Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project [LWN.net]

By Jonathan Corbet
October 24, 2019

The GNU Project was created by Richard Stallman in 1983 to further his goal of developing an entirely free operating system — a goal that seemed impossibly ambitious at the time. Stallman has recently resigned from some of his roles, but as of this writing his personal site still leads off with this proclamation: "I continue to be the Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project. I do not intend to stop any time soon". Within the project itself, though, it has become clear that this intention lacks universal support. We appear to be seeing the beginning of a governance transition for this venerable project.

To many, Stallman's departure from the Free Software Foundation and MIT appears to be an abrupt development based on behavior outside of the technical or project-management areas. Those reasons are mostly out of scope for this article (and for any comments), but there is one thing that is worth pointing out: the concerns that led to these changes have existed for many years. As is often the case, they came to a climax quickly, but the situation had been developing for years.

While these concerns certainly play into why there is pressure for change from within the GNU Project, there is more to it than that. Some recent events highlight the fact that some maintainers feel that change is needed; they have more to do with Stallman's leadership within the project than his behavior outside of it.

The GNU C Library manual

In mid-2018, the glibc community endured a series of discussions and events regarding a joke in the documentation for the abort() function in the manual. A number of glibc developers felt that the joke was confusing to many, offensive to some, and unhelpful at best; after some discussion it was removed. Stallman, however, claimed the absolute authority to make decisions regarding changes like that, and he called for the patch to be reverted — which was duly done by Alexandre Oliva. The episode left bad feelings with many who were involved, and who thought that they were the developers and maintainers of glibc.

By common agreement, this discussion was allowed to go quiet for some time. But that ended in early October, when Florian Weimer posted a patch to the project's mailing list, once again removing the joke. Once again, Stallman opposed its removal, at least anytime in the near future:

We should wait till the situation is clear and calm, then take up the remaining issues, one by one, with a month's pause in between. Once they are resolved, we can wait another month, then take up the question of the abort(2) joke and decide it the right way.

As the conversation went on, Stallman made it clear that he still claimed authority over the glibc project (and all other GNU projects as well): "I directly appoint only package maintainers, who are then responsible directly to me". If those maintainers make a decision that he disagrees with, he feels that it is his right to override them.

That attitude appears to be increasingly unpopular within some GNU projects, though. In this case, glibc maintainer Carlos O'Donell replied to Stallman's demand for a delay with an outright refusal:

The decision to remove the joke has been delayed for almost 1.5 years. That we have no concrete conclusion today is again another indication to me that the current governance structure of the GNU Project is not working.

As a GNU Maintainer for glibc I will no longer hold for further input on the matter. I agree with Joseph [Myers] that your input shall be considered as another previous maintainer's view on the topic.

O'Donell told Weimer that he could go ahead and commit the change; that was done on October 11, bringing a long chapter to a close — and demonstrating a clear limit on how much authority Stallman has over the project at this point.

GNU going forward

Stallman has always been a divisive figure, both within the GNU Project and beyond. Some followers appear to have a nearly messianic devotion; others do not consider themselves to be followers at all. What seems undeniable is that his authoritarian approach has often led to this sort of conflict, and many see his decisions as having held the GNU Project back. It is telling that many developers, even those who are strongly committed to free software, do not wish to be associated with him.

In early October, a number of high-profile GNU maintainers signed a statement calling for new leadership for the project. In retrospect, perhaps the only surprising aspect of this statement is that it was so long in coming, given how long these problems have existed. More recently, O'Donell announced the designation of a moderated mailing list to discuss the governance of the GNU Project; that discussion is just getting started.

There can be no doubt that Richard Stallman has made many great contributions to our community. He did not invent free software, but his conceptualization of the free-software ideal and his determination that we could develop software that is under our control may well have saved us from an all-proprietary world in the last century. Even 36 years after the creation of the GNU Project, he undoubtedly has more to contribute. But it seems increasingly clear that the maintainers within the project he founded feel that the nature of his contribution should change, and that the GNU project should be something other than an autocracy. Whether the community can successfully navigate this change may have a huge effect on the shape of free software in the future.

to post comments

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 24, 2019 18:13 UTC (Thu) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link] (16 responses)

Stating the obvious, whatever change(s) the maintainers decide they want, RMS can either:

1) Not accept it... at which point the maintainers could start a new project and fork everything and let RMS keep the GNU name

2) Accept it

While a new project with a new name might have the standard birthing problems, I'm fairly confident that there would be enough people with enough interest to make it happen.

