|
|
Log in / Subscribe / Register

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

[Posted April 15, 2021 by jake]

A new organization for maintainers and contributors to GNU tools, the GNU Assembly, has announced its existence. "We’re excited to kick off the GNU Assembly and its web site! This place intends to be a collaboration platform for the developers of GNU packages who are all 'hacking for user freedom' and who share a vision for the umbrella project." It is an outgrowth of discussions on changes to GNU governance from a few years back, but its origins are even older than that. The organization is working on its governance model and invites those interested to its Assembly mailing list.
to post comments

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 15, 2021 15:18 UTC (Thu) by theophrastus (guest, #80847) [Link] (22 responses)

First and foremost, good for them! and us for this renewed effort. But it ought to noted that including the word "assembly" in their group name will send a considerable proportion looking for information specifically about assembly language to suffer a slow and grumpy realization that "they've come to the wrong neighborhood". Naming things is hard, particularly when the gate-keepers are based on word searches.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 15, 2021 15:56 UTC (Thu) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link] (21 responses)

Let's be honest about what this actually is: an attempt by the very same people who weaponized "conduct" to attempt to marginalize Stallman to do the same again, through another avenue.

How many levels of dishonesty are involved is difficult to overstate. The very first one is the name, "GNU Assembly," as it is not open to GNU contributors. No -- only those who sign their code of conduct, clearly the primary consideration on their part. A better title would be "GNU dissident pretenders and their construction of an exclusive clubhouse with an appropriated name."

It's actually an expression of weakness. It is characteristically dominated by figures "leading" by their occupying significant places within corporate hierarchies that have enriched themselves through GNU while contributing the smallest pittance back to it, not the broader and less visible group of people who have expressed support for Stallman and GNU as a project.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 15, 2021 16:01 UTC (Thu) by theophrastus (guest, #80847) [Link] (14 responses)

I (obviously) had no idea that this was such a political hot-button. I just wandered into it hoping for some new open source GNU assembly language efforts and tools. ...stupid me. -sigh-

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 15, 2021 16:04 UTC (Thu) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link] (11 responses)

It would have been nice if the posting had included context. Here's a mailing list posting from Stallman back on Feb 4 (https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2020-...)

Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2020 18:26:51 -0500
From: "Richard Stallman (Chief GNUisance)" <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden
Subject: What's GNU -- and what's not

The GNU Project is sending this message to each GNU package
maintainer.

You may have recently received an email asking you to review a
document titled "GNU Social Contract" and then to endorse it or reject
it. It does not entirely accord with the GNU Project's views. It was
created by some GNU participants who are trying to push changes
on the GNU Project.

The message also proposed to "define" what it means to be a "member of
GNU", and cited a web page presented as a "wiki for GNU maintainers",
It may have given the impression that they were doing all those things
on behalf of the GNU Project. That is not the case. The document,
the wiki, and the proposed idea of "members" have no standing in the GNU
Project, which is not considering such steps. The use of a domain not
affiliated with GNU reflects this fact.

GNU package maintainers have committed to do work to maintain and add
to the GNU system, but not anything beyond that. We have never
pressed contributors to endorse the GNU Project philosophy, or any
other philosophical views, because people are welcome to contribute to
GNU regardless of their views.

To change that -- to impose such requirements -- would be radical,
gratuitous, and divisive, so the GNU Project is not entertaining the
idea. Likewise, we will not ask package maintainers to be "members"
instead of volunteers. If you contribute to GNU, you are already a
member of the GNU community.

The wiki that they set up "for GNU maintainers" represents them, not
the GNU Project. People are always free to publish what they think
the GNU Project should do, but should not presume it will be accepted
or followed by the GNU Project.

--
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 15, 2021 16:39 UTC (Thu) by dvrabel (subscriber, #9500) [Link] (2 responses)

"GNU package maintainers have committed to do work to maintain and add to the GNU system, but not anything beyond that."

The "Information for Maintainers of GNU Software" suggests otherwise, particularly the "Ethical and Philosophical Considerations"[1] section has a long list of things to do (or not do) that are aligned on ethical or philosophical lines. For example,

"Finally, new issues concerning the ethics of software freedom come up frequently. We ask that GNU maintainers, at least on matters that pertain specifically to their package, stand with the rest of the GNU project when such issues come up. "

[1] https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Ethical-and-P...

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 15, 2021 18:40 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

> The "Information for Maintainers of GNU Software" suggests otherwise, particularly the "Ethical and Philosophical Considerations"[1] section has a long list of things to do (or not do) that are aligned on ethical or philosophical lines.

>"Finally, new issues concerning the ethics of software freedom come up frequently. We ask that GNU maintainers, at least on matters that pertain specifically to their package, stand with the rest of the GNU project when such issues come up. "

"we ask" is not "we require", just as "should [not]" is not "must [not]"

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 15:27 UTC (Fri) by dvrabel (subscriber, #9500) [Link]

In practice there seems little difference.

However, it could be helpful for GNU Assembly to consider simply asking or requiring[1] that GNU Project maintainers and contributors ensure that their work on the GNU Project meets the requirements of the GNU Social Contract. I think this addresses this difference while still keeping with the goals of GNU Assembly.

[1] The exact wording would need work to ensure that maintainers and contributors can continue to use their preferred tools or environments (to accomodate the Mac OS X using Emacs maintainer mentioned elsewhere) provided the resulting output still meets the Social Contract.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 15, 2021 18:58 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (4 responses)

> The document, the wiki, and the proposed idea of "members" have no standing in the GNU Project, which is not considering such steps. The use of a domain not affiliated with GNU reflects this fact.

This ... is pretty awful. Nowhere on this "GNU Assembly" site do they mention that they are not endorsed by the GNU Project, nor do they provide any links to the actual official GNU web site.

Even their "GNU Social Contract" misrepresents itself, claiming to speak for GNU. ("These are the core commitments of the GNU Project")

> The wiki that they set up "for GNU maintainers" represents them, not the GNU Project. People are always free to publish what they think the GNU Project should do, but should not presume it will be accepted or followed by the GNU Project.

This whole thing is coming off like a big game of legal "we dare you to sue us" chicken.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 4:33 UTC (Fri) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link] (3 responses)

Indeed. It begs the question, as well, why the coverage of the fact that this is a wrecker effort, not a good faith contribution to GNU, is not identified in this news coverage.

After all, this is hardly a novel development: the infrastructure *outside* GNU and its deliberate misrepresentations of the relationship is now well over a year old, and while the wrecking operation undoubtedly paused for a while, the return of Stallman to the FSF has restored its operatives to a flurry of activity, all presented as above board and good faith in the lead above.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 10:49 UTC (Fri) by rodgerd (guest, #58896) [Link]

> why the coverage of the fact that this is a wrecker effort

A remarkably abusive way to refer to the people who actually build free software, particularly coming from someone who has conniptions whenever the words and actions of a serial sexual harasser are cited to describe the problems that he's created.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 10:53 UTC (Fri) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link] (1 responses)

This article is news, it is something that actually happened and it references the announcement.

Saying something like "wrecker effort" is a value judgement which is not news, it's opinion and has no place in a news article.

I value LWN because it's news. Opinions are a dime a dozen and can be gotten anywhere.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 12:47 UTC (Fri) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935) [Link]

I mean, I value LWN for opinions too. But they are kept clearly separate from news.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 2:24 UTC (Fri) by sjfriedl (✭ supporter ✭, #10111) [Link] (2 responses)

> Dr Richard Stallman

Wait - did RMS actually get his PhD?

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 4:21 UTC (Fri) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (1 responses)

He holds multiple honorary doctorates, so that depends on definitions.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 8:23 UTC (Fri) by shiftee (subscriber, #110711) [Link]

13 honorary doctorates according to Wikipedia

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 5:58 UTC (Fri) by cpitrat (subscriber, #116459) [Link] (1 responses)

Same here, very confusing name ...

