The GNU ethical repository criteria

In the title: "GNU ethical repository criteria."

> To call it "ethics score", or even "'ethics' score", is your own device.
>
> What they have published is a list of criteria against which to judge code-hosting services. Services which meet such criteria are considered ethical (by the FSF, the GNU project, and anyone else agreeing).
>
> They never claim this to be a ruler (or "score", as you say) with which to measure how much or less ethical a service is.

It assigns a grade letter and potential "extra credit" to any repository hosting site evaluated using it. How is that not a score?

> It appears twice in the FSF's announcement: in the body of the article it, again, very clearly refers to the services in evaluation. The other one is in the title and the usage here may be ambiguous. But you did read the actual criteria listing, right? You quoted from it, so you must have.

Indeed, ethics is about the services being evaluated.

However, though all this back-and-forth, and still no one has explained why a service like GitLab using the term "GNU/Linux" has anything to do with giving them an "A" for the ethics of their software or service. (And, yes, I've read the RMS essay on the necessity of "GNU/Linux." It argues the term's use for advocacy purposes and doesn't mention "ethics" at all.)

> So you cannot be confused about it.
> [...]
> By now your writing is starting to strike me as disingenuous.

Please drop the sarcasm and ad hominem attacks. They don't really help the discussion.

> It seems to me that you're construing your own narrative, making it pass for the FSF's, then criticising it.

There's no narrative here, just a documented titled to be ethical criteria that includes other FSF goals that have nothing to do with ethics. I don't appreciate an organization implying that certain things are less ethical (by assigning a lower letter grade) for such silly reasons. It really undermines the authority of the document.

> What's ethical or not is the service.

Of course, but I don't see why a service can only earn an "A" by meeting other FSF goals (promoting "GNU/Linux" terminology and promoting the FSF's licenses). It'd be like an HTTPS/TLS testing tool only giving a site an "A" if you use their preferred certificate authority.

> Furthermore, nowhere do they claim these criteria to be a "canon" or "standard". It says very clearly (in both web sites) that they were developed by the GNU project *directed at the GNU project*, and *recommended for anyone else*. How did you miss that?

I didn't miss anything, but enough with the ad hominems.

First, the document includes criteria that would be irrelevant to hosting a GNU project. Why does it matter what licenses a site recommends if every GNU project is already required to use GNU licenses? Clearly, some of the criteria -- like that one -- were written only with consideration of non-GNU projects using the hosting service. So, use by other external projects is more than just an afterthought.

Second, the FSF (and RMS in particular) have routinely portrayed their ethics as canon, at least in the major essays. In "Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software" [1], Stallman claims that using FSF terminology is essential because, "If you want to stand up for freedom, using a neutral term isn't the way." That's not really leaving much room for difference of opinion. The message is clear (via modus tollens of the quote): if I don't follow the FSF's terminology guidance, I don't stand up for freedom, at least for software. In general, FSF ethics have not shown moral relativism, and I don't see why these criteria would be different.

Finally, saying an ethical system doesn't insist on being canon is, perhaps, the weakest possible defense because it doesn't defend the value or integrity of the system, just that there's the option to defect.

> So, although the initiative is based in ethical principles (as everything the FSF does and was well explained by Karellen) why can't they include their own suggestions, guidelines, directives, opinions? If you ask me, I'll tell you that all the published criteria align very well with the FSF's ethical leitmotiv anyway.

Because it reduces the authority -- and thus usefulness -- of the document. I *want* criteria like these to point to, but I don't feel like some of the requirements are actually germane to software freedom. Nor can I create my own, modified version without those items, given the CC-BY-ND license on it.

When I read the last steps (to achieve an "A"), and they require using "GNU/Linux" and promoting the GPLv3+, I feel like I'm reading a recipe from Kraft that tells me the final step is to add Velveeta(R) cheese. I feel sold-to. We live in a cynical world, and selling a fresh helping of your own brand as part of a document cheapens the entire document.

Years ago, I worked with SETI to release their signal-analysis software under a free software license. I argued for them to not put it on GitHub because that service is proprietary. I don't feel like the FSF's full set of criteria would have helped me make the case better. And now -- here on LWN -- I'm trying to explain why.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-poin...