Given the two potential outcomes, I'm not too worried.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 24, 2019 18:29 UTC (Thu) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link] (1 responses)

It's worth reading the history of GNU Nano: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_nano

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Nov 1, 2019 12:44 UTC (Fri) by Kluge (subscriber, #2881) [Link]

I read that article, and I think their behavior was justifiable in that case. I understand why some people feel differently because they don't like copyright assignment, but I think its an area where reasonable people can disagree.

In the case of the glibc joke, RMS is being a jerk.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 24, 2019 18:38 UTC (Thu) by djdelorie (subscriber, #36714) [Link] (7 responses)

Just to clarify - the GNU trademark is owned by the FSF, not RMS. So there's a third option: RMS doesn't accept it, but the FSF does, and life goes on.

Not saying I'm for or against any of these options, just clarifying.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 24, 2019 19:15 UTC (Thu) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link] (4 responses)

Or a fourth option, nobody accepts it, but the program is still called GNU because nobody forces the issue. Like what happened with GnuTLS: https://lwn.net/Articles/529522/

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 25, 2019 7:59 UTC (Fri) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link] (2 responses)

There's even a fifth option: the new project starts using “gnu” in the “gnuplot” sense - the three letters are there, but no relation to gnu.org at all.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 25, 2019 12:46 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (1 responses)

Not even pronounced the same either (no hard 'g' in gnuplot). Though…I remember it being documented somewhere, but it isn't on the FAQ on the website. Quick search also doesn't show anything. Mandela effect?

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 26, 2019 2:14 UTC (Sat) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

You're not imagining things. It's mentioned here: http://gnuplot.info/faq/faq.html#x1-70001.2

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 31, 2019 23:25 UTC (Thu) by atai (subscriber, #10977) [Link]

If the FSF is now flexible enough, GNUtls can return to the GNU Project or the FSF as RMS is not now involved with the FSF

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 31, 2019 23:21 UTC (Thu) by atai (subscriber, #10977) [Link] (1 responses)

This is important because RMS no longer heads the FSF. People in disagreement with RMS can continue to work with the FSF, as RMS is not involved.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Nov 1, 2019 0:28 UTC (Fri) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

So the FSF is officially in charge of the GNU project, but RMS claims he is still in charge of the GNU project, even though he is no longer the head of the FSF. Let me get the popcorn.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 24, 2019 20:43 UTC (Thu) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (4 responses)

My concern is more that each and every individual GNU project will have to go through the same process as glibc. If that process ultimately involves forking, that'll be a rather large number of forks for everyone to re-converge on. Quite a lot of end users are still using Apache OpenOffice, even though LibreOffice has had unambiguously superior developer support for the past several years. If all of GNU forks, I have to wonder who will get left behind.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 24, 2019 21:05 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

I guess big part of the OpenOffice/LibreOffice installation base is on Windows (and maybe on OS X), where users have to look for software - and they might find the wrong one. I also guess most of the actually used GNU software is installed by some (Linux distribution) package manager, so only the maintainers of these distributions need to pick up the right fork.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 25, 2019 11:19 UTC (Fri) by dunlapg (guest, #57764) [Link] (1 responses)

OTOH, when XFree86 had that licensing debacle, basically the entire world switched over to xorg almost immediately.

In the event of an impasse wrt changing GNU leadership, probably there would be a new organization (maybe ending in 'NG' for "Not GNU" -- TING Is Not GNU?) for all dissident projects to join.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 25, 2019 16:44 UTC (Fri) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

That would be the neatest outcome, but the Oracle precedent (i.e. the community basically sat back and watched as they systematically obliterated Sun's projects one by one, with a few isolated forks for the more popular projects here and there) has me worried.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 26, 2019 5:12 UTC (Sat) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

>If all of GNU forks, I have to wonder who will get left behind.
Lazy Docker users. Everyone else gets their base system libraries and binaries from the distro.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 31, 2019 15:59 UTC (Thu) by kamil (guest, #3802) [Link]

I think we should add to the list of the projects that people mentioned the case of GCC vs EGCS.