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 9:50 UTC (Sat) by bluss (guest, #47454) [Link]

Luckily there's rather few people out there who think about assembly languages (not on this site, but out *there*).

For those of us with legs in both worlds we can appreciate it for what it is: a good pun, an inside joke.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 15, 2021 18:11 UTC (Thu) by rodgerd (guest, #58896) [Link] (2 responses)

I'm sorry that the choices made by the FSF have the consequence that the people who do the actual work on the code have choices, but those people are not slaves. If they don't want to work in an environment that supports "pleasure cards" and the like, you can't make them.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 15, 2021 20:03 UTC (Thu) by dd9jn (✭ supporter ✭, #4459) [Link] (1 responses)

Actually we are discussing changes on how GNU should work for more than 10 years. The "pleasure card" thing was not was kicked off our discussions back then. Andy's message on the blog (look at the date) was preceded and followed by hundreds of messages posted to the internal GNU lists. One of the discussion points were to make internal discussions at least publicly readable.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 15, 2021 23:34 UTC (Thu) by rodgerd (guest, #58896) [Link]

My misunderstanding - thank you for correcting me.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 15, 2021 23:06 UTC (Thu) by Paf (subscriber, #91811) [Link] (1 responses)

It’s nice to know opinions are still measured and gentle. Also, a good guide: when people rant angrily about something someone else is doing and then say it is an expression of weakness and make a series of disconnected insults... well, anyway! I can’t imagine why anyone would want a code of conduct when the discourse is so elevated!

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 18, 2021 8:02 UTC (Sun) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

It's quite revealing when certain groups of people react to a text document asking for mutual respect and mature behaviour in public, a staple of almost all civilized internet fora since the 90s, like it's kryptonite.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 1:27 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (guest, #2582) [Link]

How many levels of dishonesty are involved is difficult to overstate. The very first one is the name, "GNU Assembly," as it is not open to GNU contributors. No -- only those who sign their code of conduct, clearly the primary consideration on their part.

I see no such requirement. The web page says you need to endorse the social contract, and check out the code of conduct that applies to the mailing list.

So who's being dishonest here? And anyway, what problem exactly do you have, with either the social contract or the code of conduct?

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 15, 2021 16:29 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link]

Once, at my long-running job with ADA, my boss handed me a memo perporting to bring about changes in the way we do our jobs. He saide: "Read this, note who it came from, and file it somewhere nobody can see it. It's a grenade. I'll handle it."

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 15, 2021 22:46 UTC (Thu) by Sharikus (guest, #151674) [Link] (2 responses)

I created this account, after lurking for a bit, to express my sorrow that this is *not* a modern, polished, version of the painfully underdocumented GNU Assembler!

After understanding the thorny issue more, I wish success to any open source initiative. Like gcc was improved a lot thanks to the competition with clang, I hope good results will come from this new thing. And let us focus on what unites us (free software) more than on what divides us (opinions on... you know)

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 1:36 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (guest, #2582) [Link] (1 responses)

A better (old-time) example may be the competition between gcc and EGCS. EGCS was a fork of gcc in the 1990s, since gcc's cathedral-style development had basically frozen. The EGCS people followed a more open development model, but were careful to follow GNU policies including transferring copyrights to the FSF. The fork was so successful that the FSF eventually blessed it as the new "official" gcc, and it became the basis of GCC 3.0 (that's also when it went from being "gcc", the GNU C compiler, to "GCC", the GNU Compiler Collection). Hoping for similar results here (ie, hoping that the GNU Assembly will become the inclusive GNU community that GNU itself has failed to be)! GNU and the FSF should be about more than one person, no matter how historically important that person is, and even if there were no other issues about him.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 9:24 UTC (Fri) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935) [Link]

GCC 2.95 was also post-reunification.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 5:54 UTC (Fri) by gnu (guest, #65) [Link] (47 responses)

Well, I just wanted to say that I am really sad to see this split. :-( "Inclusive" by excluding one person or persons who support that person, doesn't look very inclusive to me.

Was this the only way to solve this issue? Is this pressure tactics? Who is benefiting from this? Is anyone thinking about the "users"?

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 6:33 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (guest, #2582) [Link] (45 responses)

GNU projects have had splits before, and the users benefited. Eg: gcc->egcs (egcs became the "new" gcc); emacs->xemacs (latter had many improvements that never got merged, because of the copyright assignment issue, to the detriment of GNU emacs users, though GNU emacs eventually caught up).

In this case, most of the people behind gnu.tools seem to be active in GNU projects and no split seems likely at the project level.

I don't think anybody is suggesting excluding RMS from this project, or from the original GNU project. Putting him in a position of leadership is a different matter.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 7:36 UTC (Fri) by gnu (guest, #65) [Link] (44 responses)

> I don't think anybody is suggesting excluding RMS from this project..

But that is what this essentially is. People who dislike his beliefs (unrelated to free software) have created a new governance structure that excludes him.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 8:55 UTC (Fri) by interalia (subscriber, #26615) [Link] (42 responses)

Seems quite reasonable to stop hanging out with people if you find out they cheat, or steal, don't bathe, are anti-vaxxers, yell at
everyone else to be vegan, are sexist/racist/nationalist, are flat earthers, are scammers, run ransomware, whatever. The idea that you, me or anyone should compartmentalise such a person's behaviour and keep hanging out with them is ridiculous, just because all these beliefs are "unrelated to free software".

If you annoy too many people around you with your behaviour, of course they will eventually hang out together elsewhere. It's taken literal years, decades even, for this to happen despite a significant proportion of people reportedly finding him unpleasant. It's like saying "this person kept punching too many people in the gut and saying things they found pretty disgusting, and eventually lots of those people stopped inviting him to dinner and don't think he should be on the welcome committee any more... how sad".

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 9:06 UTC (Fri) by gnu (guest, #65) [Link] (18 responses)

The question is whether these beliefs a person holds comes in between in your daily interactions (if at all you interact with a person daily) or not. Do you evaluate a work place or a team you work with based on what thoughts your co-workers hold outside work?

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 9:28 UTC (Fri) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935) [Link] (3 responses)

The parent comment said explicitly "If you annoy too many people around you with your behaviour", and at this point it's clear that too many people are annoyed, as witnessed by the success of the "open letter" calling for his resignation.

The GNU Assembly is an attempt to provide a future for GNU projects, mostly by those people who don't want or cannot sign an open letter urging to refuse to contribute to projects related to the FSF.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 11:08 UTC (Fri) by gnu (guest, #65) [Link] (2 responses)

GNU already has a manifesto. It also has a communication guidelines document. What more is accomplished by a new social contract and a CoC?

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 16:37 UTC (Fri) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (1 responses)

The people behind GNU Assembly want a different governing structure. This is mentioned as one of the goals of the project, and I think it's really the big issue they're going after, more so than a social contract or CoC. My impression is this is a critical background issue in the controversy over RMS. His behavior is the thing that's generate the most noise, but the underlying issue is people feeling that the board that reappointed him are unresponsive to their views.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 18:37 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> but the underlying issue is people feeling that the board that reappointed him are unresponsive to their views.

Serious question. What does "unresponsive" mean in this context?

Refused to listen? Listened but came to different conclusions? Or something else entirely?

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 13:42 UTC (Fri) by interalia (subscriber, #26615) [Link] (13 responses)

> Do you evaluate a work place or a team you work with based on what thoughts your co-workers hold outside work?

I do indeed allow my opinion of someone to change based on things they say/do outside of the immediate contexts I know them. If I found out they have a side business scamming old people by calling them and pretending something is wrong with the computer, if they said they enjoyed groping people on crowded public transport, if they liked punching strangers in the back of the head to knock them over for laughs, if they were irrationally aggressive to staff who have no control over store/restaurant policies... then yes, I would change my opinion and my interactions with them.

And in case you want to hand-wave about "thoughts": spoken or written thoughts are very much actions, and we all treat them as such. If your parent told you they wished you'd never been born, you wouldn't dismiss it as "well it's just a thought".

