Standblog - Commentaires

Mozilla awards grants to six international non-profit organizations - Janet Swisher

Janet Swisher — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:01:33 +0100

That Mozilla Grants page is indeed very outdated, giving no indication that any grants were made in 2011, and no clue how to apply for grants. What was the application and review process for the grants that were just made? Will these grants be announced anywhere besides at FOSDEM and on this blog? More transparency, please.

Mozilla awards grants to six international non-profit organizations - Tristan

Tristan — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:56:13 +0100

@Hellix (comment #3): the organizations are international 5 ( in Europe, 1 in the states), but the grants are focused on Europe, since the PCF money is to enable their Universal Subtitles program to focus on Europe.

Mozilla awards grants to six international non-profit organizations - hellix

hellix — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:29:02 +0100

Then the title is misleading. Is it international or european?? but the sixth one is in the States....

Mozilla awards grants to six international non-profit organizations - Tristan

Tristan — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:48:47 +0100

Gage: This round of grants is indeed focused on Europe. Event the PCF grant is to enable them to do more things in Europe. So yes, this is 100% Europe-centric. This does not mean that we do not care about similar organizations in other parts of the world, it's just that this time we wanted to focus on Europe.

Mozilla awards grants to six international non-profit organizations - Gage

Gage — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:24:22 +0100

On 6 prizes granted, 5 are granted to european organizations and one is granted to an US-based organization. Is free software more active in Europe ?

This photograph is free - Cédric G.

Cédric G. — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:14:43 +0100

Bonjour

Tout d'abord mes excuses pour mon intervention en français, je ne souhaite pas froisser les anglophones avec mon niveau d'anglais misérable...

Je suis (je pense ) le photographe animalier dont Marie-Aude parle dans l'une de ses interventions.

Pour ma part, la photographie ne représente qu'une partie de mes revenus, ayant d'autres activités à côté qui me permettraient de vivre sans la photo (même si cette dernière représente un tiers de mes revenus). Je précise par ailleurs que travaillant dans l'informatique, il m'arrive régulièrement de contribuer à des programmes Open Source et à partager mes compétences au travers de mes blogs, faire des interventions gratuites, et partager également au travers des diverses communautés auxquelles je m'identifie. Bref !

Ce n'est pas pour autant que je donne mes photos, car le fait de gagner sa vie ailleurs est pour moi un argument tout simplement irrecevable : il s'agit d'abord de RESPECT envers celles et ceux qui vivent d'un métier, certes devenu difficile du fait d'une "concurrence" virtuelle de plus en plus forte mais aussi et surtout de pratiques de bas étage liées d'une part à l'apparition des microstocks, et d'autre part aux mauvaises habitudes encensées par toute une frange de la population utilisatrice de ressources photographiques : vol caractérisé, réutilisation sans autorisation, non citation de l'identité de l'auteur, j'en passe et des meilleures...

Il est également illusoire d'affirmer que la valeur d'une photo revient à prendre le coût d'acquisition du matériel et des logiciels, et de le diviser par le nombre de photos réalisées : c'est un raisonnement un peu trop simpliste ! Quid du temps passé à réaliser la photographie, à retraiter les fichiers, les trier, les indexer, les préparer pour les rediffuser ??? Quid des coûts liés aux déplacements parfois nombreux et nécessaires, au temps passé dans les réglages ?

En photographie animalière par exemple, la réalisation d'une photographie peut demander des semaines de préparation, voire des mois puisque les conditions étant liées aux saisons, on peut vouloir réaliser tel ou tel cliché à tel endroit dans telles conditions de lumière et/ou de météorologie, avec telle espèce que l'on va amener à un emplacement précis, avec une attitude précise... Sans garantir de pouvoir rassembler toutes les hypothèses désirées !

J'ai des amis qui ont réalisé un reportage sur les busards cendrés au nid, qui a demandé 3 années de préparation, afin de s'assurer qu'ils ne représentaient aucun dérangement pouvant mettre en danger les couvées.

Cela demande un savoir-faire, une expertise technique (et pas seulement photographique d'ailleurs !) qui donne aux clichés réalisés une valeur autrement plus élevée qu'une simple division "coût du matériel / nombre de photos réalisées" ! Dans le prix de la photographie, on trouve donc un part liée à la compétence technique, et pas seulement quelques basiques notions d'amortissement de matériel.

Du coup, votre raisonnement peut peut-être s'appliquer à un cliché fait lors d'une promenade dans Paris où vous avez eu la chance d'avoir des conditions idéales, mais ne peut CERTAINEMENT PAS être généralisé à l'ensemble des photographes (ou alors vous avez une vision très étriquée de ce qu'est le métier de la photographie !)