There are LWN commenters more qualified than I to provide an insight about what actually transpired (JoeBuck for sure) but the way I remember it was that GCC was pretty much forked due to the disagreements regarding the leadership, governance, and development style of GCC at the time.

What happened then is quite instructive. Virtually every active GCC developer moved over to EGCS, leaving effectively just the GNU-appointed maintainer on the GCC side of things, quickly turning it into a dead-end. Stallman was left with no choice but to declare EGCS as the official "new" GNU GCC.

Mind you, that was possible only because the people behind EGCS respected FSF and its policies, insisting on FSF copyright assignments from all contributors to EGCS, so the merging back did not require any extensive copyright review. I'm not sure if people would be similarly accommodating if such a fork happened today.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 24, 2019 18:37 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (3 responses)

RMS is perhaps the most stubborn person I have ever met. Sometimes this stubbornness serves him, and the rest of us, well; it's why there's so much high quality free software today. Even for people who favored non-copyleft licensing schemes, his vision of an entirely free Unix-like operating system was the inspiration for the push for a free BSD as well; before the GNU Manifesto people weren't thinking that way.

The difficulty is that he's stubborn about everything. Language is important, yes, but often his decisions have been petty and he insisted on all of his jokes, no matter than many were juvenile and untranslatable (MS-DOS had to be called MS-DOG, the abort business described in the article). He insisted that things be called by names he made up rather than what everyone else called them. Everyone but GNU refers to the Power architecture; rs6000 is an extinct term unless you're configuring a GNU tool. We can't say "Win32", because using Microsoft isn't a win. And on and on; years of people's lives was wasted arguing about this stuff.

But the real issue going forward is that RMS's refusal to use the web or a browser leaves him unqualified to manage GNU going forward, unless it's going to be a technical dead end. He doesn't know how to set policies for GNU websites because he has no intuition about how things work, because he is one of the few in the developed world who has no experience with this stuff. Yes, the current state of affairs is unacceptably proprietary. But in the 80s, he used Unix systems for the purpose of ultimately replacing them. The modern web is not a world of static pages, so he cannot just have someone download something and mail it to him. It's a programming environment. Why isn't GNU pushing for making it a free software programming environment, and setting out a vision for what that looks like? It takes leadership to do that, leadership that RMS is incapable of providing. Imagine a web where quality web sides would expose their tricks, pointing to their clearly readable and documented code, inspiring young people everywhere to build and invent.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 24, 2019 20:35 UTC (Thu) by simcop2387 (subscriber, #101710) [Link]

It seems like his web browsing habits have changed somewhat, according to his site I think he does still use the email setup but he does say that if he feels the need he will use icecat to visit the site directly. That still puts him in the boat of not participating in a huge amount of the internet and it's communications but not nearly as much as it has been in the past.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 26, 2019 11:52 UTC (Sat) by ale2018 (subscriber, #128727) [Link]

I heard about a Javascript replacement plan
https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/awards-pres...

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Apr 18, 2021 17:09 UTC (Sun) by obspsr (subscriber, #56917) [Link]

Did you ever faced a mirror ?

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 25, 2019 0:20 UTC (Fri) by frostsnow (subscriber, #114957) [Link] (10 responses)

>What seems undeniable is that [Stallman's] authoritarian approach has often led to this sort of conflict, and many see his decisions as having held the GNU Project back. It is telling that many developers, even those who are strongly committed to free software, do not wish to be associated with him.
>In early October, a number of high-profile GNU maintainers signed a statement calling for new leadership for the project. In retrospect, perhaps the only surprising aspect of this statement is that it was so long in coming, given how long these problems have existed.
I don't think this follows. The maintainers accused him of not being *inclusive* enough, not of being too *authoritarian*.