Suppose I join a group with regular game nights and after a while one person insists on taking off their clothes, they've been told not to multiple times and keeps doing it no matter how uncomfortable it makes other people. People complain but the person says, "Me and my pals started this gaming group and there's no rule against nudity". Sooner or later we'll stop punishing ourselves hanging out with this person and make a separate gaming group. If it was an online gaming group it would have a "no nudity" code of conduct so that if that person or someone like them joined, the expectations are clear and ignorance can't be claimed as an excuse. That person probably wouldn't join (they'd probably find it a bit humiliating) but none of us have to put up with someone being persistently and unrepentantly naked in our face just because we play the same games^.

^ Or both believe in free software, or are both straight, or have literally any other thing in common.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 10:22 UTC (Sat) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958) [Link] (5 responses)

But would it be reasonable if your no nudity code of conduct prohibited people to attend nudist camps when they want to?

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 14:32 UTC (Sat) by interalia (subscriber, #26615) [Link] (4 responses)

Well, the line being drawn is "nudity around people who do not consent" so nudity camps is probably okay? But since it's about consent and understanding why it's needed, then what you want is for the person to acknowledge they understand why it was wrong and give an undertaking never to repeat it. Without that or a trite "I'm sorry you were offended", then it might well make sense to exclude the person because they might narrowly follow the lesson of "nudity not okay at game night". Then next week it's not nudity at game night but instead at the weekend hike or at a backyard BBQ.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 21:52 UTC (Sat) by rodgerd (guest, #58896) [Link] (3 responses)

Yes, I don't know what it is about North American cultural norms, but in the two Australasian tech conferences that I attend, a progression that goes:

1. Sexually harass women verbally. Get told to cut that shit out.
2. Sexually harass women with business cards. Get told to cut that out.
3. Interpret that to mean I can invite women to leave the conference grounds, and sexually harass them.

...would be unlikely to have step 3, or even step 2. I'd be ejected when it because clear that my conference objective was "sexually harass women", even if I was a speaker. I'm not sure why it's normal in North America and has so many fanatical defenders here.

But I do know that it's probably why I met a woman at Kiwicon 8 who explained to me that the reason she attends that conference, and not Black Hat or the other high-profile hacker cons, is because, in her words "she's less likely to be sexually assaulted at Kiwicon".

Apparently, though, a vocal chunk of the free software community feel that accepting sexual harassment is a price that has to be paid by women who want to participate.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 21:55 UTC (Sat) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link]

I glossed over on *why* is that systemic problem connected to the "let's boot RMS from GNU and the FSF".

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 18, 2021 21:21 UTC (Sun) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958) [Link] (1 responses)

Apparently you feel that presumption of innocence is no longer a thing and we directly go from accusation to penalty directly.

Angry mobs with no idea of actual facts do not get to decide anything at all.

I am not familiar with Australian social norms, but I know you put right wing extremists in power so you might think that's a normal thing to do, but in some parts of the world it's not how it works.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 18, 2021 21:29 UTC (Sun) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Stop here. Seriously. All of you. This is not an elementary school playground.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 12:20 UTC (Sat) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (6 responses)

Let me understand your analogy: the GNUassembly joined the GNU thing that RMS founded (with lots of effort and against lots of industry pushback) and they are uncomfortable with HIS controversies (some of them are unfounded, since he changed his mind in lots of opinions he voiced in the past) so they think RMS should not participate in the thing that he founded because of those? The second part ("if there was already a rule in place etc") does not apply, because the thing was built from the ground up.

Again: they want another project, with another strategic direction, and all the Bender-style BJ&Hs? Ok. They even have a fair chance of succeeding, especially if their contributions are as substantial as the material would have us believe. But it will not continue to be the GNU project, so they should not use the GNU name. If they think the organization they currently contribute to (the FSF) is (on the way to becoming?) irrelevant, they should stop contributing to that organization. Fork the projects, etc.

This continues smelling like a coup. Sorry.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 15:00 UTC (Sat) by interalia (subscriber, #26615) [Link] (1 responses)

My analogy was simply that if many of the people in your group are disgruntled, they will eventually act. If they still care about the group's activity then they may well start a new group.

I haven't read the detail of the GNU Assembly myself because I don't personally care enough about the FSF or GNU that much any more. Over the years, LWN has reported on many political fights over project governance or direction, and I find it simplest to view this through that lens. Even if some people feel this is unfairly misrepresenting RMS, the reality is that there is dissatisfaction and a deep rift and in those situations then project departures, forks or coups are very likely and/or inevitable.

To lightly touch on the naming issue, I suppose that yes maybe it'd be nicer for the Assembly not to reuse the name "GNU". That said, from my distant observer view I'm not really sure what the GNU project actually is or does any more, and thus what there is to "steal". When I think about Debian there is a developer keyring, a release process, FTP admins, , a technical committee, a project secretary, a voting process etc, all sitting above a bunch of people who act as software package maintainers and developers. Forgive my ignorance, but with the GNU project, we have the equivalent of the package maintainers/developers on a loose collection of individual software projects. What is there at a project level above that? Is there anything for LWN to report on in the same way it can report on Debian processes, or WireGuard, or Python's PEP process, or GNOME release numbering?

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 22:58 UTC (Sat) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935) [Link]

There's nothing specific. There's a "chief GNUisance" (Stallman), a handful of people from the FSF staff (handling for example copyrights), and that's it.

Maintainers have two mailing lists that they subscribe too, but they are not particularly active (to the point that I myself am not even sure if I am still subscribed or not).

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 21, 2021 12:57 UTC (Wed) by timrichardson (subscriber, #72836) [Link] (3 responses)

It's not a coup. The quote from Stallman about the responsibilities of a GNU volunteer means that the FSF exercises little authority over GNU volunteers ... it won't even call them members. To have a coup, you would need to have a legitimated authority that people are rebelling again. But the FSF doesn't claim that authority.
This is a governance fork if it is anything.
The FSF has "soft power": prestige and a reputation. I agree that this initiative is a strike against that. It indirectly criticises the FSF, and if it is successful, there will be a new collective with prestige and reputation. But I don't see anything wrong with people trying to do that. If it makes them feel better about their contribution to free software, we all win. Opposing this is a bit like opposing unions.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 21, 2021 15:51 UTC (Wed) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link] (2 responses)

An interesting metaphor and more applicable and in a different way than probably intended.

Unions have for nearly four decades now acted primarily to suppress strikes, to pacify the demand for higher wages, and to sell their services to management as arbiters of labor peace, as scab organizations, not as organizations of the working class.

Similarly, I see this "movement" as being led by people closely coupled with the major corporations posing as a grass roots movement. It's one reason the demographics of the petitions pro- and against Stallman are so thoroughly different. The effective promise is that a reconstituted FSF will be more "reasonable" on a number of fronts -- some related to the window-dressing attached to them (the settling of scores by the manufactured sexual scandal) -- others, the deeper ones, neutering it as the independent and trenchant voice of critical outlook that it has been.

The roots of the division began with the economics, as they almost always do, and the retrenchment of the major unix companies in the early 1990s into a period of constructing a commons, the better to ward off the rising threat of Microsoft. But as the industry changed, by the end of the next decade there was once again a desire to have at least the capacity to re-differentiate themselves, and sharpen the old tools. The fight over GPL3 brought this into the open. The corporations have never forgiven Stallman for not being sufficiently pliant in that definition process, as some of his advisors proved to be in the aftermath.

So yes, having the FSF as a modern "union" together with some of the other "institutes" and "centers" responsive at the top to a nucleus of large firms is precisely what is intended. The protection of the commons and the values it contains are not, except for when and how they proximately serve the interests of those pulling the strings.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 21, 2021 16:25 UTC (Wed) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (1 responses)

> Unions have for nearly four decades now acted primarily to suppress strikes, to pacify the demand for higher wages, and to sell their services to management as arbiters of labor peace, as scab organizations, not as organizations of the working class.