This photograph is free - copain

copain — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:40:03 +0100

Salutations.

Totalement hors sujet mais je n'ai pas trouvé d'autre moyen de contact.

Serait-il possible de modifier l'apparence des liens dans les billets. Étant daltonien, je suis obligé de parcourir le texte à la souris pour détecter un lien (mais l'indication de langue m'aide un peu quand même) et j'ai du utiliser firebug pour voir que les liens étaient marrons.

Un soulignement serait parfait.

Quelques liens qui argumentent sûrement bien mieux que moi :
http://www.ideose.eu/documents-acce...
http://forum.alsacreations.com/topi...
http://www.la-grange.net/w3c/wcag1/...
http://checklists.opquast.com/11/cr...

This photograph is free - Jean

Jean — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:53:37 +0100

@ Marc

« Il ya encore des cas où l'argent n'a pas de droits sur l’homme. »

Vous me faites rire. Comme si Flickr n’était pas une pompe à fric. Vous vous imaginez que c'est développé pour les (beaux) yeux des internautes ? Cela dit je suis respectueux du droit d’auteur qui est un droit de l’homme, et pour moi chacun est libre de faire cadeau de ses œuvres. Mais je m’oppose à ce qu’on oblige.

This photograph is free - Jean

Jean — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:40:37 +0100

@ Tristan

Tristan, #24 question is about now days: “what do you do for a living? How about giving *that* away ‘for free’ too”, and your answer for now days too is: “I do work on a little piece of software that is being given for free”, omitting the fact that you are paid by the foundation. IMHO your answer is not fair.

This photograph is free - Marie-Aude

Marie-Aude — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:32:51 +0100

@eleg #47 actually, I'm not a public writer (and I'm not in France neither, though I work mainly in French). And you were not offensive at all. The only point I intended to stress is that ones must not confuse a function or a job, or a profession, however you want to call it, its circumstances.

If you consider a public writer as someone writing for illiterate people, yes, the profession is disappearing. If you consider a public writer as someone writing texts for other people who are not able to write as well as he does, just think about the huge number of people writing texts for SEO, and reconsider the disappearance.

That's just the same for photographer.

The other point is that many of my fellow photographers complain about the cheap competition of "friends, cousins and so on" for weddings (amidst other occasions), but they have a strong tendancy to forget that a lot of people who take the cousin and give him a few buckets would never have paid a professional photographer, because they could not afford it. Or just for a shot outside the church.

This photograph is free - Tristan

Tristan — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:33:07 +0100

@Jean (Comment #53) : when I took this photo (January 2005), I was unemployed and working as an unpaid volunteer for Mozilla. I was laid off in July 2003 by AOL/Netscape and hired by Mozilla in April 2005.

The fact is that now that my job is taking most of my time I have significantly less time to contribute to Wikimedia Commons...

This photograph is free - Marc

Marc — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:39:53 +0100

Sharing is caring... Elles sont jolies tes photos Tristan. Et puis quand je vais sur Flickr je ne m'arrette pas aux tiennes... Je voyage dans le monde de ceux qui partagent leur photos. Et j'y ai trouvé de belles choses. Donc oui le partage ouvre un chemin sur le monde de l'humain. D'ailleurs je crois que ce qui n'est pas partagé est perdu. Je partage aussi mes photos et, si je ne suis pas sûr qu'elle soit appréciées (je veux dire réussie) l'intention y est. Il ya encore des cas où l'argent n'a pas de droits sur l'homme. C'est une bonne chose. Je crois...

This photograph is free - Jean

Jean — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:16:55 +0100

Dishonesty in comment #47 from Tristan:

“Actually, I do work on a little piece of software that is being given for free. you may have heard of it. You may even have it on your computer. It's called ‘Mozilla Firefox’.”

Perhaps are you working on the software but you're comfortably paid by the foundation as chairman of Mozilla Europe! If I were in a same wealthy social situation I could give a lot…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trista...

This photograph is free - eleg

eleg — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:16:51 +0100

@Marie-Aude #47
There's *400* official "public writers" in France now (source: Wikipedia): only the most talented survived! (and you are one of them: bingo!) ;-]
More seriously, I didn’t mean that your job isn't useful or interesting. Only that it is /less/ useful in some everyday activities, as far less people are illiterate than during the Middle Age. Most people needn't now a "public writer" to announce their wedding to their over-sea's family, or that some relative has died. That's all. I intended by no mean being offensive.
And I think it is/will be the same for pro photographers. Quite everybody use now a photo booth (FR photomaton) for their ID card or passport. Or free (beautiful) photos for their website. But I don’t worry at all about “Studio Harcourt” life expectancy!

