by those who disagree with you on the Israeli government.
My question is whether it is YOUR explicit DESIRE that people who hold a different view of the Israeli government's role in the Palestinian issue NOT use Mint.
Again, I'm pretty libertarian, so I respect your right to desire anything you want. I just want to make sure I understand you.
Please just tell me directly. I won't jump on you, I will just do what you tell me you desire.
Thanks.
--Jim
Udi: We definitely don't see the same things on TV. About being back against the wall, if you can't find a solution to this problem, why not involve the UN into taking action? Is this considered acceptable in Israel, by the people, the media? Do you see this problem as an internal one? How do you perceive the ingerence of the international community in this conflict?
I think its sad that you had to move this to a private blog. Such is the nature of the world at present.
Thomas: Well that's precisely why this was moved here. If you don't care about my opinions and only about the distribution, read the Mint blog, not this one. I will re-iterate my promise not do this mistake again and not to confuse personal topics with those of the team and the distribution.
@Clem
If you don't want to contribute to the conflict (especially one side of it), you can add a clause to your license agreement barring us Israelis and our supporters from using Mint.
You can even associate this exception with the Mint trademark, and as such, you won't break the various free software licenses (IANAL, works for Redhat in a different scenario).
Clem says:
"I will re-iterate my promise not do this mistake again and not to confuse personal topics with those of the team and the distribution"
However you asked people who disagreed with your political view to NOT use Mint.
Therefore, your political views and Mint are now linked.
The only way to decouple them is to explicitly retract that statement (and probably apologize).
--Jim
Martin: You seem to confuse Arabs, Islam, and terrorism. These are very different concepts. If you're talking about Palestinian fighters, then you should call them Palestinian fighters. Anyway, I'll go straight to what interests me most in your comments: What solution do you see to this conflict?
The UN was involved once, it didn't got to anywhere, it is highly acceptable to involve the whole world in this conflict, because every action we perform we think about how the world will react.
The thing is, the Media affects too much on worlds opinion, the Palestine's are great PR people, and they act very differently when a camera is on then the real life.
you know that there was a time it the past, when they throw rocks on israeli soldiers and we won't allowed to scare them off [not kill them or attack]?
they would send their little children to throw rocks on Israeli soldiers and record it?
and when the Israeli soldier scares the little kid off they edit the video and make it look very much different.
IF ONLY YOU SEE THE THING ISRAELI SEE HERE.
Especially those 18yr old boys that defend their country.
IDF = Israeli Defense Force. Israel don't want to conquer any land, only defend it self.
The UN was involved, in didn't led to anything. The UN itself can't manage to control Palestine's.
And It's highly acceptable to involve the whole world in this conflict, Because it the world that judges us about the action we perform.
The thing is, Palestines are amazing good PR people.
When the camera is on, they all so much different then in the real life.
There was a time when they throw rocks on IDF soldiers, and we couldn't make them stop. we won't allowed to. They would put a camera, and shoot how a little kid throws rock on IDF soldier, and all what Palestines show in their videos is how in the end the soldier scares the little kid, not harming him at all.
They show you and act like they are really weak and poor.. well actually they are really poor cuz all the many goes to weaponry, but remember that when they see a camera around - they act like it, like we are the bad guys, and we harm them intentionally.
Every single time when Israel responses to their attack its being taken into account what the world would think?
Oh and BTW, you can find several videos from the last Op in Gaza that show you how dirty and double-face they are, using little children as shields.
Is that justified somehow?
I really don't care you taking their side, but you should really know all the facts,
and you can easily search the internet for both sides videos and info.
There is some interesting video where Hamas Crashes a wedding party, and ruins the place and shoots some people.. it only proofs that not all the Palestinians are bad, some of them pro-israel, cuz they know what is better to the world, and who is really the problematic in this conflict.
Another interesting fact, my mome works in a hospital, and there is several families from Gaza who's kids are badly sick, those families won't go back to Gaza - they hate the life there and prefer to live in Israel.
@clem
In short: According to the Israeli Commission of Inquiry Ariel Sharon, as defense minister, had an executive responsibility for results of Sabra and Shatila massacre, since it should have been reasonable to expect the acts of The Christian Phalangists.
The movie implies that he either actively condoned or passively allowed for the massacre, which is not factually correct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila#Kahan_commission_report
If I'm allowed to answer for Udi:
From Israeli POV:
1. 2001, start of rocket attacks from Gaza to Israel. [1]
2. in 2006, Israel unilaterally and completely pulled out of Gaza, removed all roadblocks, and cleared all settlements in the Gaza area, pulling back to 1967 lines. [2]
Crossing to Israel remains open under the Oslo (and later) accords.
3. in 2007, Hamas pulls a military coup, ousting the Fatah-Hamas coalition government.
Palestine is now two separate entities.
Hamas refuses to acknowledge existing agreements, following its charter, calls for the destruction of Israel [3] [4].
Israel closes border crossings (to Israel).
4. Hamastan intensifies its rocket attacks on Israel, border towns in pre-67 Israel empties, major economic impact, and continuous calls for action from locals.
[5]
note: the low casualty rate was mainly from heavily fortifying the border towns, maintaining alert systems, and vacating the towns. Terror tactics act on the psychological and economical attrition factors rather than direct physical damage, and on that account, there where successful.
5. Israel calls to Hamastan to stop aggression, multiple times. Hamastan openly mocks warnings, invites Israeli army to do its worst [6].
6. Operation cast Lead, Israel attacks Gaza, Hamas dances on the blood and cries for help, concurrently.
[7]
From our POV, we did everything thinkable and unthinkable to avoid armed confrontation, up to neglecting our own citizens in favor of relative calm.
references:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qassam_rocket
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%27s_unilateral_disengagement_plan_of_2004
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_civil_skirmishes
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Hamas_Charter
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rocket_and_mortar_attacks_in_Israel_in_2001_through_2007
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rocket_and_mortar_attacks_in_Israel_in_2008
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932009_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict
Jim: I think I answered that already. I don't particularly care. I said what I had to say, that made some people live and I'm quite happy about that. This is enough for me, people know where I sit and some already dissociated themselves from me. I had to do it, it's done and I'm going back to working on Mint. What people do now is their call entirely.
omns: Well, I think it was my mistake in the first place to consider the blog suitable for my personal opinions. Mint isn't just me anymore and for me to come and say things like that and hurt the project in the team's name without the team knowing about it.. that was irrespective of their involvement and I feel like this was a huge mistake. So I'm happy this was moved here and I apologized to the other members.
ztomer (about the licensing): I don't like clauses, I don't like licenses, restrictions, conditions and when it comes to Israeli I have nothing against them in particular. You're talking about using intellectual property to implement segregation? That concept would almost make me sick.. that's not understanding me at all.
ztomer (about the facts on Ariel Sharon): Many thanks for this.
Closing on the comments. There's a release coming soon and really can't take any more time to read and moderate that amount of feedback.
If you have any questions or additional comments for me in regards to this please send them by email, but give me some time, it might take me a while to answer them.
Thanks for all the opinions and for the feedback you've given to me.
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