Do you have sources for this? Numerous strikes have occurred in the past four decades, though I can't speak to their frequency versus prior decades. Corporations are certainly still itching to get away from them (e.g., Harley Davidson outsourcing some subassemblies to non-labor contracting companies). Is it a difference between older unions and newer unions perhaps?

FWIW, I'm not doubting that this happens (e.g., one of my summer jobs seemed to have overtones of this, but I was only there for a single summer, so I wasn't that in-tune to the larger arcs of such things), but to claim it's the way that unions work these days sure smells like a strawman (or cherry-picking) to me.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 21, 2021 18:01 UTC (Wed) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link]

Contact me offline if you'd like to continue the conversation, I'm easy to find and it's not directly germaine to the subject here. But regarding strikes, it's easy to find graphs that show a steep dropoff in the early 1980s, around the time of the PATCO defeat, but it's an international process. E.g. this graph:
https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/...

Why this is so engenders some debate. I myself adhere to the explanation of the increasing globalization of production and the inability of national organizations to wage a counteroffensive. I refer you to this lecture, which includes the observation that "Nationally-based labor organizations are simply incapable of seriously challenging internationally-organized corporations."
https://www.wsws.org/en/special/library/fi-20-1/02.html

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 10:17 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (guest, #2582) [Link]

All true, plus
  • he's being, at most, "excluded" from governance (of this new setup), not from the project;
  • the genesis seems to be back in 2011, as per Andy Wingo's mail reproduced there; it may have been given impetus by recent events but clearly had been festering a while before that.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 10:59 UTC (Fri) by Shiba (guest, #151620) [Link] (21 responses)

No one is asking anyone to hang out with anyone, literally just to contribute to the project. I have little faith hanging with the "right people" will not become a requirement if this group takes over.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 12:01 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (20 responses)

The group, in particular its founders, is by and large the same group who have been doing development (largely of toolchain projects) for a very long time indeed: many of the members date back to Cygnus times. Just glancing at the current membership list we see dangerous radicals like Carlos O'Donell (major glibc maintainer), Jeff Law (the guy who ran RH's tools team for fifteen years and Cygnus before then and has contributed almost 6000 GCC commits by this point), Tom Tromey (probably the most important committer GDB has right now and active in the project since 1996), Mark Wielaard (decades of work on classpath, the late lamented gcj, also lots of commits to toolchain projects and oh yes elfutils though that is not GNU), all the Guile maintainers for the last decade or so, the only active maintainer for GNU HURD (also involved for decades)... the list goes on and on and includes a significant percentage of the people who do the actual work on major GNU projects and have done so for a very long time. This is not an insurgency. This is the people who more or less wrote many of the systems that are a core part of GNU saying "enough!"

They see what is plainly obvious by this point: the FSF is in a sudden death spiral, haemorrhaging supporters, patrons, funding, and as I understand it all its staff, all its management and half its board, all that in under a month. Some parts of GNU are extremely valuable, but if those parts stay shackled to a dying whale there is a danger they might get pulled down with it: so it's best to be ready to cut loose if the FSF cannot right itself. The people who spent decades of their lives on it do not like the idea of being pulled down with the whale. I am not remotely surprised.

(This is an overstatement, really: the FSF is not a whale. The legal and organizational jobs the FSF provides to GNU projects can largely be provided by a dozen other similar organizations now, most of which do a much better job at that sort of thing than the famously delay-prone FSF. The only worrisome part is the FSF's stewardship of the GPL and the 'or any later version' clauses. That probably can't be taken away from them, and honestly given that the FSF seems to have come out into the open as an explicit personality cult I'm not sure I trust a major license in its hands any more. Far smarter people than me are thinking about this, and something will surely get done.)

-- N., associate FSF member for a decade, no longer. For me the tipping point was the unilateral removal by RMS of the moderator of the (fairly obscure) GNU list that was explicitly set up by a bunch of toolchain people (again) to discuss potential governance improvements, and his replacement with a stunningly incapable moderator who proceeded to (as far as anyone can tell) invite onto the list a lot of people for the explicitly-stated reason that they would support RMS, and then do no actual moderation as those people destroyed the discussion. Many of these suddenly-appearing people had never done anything with the core GNU projects as far as I can tell and had names I do not recognize despite decades of hanging out on many GNU development lists. Some of them expressed confusion about where all these messages were coming from and may have been subscribed without their consent by someone inside FSF infrastructure (perhaps the same moderator). Others of these new people proceeded to troll, attack and outright doxx people (!!) for the sin of trying to improve FSF governance. Only when this eventually turned into attacking people for the crime of being GNU contributors while female was anything done, and even then only after much protest, and what was done was insultingly minimal. I will not link to the discussion because it frankly turned my stomach and gave me nightmares. But nobody should support an organization that does this to *its own contributors*. We can do better than this -- we must -- but we cannot do it from inside a personality cult.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 12:15 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (guest, #2582) [Link] (4 responses)

Thank you for this post and the insider perspective. And yes it sounds horrifying.

One of many things Linus got right, very early, was his rejection of the "or any later version" clause for Linux. That is a concern, going forward.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 17:40 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (3 responses)

As I understand it, some of the "payment" for the copyright assignment, is a commitment that any "or later" version will uphold the Free Software values, I guess that means the 3/4 freedoms.

So I *think* that a new GPL allowing closed source for example, would not be possible because it would be a breach of the contract granting the FSF the copyright.

Cheers,
Wol

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 20:55 UTC (Fri) by bpearlmutter (subscriber, #14693) [Link]

That is correct. All this "FSF could go nuts and make the GNU GPL v3 into a blood contract with the devil" is pure fear mongering. Not only would they never want to do that, whatever else one might accuse the FSF board or RMS of; such an action is not even legally possible.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 19, 2021 14:49 UTC (Mon) by jamesh (guest, #1159) [Link] (1 responses)

That promise is in the licenses themselves. Both the GPL versions 2 and 3 contain the following text:

The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.

If the FSF were to be infiltrated and a new GPL version released that dropped the copyleft properties or gave some corporation special rights over covered code, it's not at all clear whether it could count as a new version of the existing licenses.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 19, 2021 19:04 UTC (Mon) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link]

If the FSF were to be infiltrated and a new GPL version released that dropped the copyleft properties or gave some corporation special rights over covered code, it's not at all clear whether it could count as a new version of the existing licenses.

The part about future licenses being similar in spirit seems like an ambiguous promise that would be very messy to enforce in practice. It's unfortunate that the future of the GPL might possibly rely on how courts interpret that clause. It certainly seems like a good reason to stick with a specific version of the license rather than version X or later. At the very least, it would probably be better for projects with a well-defined leadership team to say the decision to move to a newer version of the license would be at the discretion of the leadership team rather than letting the FSF make that call.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 12:18 UTC (Fri) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link] (3 responses)

> I will not link to the discussion

I'll do it for you then.

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2019-...

And I invite everyone to read the discussions surrounding "improving governance" and moderation and make up their own mind.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 14:08 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (guest, #2582) [Link] (2 responses)

I had a look at that thread. My reading is, the people involved (Mark Wiellard, Carlos O'Donell, etc) had been trying to work within the GNU system, and RMS (or someone) felt threatened and shut them down.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 17:36 UTC (Fri) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link] (1 responses)

This is an inversion of history. They (Wielaard, O'Donnell, etc.) assumed control of some lists and proceeded to moderate the conversation of anything opposing their oh-so-cheery but ham-fisted proposals. Yes, there was shutting down, but precisely opposite that of your cleverly curated version.

It is an example and a warning.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 21:37 UTC (Fri) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935) [Link]

You're omitting to mention the cesspool that the mailing list became overnight as soon as moderation was lifted, making any kind of discussion impossible.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 12:31 UTC (Fri) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (1 responses)

Let's suppose, as a stretch, that you are right and those people tried to establish a constructive dialogue with the FSF. But do all those people have a right to the original trademark? Ok, they want to leave the FSF and start their own projects, Bender-style? Shouldn't they call it TING/This Is Not GNU or something like it? Using an identical subdomain name on another top-level-domain, without permission? Since when it's ok to do that?

