Who controls glibc? [LWN.net]

Who controls glibc?

Posted May 8, 2018 3:53 UTC (Tue) by interalia (subscriber, #26615)
In reply to: Who controls glibc? by spacemachine
Parent article: Who controls glibc?

Maybe it depends how we define "control" in this situation. No doubt the FSF has ultimate power to appoint and replace maintainers of GNU projects, but does Stallman have sole power to do this on the FSF's behalf?

Even if he does, it would be interesting to know the political ramifications of doing so. For example, the Queen of Australia (a title held by the Queen of the United Kingdom) appoints and replaces our governor-general. Formally she has the complete power to do so, but de facto she does so only on the advice of Australia's Prime Minister, and it would be a constitutional/international incident if she "interfered" by declining to follow our PM's advice. So in practice she does not have control of who Australia's governor-general is.

Stallman may or may not formally be in control of GNU libc, but is he willing to replace all its maintainers in order to keep this one line?

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Who controls glibc?

Posted May 9, 2018 4:05 UTC (Wed) by lxoliva (guest, #40702) [Link]

I don't get why the FSF is even brought up here. The FSF doesn't control GNU any more than GNU controls the FSF. One is an independent incorporated foundation, the other is an operating system, and an independent non-incorporated operating system development project. Richard founded and presides the FSF, and he's also founder and leader of GNU (Chief GNUisance), and he's also the founder of the Free Software movement, and more.

Saying the FSF has ultimate power to appoint and replace maintainers of GNU projects is not true at all. That who appoints and replaces maintainers of GNU projects is the Chief GNUisance. The FSF has nothing to do with it.

The FSF manages copyrights over some GNU projects, publishes software licenses used by most GNU projects, but it doesn't control GNU.