This photograph is free - Sven

Sven — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:11:04 +0100

I didn't read all the comments above, so sorry if I'm repeating something here.

The problem with nobody making a living from photography (or any art for that matter) is that it means nobody can dedicate their entire time and life to the art, due to having to have another "real" job to make money. Yes, we may find more talented people, but none of those people are able to completely immerse themselves in the art and develop their talent to their fullest. We get quantity, but lose quality.

Unless we count the lucky few who, from the start, do not have to worry about money in the first place. If that is the case, then this whole "democritization" of art turns into its polar opposite, the "aristocratization" of art.

This photograph is free - Bob

Bob — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:57:27 +0100

There's some kind of darwinism in this post and its update I don't like much. Everybody should have the opportunity to practice the job he likes the most. Of course you need talent to make a living out of your job, but if you never get the chance to start working it will just never happen. Egg and chicken. Not everybody have a rich father, high incomes, access to higher education and it's quite unfair these people being in competition with ones who have it all on the market.

With the "all is free on the internets" trend, while it's damn cool at first glance, I must admit that it involves a few stincky consequences for the not so rich/well born/naturally skilled/strong of us, which somewhat defeats one of the purpose of internet.

Though I don't have any solution, not even a suggestion, so I can't definitely make my mind on this topic.

This photograph is free - John Mueller

John Mueller — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:46:01 +0100

Hey Tristan,

This is John, the photographer and author of the photo you referenced here.

I've argued this point with many people, who might be taking what I wrote a little too literal. My point was that everything has a value. Whether it be a photo, the written word, a though, property, or anything. But it's also relative to the situation.

Yeah, my rant was sparked by a buddy of mine here at work who also shoots. A local magazine contacted him asking to use one of his photos for an editorial spot. They said they would give him credit which would up his exposure. We looked them up and they are part of a conglomorate of about 30 different wealth-oriented, fine-living magazines FILLED with ads. He replied to them stating this fact and they said back to him that they shouldn't have to pay for using him image because they could just give him credit and that he'd get exposure. if not, they would just find someone else on Flickr who would donate their image. Telling me all this made me wordsmith a little rant, and it kinda got picked up. Again it's not about me, it's about the value of our skill and art. We don't have any sort of organization backing us up like the recording and movie industry does. We're on our own.

I've heard lots of stories and anologies inspired by what I wrote. And some people do take what I wrote a little too literally. The point I was trying to make is that just because it's digital, doesn't mean it's free, or has no value.

Lets say a student wants to use one of my photos for a term paper. Obviously the student isn't making any money, and even if he steals it, it only benefits him. Now lets say... Sony wants one of my photos, and their intent is to use it to market a new technology product, potentially selling millions of units and profiting the company greatly. At this point the photo is worth something and the person furnishing it should be compensated for it. Both are extreme examples.

Now like you, I've donated a lot of time and photos to Wikimedia. I was contacted by them back in 2007 while they were first being setup to cover some red carpet events in Hollywood, so I went down there, photographed hundreds of celebrities and uploaded it right away to help get their Media off-shoot a little start. Free. I asked nothing in return because it felt good to give back. At my local church I have photographed plenty of weddings, maternity, newborn and family sessions for free. I also photograph things for my local community and park & rec... free. But what it comes down to is that is it MY choice to donate my time, talent and resources, not anyone elses. And to assume otherwise is wrong.

This photograph is free - Marie-Aude

Marie-Aude — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:43:06 +0100

I'm not sure your answer is really accurate, Tristan.

What you are doing for a living is "managing and communicating", and you are not giving that away for free. Unless your payslip amounts to zero ?

This photograph is free - Marie-Aude

Marie-Aude — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:08:33 +0100

I'm very sorry to inform Eleg that you still have a lot of "public writers" making money nowadays. Either for private purpose, either for people who want to have their memories written and published... either for filling websites, etc.

As always, as for photo... you have to see what the "job" is really, and not define a public writer as someone who stands in a shopwindow with a quill and ink.

That's not the point of this post, but I start to be fed up with people who say a profession will die just because they don't want to pay.

This photograph is free - Tristan

Tristan — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:36:46 +0100

In response to comment #24 who writes "So Tristan, what do you do for a living? How about giving *that* away "for free" too"

Sounds like a very cool idea. Actually, I do work on a little piece of software that is being given for free. you may have heard of it. You may even have it on your computer. It's called "Mozilla Firefox". I hope you enjoy it. If you don't you should give it a try.