Do I think FSF is perfect? No. But does something smell fishy here? Definitely.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 16:39 UTC (Fri) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

Unfortunately, the FSF decided to use the same term ("GNU") for both the software and the organization which develops it. By their own rules,[1] it is appropriate to use the term "GNU" to refer to the software, without explicit trademark disclaimers. The GNU Assembly is a group of people who develop the GNU software. Calling themselves "Not GNU" would imply that they are setting up a fork of the software or something of that nature, which so far as I can tell is not what they are in fact doing.

[1]: https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Trademarks.html

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 13:15 UTC (Fri) by gnu (guest, #65) [Link]

Thanks for the comments and insights. Seem like a sad state.

I wish things get better for GNU and FSF and the original goals of software freedom without excluding contributors and hope non-contributors (like some of the signers of the so called "successful" open letter) won't play the same tricks in the future.

My last post on this topic on LWN.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 16:40 UTC (Fri) by mhw (guest, #13931) [Link] (2 responses)

Just glancing at the current membership list we see [...] all the Guile maintainers for the last decade or so
That's incorrect. I was a GNU Guile co-maintainer for over 5 years, from May 2014 until September 2019, and I strongly oppose these attempts to radically change GNU governance. As I wrote elsewhere, only about 6% of GNU maintainers have ever supported this.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 17:01 UTC (Fri) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link]

If I'm correct your self restraint here in choice of mailing list references in order to not escalate things is admirable.

I wish everyone in this matter would take the high ground.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 18, 2021 14:03 UTC (Sun) by Kluge (subscriber, #2881) [Link]

6% of current maintainers (and/or significant contributors), or 6% of all the maintainers throughout the history of GNU?

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 18:25 UTC (Fri) by mhw (guest, #13931) [Link] (4 responses)

For me the tipping point was the unilateral removal by RMS of the moderator of the (fairly obscure) GNU list that was explicitly set up by a bunch of toolchain people (again) to discuss potential governance improvements, and his replacement with a stunningly incapable moderator who proceeded to (as far as anyone can tell) invite onto the list a lot of people for the explicitly-stated reason that they would support RMS, and then do no actual moderation as those people destroyed the discussion.

This is a severe distortion of the truth.

First of all, only about 6% of GNU maintainers have ever supported this initiative to radically change GNU governance.

Here's what was truly inappropriate: John Sullivan (outgoing FSF executive director) unilaterally decided that two Red Hat employees from this 6% minority faction should be given total control of a pre-existing GNU mailing list with a long history (gnu-misc-discuss), for purposes of moderating a debate over GNU governance.

Would anyone here like to argue that it was legitimate for two Red Hat employees to moderate that debate?

To make matters worse, it soon became apparent that inoffensive messages in support of RMS were being rejected, without explanation, by these two people (Mark Wielaard and Carlos O'Donell) who were among the most vocal advocates among the 6% for radically changing GNU governance.

One of those inoffensive messages was forwarded to an internal GNU mailing list where GNU maintainers had been debating this issue privately. I was a first-hand participant in those discussions, and I asked anyone there (which included Mark Wielaard and Carlos O'Donell, whom I also CC'd) to justify why the message had been blocked, and no one even attempted to explain what was wrong with the message.

At that point, it became clear to everyone without an axe to grind that new moderators were needed. Even if they hadn't been censoring legitimate messages in support of RMS, it was already a blatant conflict of interest that two employees of Red Hat (which had been acquired by IBM a few months earlier) should be moderating a discussion on GNU governance.

The (two, not one) new moderators whom you've unjustly impugned allowed both sides in this debate to speak freely, while doing their best to block offensive posts, given the (IMO, reasonable) decision that people who had already made several unoffensive posts should be added to the whitelist.

It's true that a few offensive posts got through the moderation. What happened is that two people had already participated in a few threads without making any offensive posts, so they made it onto the whitelist. Sometime later, they each posted some garbage.

Now, some people believe that every post should be held until moderators approve the message. That's the only way to eliminate the risk of offensive posts getting through. On the other hand, it would have significantly hindered the discussion. Reasonable people may disagree about what the policy should have been, but in any case, it's blatantly false to suggest that the new moderators did "no actual moderation as those people destroyed the discussion."

Many of these suddenly-appearing people had never done anything with the core GNU projects as far as I can tell and had names I do not recognize despite decades of hanging out on many GNU development lists.
This leaves the impression that most of the people defending RMS are outsiders. That's simply false. As I wrote above, only 6% of GNU maintainers have ever supported this initiative.
Others of these new people proceeded to troll, attack and outright doxx people (!!) for the sin of trying to improve FSF governance.

I'm not sure what you're referring to here (evidence?), but in any case, RMS cannot be held responsible for every troll who posts a message ostensibly in support of him. If we cannot agree on that basic principle, I find that very worrisome.

I should also point out that there's a tremendous amount of misinformation being propagated about RMS, which many people seem to be blindly accepting as fact. Based on that assumption, they proceed to summarily dismiss anyone who defends RMS as a crank (or worse).

I strongly encourage people to adopt a skeptical attitude. Demand evidence, and look closely at that evidence. In today's world, it has become disturbingly common for misinformation to spread far more effectively than careful assessments of the facts. In this case, look at RMS's actual words in their original context, and not the summaries being given by those who seek to ostracize him. Those of us who actually know RMS well, which includes me, know that the vast majority of what is being said about him is flatly incorrect.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 21:55 UTC (Fri) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935) [Link] (3 responses)

All discussion on GNU mostly happened on the maintainer list gnu-prog-discuss. Perhaps gnu-misc-discuss had historically hosted interesting discussions, but not in the previous 10 years.

Despite the "long history" of gnu-misc-discuss, it had a well-deserved reputation of being a place full of trolls where no discussion whatsoever had been possible for years. Which is precisely the state to which the mailing list reverted after Mark and Carlos's moderation was lifted. A month or two later, Date/Received headers suggested that proponents of the GNU Social Contract such as Ludovic Courtes were moderated while toxic people were taken off the blacklist by the moderators and could post freely.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 0:02 UTC (Sat) by mhw (guest, #13931) [Link] (1 responses)

Hi Paolo,
Despite the "long history" of gnu-misc-discuss, it had a well-deserved reputation of being a place full of trolls where no discussion whatsoever had been possible for years.

I agree that the signal-to-noise ratio on that list has historically been very low. I mentioned its "long history" only because the message I responded to might have led some to believe that it was a new mailing list set up by Mark and Carlos which RMS seized control of. In fact, Mark and Carlos seized control of an existing long-established mailing list, with the help of John Sullivan.

Which is precisely the state to which the mailing list reverted after Mark and Carlos's moderation was lifted.

I think that's an exaggeration. It was certainly a heated discussion. Any public discussion about a contentious topic is likely to get ugly; that's just a fact of life. It was not our choice to make it a public debate in the first place.

I understand that the 6% in favor of radically changing GNU governance would have greatly preferred to have a discussion amongst themselves, with dissenting voices only allowed to speak to the extent that the 6% chose to allow it.

I note that you didn't respond to my point about it being a blatant conflict of interest for two Red Hat employees to be moderating a debate over the future governance of GNU, but I see that you are also a Red Hat employee.

That is enough

Posted Apr 17, 2021 0:16 UTC (Sat) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

This is starting to look an awful lot like the repetitive discussion you were asked to discontinue not all that long ago. I believe it has gone far enough; we're all aware of the views on this subject — many times over. Please stop here, for real this time.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 0:14 UTC (Sat) by mhw (guest, #13931) [Link]

A month or two later, Date/Received headers suggested that proponents of the GNU Social Contract such as Ludovic Courtes were moderated [...]
Were any of his messages blocked? If so, this is the first time I've heard any suggestion that the new moderators blocked posts by those of the 6%.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 11:38 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

>> I don't think anybody is suggesting excluding RMS from this project..
> But that is what this essentially is. People who dislike his beliefs (unrelated to free software) have created a new governance structure that excludes him.