From their statement:
>Yet, we must also acknowledge that Stallman’s behavior over the years has undermined a core value of the GNU project: the empowerment of all computer users. GNU is not fulfilling its mission when the behavior of its leader alienates a large part of those we want to reach out to.
If the maintainers wanted to change the governance because of his authoritarian attitude, then they should have explicitly stated that in their reason, rather than implying inclusivity (the "I" in "DIE" ideology) as their reason.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 25, 2019 4:24 UTC (Fri) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (9 responses)

If the maintainers wanted to change the governance because of his authoritarian attitude, then they should have explicitly stated that in their reason, rather than implying inclusivity (the "I" in "DIE" ideology) as their reason.

I think claiming ultimate authority over a project that one doesn't even actively contribute to can be quite off-putting to people who consider actually making contributions of their own. In this way RMS's authoritarian attitude contributes directly to the inclusivity issues.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 25, 2019 15:40 UTC (Fri) by frostsnow (subscriber, #114957) [Link] (3 responses)

>I think claiming ultimate authority over a project that one doesn't even actively contribute to can be quite off-putting to people who consider actually making contributions of their own. In this way RMS's authoritarian attitude contributes directly to the inclusivity issues.
The value linked in the maintainer's statement (https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html#benefit) is about *availability*, providing the software to all users through the normal means of distribution, not *inclusivity*, which would be trying to include into the GNU project every member who expressed an interest in it.

There needs to be a serious discussion as to whether or not inclusivity is a core value of the GNU Project, rather than assuming that it is and then demanding that the project's founder uphold that value.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 28, 2019 9:30 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (2 responses)

Surely excluding large portions of the human race -- even large portions of that subset of the human race with the skills to become potential GNU developers -- counts as a reduction in availability? It is true that GNU software is about its users, not its developers, but nearly all the GNU software is development tools, so GNU's users *are* its potential developers.

(I know there's no point in trying to convince you, your mind is clearly fixed -- this is just because I think this point needs consideration.)

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Nov 1, 2019 23:29 UTC (Fri) by fuhchee (subscriber, #40059) [Link]

Surely an accusation as serious as "exclusion" is not something one should throw around as a mere rhetorical device.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Nov 5, 2019 4:22 UTC (Tue) by frostsnow (subscriber, #114957) [Link]

I apologize for the long delay in replying.

>Surely excluding large portions of the human race -- even large portions of that subset of the human race with the skills to become potential GNU developers -- counts as a reduction in availability? It is true that GNU software is about its users, not its developers, but nearly all the GNU software is development tools, so GNU's users *are* its potential developers.
There's a difference between *inclusion* and *discrimination* based on irrelevant criteria. Inclusion is "we'll go the extra mile to bring you into the project", and non-discrimination with regards to irrelevant criteria is "if your code is good then it will be accepted" (regardless of sex, race, nationality, &c). It's not GNU's mission to go the extra mile in order to train everyone who expresses interest in participating, but kudos to those individuals who do so out of their own charity.

>(I know there's no point in trying to convince you, your mind is clearly fixed -- this is just because I think this point needs consideration.)
Cut the crap, nix. You haven't convinced me because your arguments thus far have been unpersuasive, not because my mind is "fixed". You are clearly intelligent, and I expect you to engage in a civil discussion rather than hurl arrogant insults.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 28, 2019 7:59 UTC (Mon) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link] (4 responses)

It is really difficult to find a casual or innocent explanation for the misrepresentation implicit at the heart of anselm's argument. It would be indeed difficult to find anyone who has dedicated such a complete entirety of their adult life to a project as Stallman has. "Actually making contributions of their own" indeed!

I argue that the GNU project should not be "inclusive." I have no desire to see it liquidated into pragmatic opportunism by including those hordes of corporate apologists who argue the "open source" angle (which generally also argue against the GPL in favor of the MIT and BSD licenses). Those aligned with Stallman's values (which are no longer those of the FSF) are those who I prefer to see in GNU. While I prefer not to see some leave, in many cases it may be for the best, if they are indeed false friends to the values embodied in the project.

And even this article and many of the contributions, which portrays themselves as "balanced," is largely pushing the pragmatic angle. And let's face it, most of the contributors have their incomes tied towards the pragmatic angle -- and the author has had ears of basking (admittedly, de minimis) in travel funding and corporate subscriptions. Strange what that can do over time, you know. Upton Sinclair noted that it is difficult to get a man to understand something if his income depends on his not understanding it.

