Asking the FSF for comments

Posted Dec 23, 2012 6:29 UTC (Sun) by ferringb (subscriber, #20752)
In reply to: Asking the FSF for comments by corbet
Parent article: GnuTLS, copyright assignment, and GNU project governance

Just to be clear on this: we stopped asking the FSF for comments many years ago because the FSF refused to talk to us without prior promises from us on what we would say and which terms we would use. We are unwilling to make such promises. If the FSF's policy on such things has changed, we would be pleased to know about it. Good freaking $DEITY that's just fricking wrong, and not at all matching what the FSF is supposed to be about (or represents themselves as). While I'd like to believe their requirements there were just so that they could try enforcing 'gnu/linux' (which is @!#*ing retarded and overreaching), their general behaviour makes me think it was beyond that. Echoing what others have said, this frankly is a shame- FSF's goals are good and what most folk agree with, but the implementation? In need of a major refactoring in my books.

Asking the FSF for comments

Posted Dec 23, 2012 6:30 UTC (Sun) by ferringb (subscriber, #20752) [Link]

Related note, paying attention to the comment preview would've made that formatting far less attrocious. *cough*.

Asking the FSF for comments

Posted Dec 23, 2012 9:38 UTC (Sun) by jae (guest, #2369) [Link] (5 responses)

GNU/Linux is overreaching?

Do you have a non-GNU Linux system? Remove GNU coreutils, and then boot your system. Fun, innit?

It may be replacable, but it isn't being replaced.

As to the retarded part... only retards call others retarded.

Asking the FSF for comments

Posted Dec 23, 2012 10:23 UTC (Sun) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]

No, but "we are unwilling to talk to you about this matter unless you agree beforehand to use our preferred words" is.

Asking the FSF for comments

Posted Dec 23, 2012 11:37 UTC (Sun) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

What on earth does coreutils have to do with the grandparent's post?

Asking the FSF for comments

Posted Dec 23, 2012 11:40 UTC (Sun) by rleigh (guest, #14622) [Link]

It is overreaching. I have no problems with the FSF/GNU using such terminology, that's their perogative. I use it myself. But to require other parties to use their terminology is certainly overreaching.

I've read time and time again people (mainly RMS) harp on and on about this point to others, quite often to the detriment of the real subject of discussion. That is to say that by obsessing over this minor point of terminology the discussion was sidetracked into irrelevance, and the actual important discussion was forgotten. This does not help the FSF/GNU in any meaningful way. Forcing others to adopt their terminology does not advance their real goal of software freedom.

Asking the FSF for comments

Posted Dec 31, 2012 21:32 UTC (Mon) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link] (1 responses)

> Do you have a non-GNU Linux system? Remove GNU coreutils, and then boot your system. Fun, innit?

I do. http://android.com

Whether this is better or worse than GNU/Linux is a pretty open question and a good conversation for friends over beers. :)

Asking the FSF for comments

Posted Sep 23, 2013 1:19 UTC (Mon) by deepfire (guest, #26138) [Link]

How is the openness of Android going for you lately?