Which, ironically, is a violation of their own "Social Contract"

(And arguably the first and second items of the "standards" in their code of conduct...)

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 7:34 UTC (Fri) by dvdeug (guest, #10998) [Link]

Large-enough groups have either had to eject that one person who was annoying everyone else, or crashed, or at least split, when everyone that that person was annoying left. In practice, groups that pride themselves on being completely inclusive often drive away a lot of people.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 9:14 UTC (Fri) by Shiba (guest, #151620) [Link] (63 responses)

The obvious intent is to slowly take over GNU by gradually marginalizing those who don't sign their CoC. I hope GNU realizes the "good intentions" are just a pretext and that they are under attack.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 11:32 UTC (Fri) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link] (2 responses)

GNU realises this very well and rejected it the last time after those that initiated it refused to enter a constructive dialogue.

It's out there for all to read on the gnu-misc mailing list archives from November 2019 and onward.

Even though it was generally agreed that it was a peculiar initiative, these maintainers should be able to form a group within GNU with their own rules if they so desired, but they were asked to not use "GNU" in their name to prevent confusion.

Since they declined even that simple and obvious a request I doubt it will be a good faith effort this time.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 12:25 UTC (Fri) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958) [Link] (1 responses)

they could call it COC+GNU, or COC/GNU in the real GNU way :D :D

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 13:01 UTC (Fri) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link]

As I stated in my other post, the GNUish thing to do would be to call it TING. ;-)

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 12:40 UTC (Fri) by dvdeug (guest, #10998) [Link] (58 responses)

As Nix points out above, this is by the people who actually do the work. "take over" and "under attack" seem very biased ways to talk about a community CoC, whether or not you like it.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 13:15 UTC (Fri) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link] (15 responses)

Nix' Swaggart-like performance not withstanding, doing the work doesn't give you governance [1] for the simple but counter-intuitive reason that GNU maintainers need not be Free Software people.

This is how we can have an Emacs maintainer that openly uses and develops on OSX. It's not ideal, but if someone is only interested in GNU for the technical challenges it provides, that's okay. It does mean there needs to be an ultimate arbiter when it comes to applying software freedom.

Now if this "ultimate arbiter" role would have been challenged in good faith, there might have been a constructive discussion, because rms is not immortal, but it became clear that this movement was mainly about removing rms from GNU without demonstrating how he had failed in his role as "ultimate arbiter" or even how to set up a replacing governance.

So no, "doing the work" is not sufficient grounds for wanting to remove rms, because that would mean that developers that are full-time employed because their interest lies in commercially viable projects would be over represented and, except for the minimum, GNU maintainers are not beholden to the idea of Free Software.

[1] for GNU as a whole project. Every maintainer has full autonomy with regards to their own project, including installing a CoC.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 15:43 UTC (Fri) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] (14 responses)

But if all the projects leave GNU as a whole, what is left for GNU to govern?

This reads to me like people getting progressively more frustrated with the governance of GNU as a whole, for reasons separate to free software, unable to get traction within GNU for fixing it, and instead walking away. Would you be happier if they forked their projects, the way egcs did back in the day, and left GNU to govern the left-overs that didn't fork?

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 16:20 UTC (Fri) by mhw (guest, #13931) [Link] (13 responses)

But if all the projects leave GNU as a whole, what is left for GNU to govern?
For the record, only about 6% of GNU maintainers have ever supported these attempts to radically change GNU governance. There are currently 386 GNU maintainers, and 23 of them support this.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 0:10 UTC (Sat) by dvdeug (guest, #10998) [Link] (1 responses)

You mention only current statistics, so I don't know why you say "have ever supported". If 23 maintainers have added their names to this, that doesn't mean that only 23 support this; it means that only 23 have come out in support. Nor does it mean that the other 94% support you; I suspect a full poll would find some more full support for the GNU assembly, and a wide range of opinions from mild support for the GNU assembly, to apathy, to mild support for the status quo, to full support for the status quo. I don't know what the exact breakdown would be, but it would be a lot more complex than your 6% implies.

It strikes that I can't recall a single new GNU project since GNOME and GNU Classpath. Looking it up, I see GNU Poke, nice, but hardly major. Existing projects continue to be important, but new projects don't seem to be joining the GNU project.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 1:00 UTC (Sat) by mhw (guest, #13931) [Link]

You mention only current statistics, so I don't know why you say "have ever supported".

Back in 2019 and 2020, I computed similar statistics for the signers of their Joint statement on the GNU Project (2019) and GNU Social Contract (2020).

They had plenty of time to collect signatures for those two documents, and even took the questionable step of scraping emails from GNU's internal list of maintainers in order to send email directly to every GNU maintainer, soliciting feedback and signatures for their "GNU Social Contract", and arguably giving the false impression that this was an official action by the GNU project.

Ultimately, they were not able to persuade more than 6% of GNU maintainers to sign either of those documents. More precisely, 20 current GNU maintainers signed the first document, and 21 signed the second.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 0:50 UTC (Sat) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (10 responses)

Please excuse my ignorance, but I would like to better understand this 6% figure.

  • What exactly is a GNU maintainer, and what do they do? Is that just another word for "developer," or do they have some additional authority?
  • If it is not a synonym of "developer":
    • How are they chosen?
    • Why are there 386 of them, instead of 387 or 385, or indeed 3,860 or 3?
    • Why shouldn't the opinions of regular developers count? Do we know those opinions, or have any way of measuring them?
  • Do maintainers all do exactly the same amount of work?
  • Are they all currently active in development efforts, or are there maintainers emeritus?
  • Has there been a formal survey to establish the views of the other 363 maintainers?
  • Realistically, if the 23 maintainers involved walked away from GNU and forked any projects with which they were involved, what would be the likely outcome?

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 1:24 UTC (Sat) by mhw (guest, #13931) [Link] (9 responses)

What exactly is a GNU maintainer, and what do they do?

This, and most of your other questions, are answered here.

Do maintainers all do exactly the same amount of work?
Of course not. I guess this was a rhetorical question.
Has there been a formal survey to establish the views of the other 363 maintainers?
Ludovic Courtès sent email directly to every GNU maintainer in early 2020, soliciting feedback and signatures for the "GNU Social Contract". Only about 6% of them signed the document.
Realistically, if the 23 maintainers involved walked away from GNU and forked any projects with which they were involved, what would be the likely outcome?
I'm not sure, but they certainly have the right to do that (thanks to Richard Stallman, I might add). What they do not have the right to do is to seize the name "GNU" for their own purposes.

Second request.

Posted Apr 17, 2021 1:53 UTC (Sat) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (8 responses)

There are now at least nine comments from you on this article mentioning "6%".

We get your point

I will ask you one more time: stop now. Repetition does not help your case. It is time to end this interminable cycle.

Second request.

Posted Apr 17, 2021 14:50 UTC (Sat) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (5 responses)

May I respectfully disagree? It is my opinion that the whole thing smells like a coup, as I already stated. The numerical fact stated just lends more plausibility to that hypothesis.

Second request.

Posted Apr 17, 2021 15:24 UTC (Sat) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (4 responses)

For the record, I was not objecting to the posting of the 6% number1. My objection was the broken-record experience2 of posting it over and over and over and over again. There is a line of reasoning that says whoever posts last in a thread "wins" the point, but it's not true and creates a severely tiresome experience for everybody else involved.

1OTOH, that number shouldn't necessarily be accepted without question. As I understand it, the GNU project has a lot of listed maintainers who have not been active in years, for example.

2For the young folks out there who have not spent years enduring broken records, substitute "infinite loop with noise".

Second request.