Times like this have the salutory effect of showing once and for all where people stand. I for one will remember.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 28, 2019 12:19 UTC (Mon) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

For the record, I was talking about glibc. RMS is not mentioned in its contributor list.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 31, 2019 1:09 UTC (Thu) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

> I argue that the GNU project should not be "inclusive." I have no desire to see it liquidated into pragmatic opportunism by including those hordes of corporate apologists who argue the "open source" angle (which generally also argue against the GPL in favor of the MIT and BSD licenses).

I fail to see the connection between corporate apologia and feminism. They seem utterly unrelated to me, and feminism is the angle that people were actually arguing here. The corporations have nothing to do with it.

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 31, 2019 16:27 UTC (Thu) by kamil (guest, #3802) [Link]

I doubt I'll be able to change your mind but I think you failed to grasp the very point that Jon was trying to make in the article.

One thing I agree with you on is that the whole inclusiveness debate around Stallman recently is a pretty low blow (though it's hardly unexpected). However, I believe it's just a convenient cover-up for what the actual issues are, as far as the debate regarding GNU project management style goes. The problem centers around RMS' authoritarian style (as indicated in the article) coupled with a lack of _useful_ day-to-day leadership.

Sure, you can interpret the current actions as a hostile takeover attempt by corporate shills that want to end the spiritual purity of the GNU project. However, if you actually check some of the names behind the current movement to shift the GNU project leadership, you'll find people with _decades_ of contributions to GNU projects. I think when such people open their mouths and tell us that there's a problem, they deserve to be listened to.

P.S. I also share your distrust of the seemingly cozy relationship between the Linux Foundation and LWN, so there's actually two things that we agree on :-).

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Nov 1, 2019 0:57 UTC (Fri) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

Will you remember who commanded the biggest cult of personality, or remember who actually showed up, did the work, wrote the software? What really matters to you here? The Free Software, or the spectacle?

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Posted Oct 25, 2019 14:39 UTC (Fri) by rioting_pacifist (guest, #134765) [Link]

I saw RMS's infrequent action as head of GNU Project as harmless, put reading up on GnuTLS, Nano, et al, it seems like it's an issue for a few projects.

I hate process and governance as much as the next person, but it seems like GNU needs some.

Hopefully the changes can be done in a manner that keeps RMS onboard.

Consider the GNU 'project' successfully concluded

Posted Oct 29, 2019 8:48 UTC (Tue) by ber (subscriber, #2142) [Link] (2 responses)

Maybe this is the chance to declare the GNU 'project' to be successfully concluded.
And start something else.

(This is half serious, as a 'project' in the narrower sense of IT engineering means
"a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or service”.
Not an endless process, see https://blogs.fsfe.org/bernhard/2012/03/lets-end-all-free... )

So to me the GNU project has been successfully concluded as the majority of people can run Free Software operating systems and applications for their IT needs now. There will always
be more to do of course, new challenges, maintaining the existing Free Software solutions.

Project's meaning has changed

Posted Oct 29, 2019 21:06 UTC (Tue) by david.a.wheeler (subscriber, #72896) [Link] (1 responses)

That ship has sailed. The term "project" in the software sense does not normally end, and is not temporary. Fogel is merely using the word in its usual sense. The CII Best Practices badge project uses the word "project" everywhere. It's not even limited to OSS; software normally doesn't stop development until there are no users, so "temporary" has a very different meaning.

The word "community" is not a suitable replacement. The "community" is *only* the set of people involved. However, there are many communities whose purpose is not to develop or improve something. The word "project" usefully indicates that something is being developed, which is why the word continues in its use.

Project's meaning has changed

Posted Apr 18, 2021 16:47 UTC (Sun) by obspsr (subscriber, #56917) [Link]

"Project" is a very better choice, as we have never been a community. "Community" is today, the worst word to use for federating people -- in the sense that it qualifies mostly "minorities" -- , the choice of the rainbow colored points in front of the GNU (???) ... will be evidently misinterpreted as a provocation ... is not it ?
We must concentrate our effort in general interest !!
Peace and love ...
Serge.