Posted Apr 17, 2021 16:20 UTC (Sat) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link]

Oh, I don't object to the "tiresome experience" bit, at all. As a "merely (sporadically) commenting" person, I think I understand your point, as you have a bigger stake in the quality of the discussion. There is the problem that, as any discussion grows in size, newcomers tend to answer similarly to different nodes of the discussion tree (I know I often comment something just to see it in such-and-such wording some branches ahead). This happens because, well, that person there is *obviously wrong* at that point in the discussion, and one *must answer*.

And, yes, RMS *does* elicit emotional (and sometimes irrational) responses. The calm and thought you asked before any response is a reasonable request.

Second request.

Posted Apr 17, 2021 20:13 UTC (Sat) by mhw (guest, #13931) [Link] (2 responses)

Hi Jonathan,
For the record, I was not objecting to the posting of the 6% number. My objection was the broken-record experience of posting it over and over and over and over again.

It's possible that I've repeated myself too many times on a few of my points. It's hard for me to judge that objectively; I'm not sure that anyone with an opinion on this issue can do so. There's been a lot of repetition of misinformation here as well, and I feel compelled to counter it, but I also acknowledge that at some point, someone has to be willing to let the other side have the last word.

However, I believe that my repeated use of "6%" is quite different. I've recently started using it as my preferred label for this minority faction, in the same way that the Occupy movement used the label "1%". I personally don't see what's wrong with that. I disagree that using that label is tantamount to repeating the same point over and over again.

Second request.

Posted Apr 18, 2021 15:32 UTC (Sun) by rsidd (guest, #2582) [Link] (1 responses)

You should probably update it to "the 7.7%" then: 30 are currently listed, out of, you say, 386 maintainers.

That's without getting into the question of how many of the 30, and how many of the 386, are active maintainers.

Second request.

Posted Apr 18, 2021 21:22 UTC (Sun) by mhw (guest, #13931) [Link]

Only 24 of them are GNU maintainers, so it's still 6%, or more precisely 6.2%.

Second request.

Posted Apr 17, 2021 17:46 UTC (Sat) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

It would appear that different commenters subscribe to different norms about the level of discourse that is acceptable on LWN. In other parts of this thread, I have seen a fair amount of back-and-forth over this, some of which struck me as quite rude.

Might it be a good idea to formally write up the level of discourse that you expect of commenters, and post it somewhere prominent? I checked the FAQ but found nothing on this point.

Second request.

Posted Apr 17, 2021 21:37 UTC (Sat) by rodgerd (guest, #58896) [Link]

I know that it's unlikely to be a worthwhile use of your time and energy, since I doubt it would change any minds, but it would be fascinating to see something similar to the breakdown that you do of kernel dev contribution stats for gcc and the other important projects under the GNU umbrella.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 13:23 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (41 responses)

> As Nix points out above, this is by the people who actually do the work. "take over" and "under attack" seem very biased ways to talk about a community CoC, whether or not you like it.

Yes, they "actually do the work" but only *for their own projects*

They are of course free to organize and govern themselves however they see fit.

But they don't have the right to claim to be, or speak on behalf of, "The GNU Project".

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 15:23 UTC (Fri) by tlamp (subscriber, #108540) [Link] (40 responses)

> But they don't have the right to claim to be, or speak on behalf of, "The GNU Project".

Where on the home-page or the announcement do they talk about speaking for "The GNU Project"?

What actually is spoken, at least a part of that:

> Gathering under a New Umbrella — We, maintainers and contributors of well-known free software projects, are making this place our new home, fighting for the freedom of computer users and hacking the good hack.

The list of people involved are well known maintainers and hackers of GNU projects though, and this is already ten years in the making: https://gnu.tools/en/blog/2021/04/kicking-off-the-gnu-ass...

So, FWICT, they did not speak for the whole GNU project, but rather spoke with their maintainer hat for their respectively GNU projects they maintain since years, which seems to be well in their right.

They also do not claim to be "The GNU Project", but, an assembly of GNU projects, named "GNU Assembly" - duh.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 15:50 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (32 responses)

> Where on the home-page or the announcement do they talk about speaking for "The GNU Project"?

https://gnu.tools/en/documents/social-contract/

This is not a document produced (or endorsed) by "The GNU Project"

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 19:47 UTC (Fri) by dullfire (guest, #111432) [Link] (31 responses)

Having looked at their social contract: I'd call it a pretty bad fraud. I didn't see anywhere that the 'social contract' actually claims the GNU Assemble *is* the GNU Project. But the way everything is worded looks meant to deceive people into believing that.

Even if they claim do be championing a good cause: Their methods appear corrupted, and their inception tainted with lies.

The bar for honest (from what I can tell) is pretty low: They could have call themselves anything, GRM (GNU reform movement) for example would probably have been pretty clear. The could have made statements about what they (using what ever name they chose) believe/require/etc. Instead they chose a name (GNU Assembly) that implies association with the GNU project. They also repeatedly make statements as if an authority the GNU Project ("The GNU Project ...", followed by declaration) in their social contract.

And Ironically, as others have pointed out, requiring people to endorse their social contract before participation is exclusive, not inclusive.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 20:12 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (30 responses)

> And Ironically, as others have pointed out, requiring people to endorse their social contract before participation is exclusive, not inclusive.

Picking on your post for no particular reason, BUT.

From what I can make out, GNU maintainers are people who maintain a GNU project. There is no requirement to actually believe in GNU - you could be a rabid pro-closed-software guy who just maintains the project "because".

But this is supposed to be a group of people who BELIEVE in Free Software.

So requiring people to sign up to some sort of declaration is to be expected.

Also, it is bound to be only a fraction of the most dedicated GNU maintainers who are doing it.

And lastly, it IS inclusive - anybody is welcome to join, it's just that like ANY human society it is restricted to like-minded people. LWN is not welcoming to linux-hating Microsoft fanatics because it's set up to attract people who aren't that sort. The GNU Assembly is being set up for Free Software fan(atic)s so it's bound to be an unwelcome environment for people who don't feel that way. It's not AIMED at your typical Linux Free Software Pragmatist.

But that's just the reality of human society.

Cheers,
Wol

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 21:00 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (28 responses)

> And lastly, it IS inclusive - anybody is welcome to join, it's just that like ANY human society it is restricted to like-minded people.

This is self-contradictory nonsense; if membership is restricted only to like-minded folks, then it is not open to everybody and thus not "inclusive"

I am a member of my national "society" by birthright. I am a member of my state/county/city by virtue of simply living within its borders. I am a member of my local neighborhood society because I own property within it. Like-mindedness (with whom?) has nothing to do with any of that.

Meanwhile. I am a member of the (completely informal) Free Software Community because I contribute to Free Software projects. Why do I contribute? Maybe I believe in FSF's Four Freedoms, maybe I'm only complying with the license requirements, maybe I do it due to some sort of guilt-driven compulsive personality disorder, or maybe I'm paid to do so by my employers. Why does it matter, as long as the Software is Free? Use what I contribute, or don't, but don't presume to speak for what I must obviously believe in.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 21:27 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (27 responses)

> "This is self-contradictory nonsense; if membership is restricted only to >like-minded folks, then it is not open to everybody and thus not "inclusive"

You are talking past each other because of different definitions of what it means to be inclusive. This is an age old problem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Just like GPL isn't a maximally permissive license but the requirements or restrictions as you can see them, can make it a more free license from a user perspective, it is valid for a community to draw their own boundaries and not be maximally inclusive. In practice, we all draw the boundaries somewhere and having it stated explicitly can be helpful for people wanting to make the decision to join said communities or not.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 22:17 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (26 responses)

> it is valid for a community to draw their own boundaries and not be maximally inclusive

Of course!

But it is rather disingenuous to hold up "inclusiveness" as one of the principle reasons why splitting from RMS and the FSF is necessary, while actively discussing the mechanisms to be used to exclude others that don't agree with you.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 22:28 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (25 responses)

> But it is rather disingenuous to hold up "inclusiveness" as one of the >principle reasons why splitting from RMS and the FSF is necessary, while >actively discussing the mechanisms to be used to exclude others that don't >agree with you.

Not necessarily. If you believe that the boundaries drawn by an existing entity excludes some people from participating and your new organization with a different set of transparent boundaries will attract more of such people even though it may exclude some people who agree more with the original entity and if you believe that the net benefit will be more people participating in your new organization, you can present your intentions as being inclusive.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 13:10 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (24 responses)

> Not necessarily. If you believe that the boundaries drawn by an existing entity excludes some people from participating and your new organization with a different set of transparent boundaries will attract more of such people even though it may exclude some people who agree more with the original entity and if you believe that the net benefit will be more people participating in your new organization, you can present your intentions as being inclusive.

Sure, but that's not what's actually happening here.

The entire raison d'etre of this new Assembly and its "TBD governance" is to specifically exclude RMS [1]. They're hiding this behind a hand-wavey "social contract" and a generic code of conduct that is so half-baked [2] that there are loopholes large enough to allow the Ever Given through... sideways.

If RMS were inclined towards a bit of trolling [3], he would pop up there, say "yes, I agree to these" and ask to join this "Assembly". They would have _no_ grounds to refuse him under their current social contract or code of conduct, at least not without blatantly violating their own rules and instantly de-legitimatizing themselves.

[1] Certainly from any position of leadership/authority, but also from active participation.
[2] At least until the matters of governance and authority are settled.
[3] He won't, because that would be both unethical and unkind.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 13:38 UTC (Sat) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (2 responses)

> The entire raison d'etre of this new Assembly and its "TBD governance" is to specifically exclude RMS.

Unless the governance model specifically excludes RMS, I am not sure what exactly that means in practice since maintainers were always capable of overriding RMS's opinion including as demonstrated here:

https://lwn.net/Articles/802985/

RMS's position as I understand it is that he is the leader of the GNU project however maintainers can choose to adopt a code of conduct etc that applies to their projects if they wish to do so.

GCC committee recently made the decision to remove RMS as a committee member

https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-March/235245.html

This is a form of disassociation as well but a new organization wasn't strictly necessary to accomplish that.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 15:06 UTC (Sat) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link]

> Unless the governance model specifically excludes RMS, I am not sure what exactly that means in practice since maintainers were always capable of overriding RMS's opinion including as demonstrated here:

It seems to mean in practice "we will continue to use the GNU name and the FSF infrastructure, but we will follow only our own rules, and we will disavow RMS and anyone aligned with his views, just because."

Re: Alleged removal of RMS from the GCC steering committee

Posted Apr 18, 2021 11:35 UTC (Sun) by Nemo_bis (guest, #88187) [Link]

Note, some commenters do not share this characterisation of the events. See comments by Ian Lance Taylor (a [current GCC SC member](https://gcc.gnu.org/steering.html)) and Richard Kenner ([formerly](https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Contributors.html) "the head maintainer of GCC for several years"):

Kenner:

> Again, the position taken was that RMS was never *on* the SC to begin with.
> The role of the SC is to act as the official maintainer of GCC. The official maintainer of a GNU project coordinates things with the GNU project (a tautology). RMS is indeed involved in those communications (which I suspect are quite rare), but as a representative of the GNU project, *not* of the GCC SC.
> I just don't see it as a "removal". RMS is still in charge of the GNU project. That means that he, at some level, is involved in every GNU project, including GCC. As a practical matter, that involvement was very slight and still is. I don't see any change whatsoever in the day-to-day operations of GCC.

Taylor:

> He never actually voted on anything, and I don't know what we would have done if he had, but he was treated as a member.

https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235295.html
https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235313.html
https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235317.html
https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235269.html

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 13:59 UTC (Sat) by dvdeug (guest, #10998) [Link] (18 responses)

> Sure, but that's not what's actually happening here.

> The entire raison d'etre of this new Assembly and its "TBD governance" is to specifically exclude RMS [1].

And I was hoping that [1] was a citation for this fact. It seems clearly unfair; there's no reason why a chunk of GNU maintainers would randomly develop an irrational dislike for RMS. So even if we assume the goal is primarily to exclude RMS, there must be reasons behind wanting to exclude RMS, and thus only fair to state those reasons.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 14:40 UTC (Sat) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (17 responses)

> there's no reason why a chunk of GNU maintainers would randomly develop an irrational dislike for RMS

Eppur si muove. You can read the comments on the last three or four articles here on LWN tangent to the same topic, where lots of people try to reason out their irrational dislike for RMS. The fact that they spectacularly fail does not seem as deterrent for them to keep trying.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 15:41 UTC (Sat) by dvdeug (guest, #10998) [Link] (16 responses)

> Eppur si muove.

A story, if understood in its fullness, is about a lot more than one man knowing the truth, irrationally oppressed. Galileo was, after all, wrong; the Earth and the other planets do not move around the Sun in simple circles. Nor was Galileo the best advocate for his cause, in his ability to offend his patrons. If there had been a Moving Earth Foundation, they probably would have been better letting Galileo do the science and someone else do the diplomacy.

> lots of people try to reason out their irrational dislike for RMS. The fact that they spectacularly fail does not seem as deterrent for them to keep trying.

That could be, or it could be that RMS has used the powers of Satan to blind your eyes. Or it could be that RMS isn't perfect and that they have rational reasons, where they merely weigh the facts differently and judge them by a different set of values.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 17:24 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (15 responses)

> That could be, or it could be that RMS has used the powers of Satan to blind your eyes. Or it could be that RMS isn't perfect and that they have rational reasons, where they merely weigh the facts differently and judge them by a different set of values.

I've always referred to RMS as a prophet - you know - the sort of person who can see the truth, and insists on telling the truth, and pisses everyone off because they don't WANT him to be right.

Cheers,
Wol

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 21:40 UTC (Sat) by rodgerd (guest, #58896) [Link] (14 responses)

Well, that and the abuse heaped on FSF employees, which has been well-documented by their union. And the serial sexual harassment. And so on.

It's absurd to pretend the objections are based in somehow not liking his ideas. People such as Karen Sandler, Bradley Kuhn, and Matthew Garret all care very much about free software. That's why they want free software to succeed in spite of the insistence that it needs to be tied to the cult of an individual who indulges in appalling behaviour, and is completely unrepentant about doing so.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 21:53 UTC (Sat) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link]

You were doing well, until you got to the "unrepentant" part.

Searching in vain for evidence of "abuse" or "sexual harassment"

Posted Apr 18, 2021 1:11 UTC (Sun) by mhw (guest, #13931) [Link] (12 responses)

Well, that and the abuse heaped on FSF employees, which has been well-documented by their union. And the serial sexual harassment. And so on.

I've looked into these allegations, which I consider quite serious, but I have not found any evidence to back them up. Can you provide evidence?

For example, let's look closely at the four links provided in an email by Mark Wielaard, which you recently cited in an LWN comment.

First, there's a link to the ominously titled article Is LibrePlanet Safe?, which decries the "intimidating and hostile environment" at LibrePlanet. That article cites only one piece of evidence: a video of a talk by Marianne Corvellec at LibrePlanet, where RMS allegedly acted badly during the Q&A.

I strongly encourage everyone to see for themselves the sole piece of evidence provided to demonstrate the "intimidating and hostile environment" that RMS is allegedly responsible for at LibrePlanet. The relevant part begins slightly before 54 minutes into the video. Watch it, and then please explain how the interaction there could in any way justify the question "Is LibrePlanet Safe?".

The other three links provided in Mark Wielaard's email are twitter posts by three former FSF employees. Unfortunately, the only thing to be found in those links are the judgments that those three people made about RMS, without any description of specific interactions involving RMS, never mind evidence.

Meanwhile, several notable women have written in defense of RMS. For example, here's what the accomplished independent filmmaker Nina Paley had to say when asked about her in-person interactions with RMS:

@rcz Thanks for asking. Yes I spent plenty of time with RMS; he stayed in my NYC apartment twice while on speaking tours.

He can, indeed, be "creepy." He commits no crimes, and backs off when told. He's presumably autistic. I understand why many women feel uncomfortable around him.

BUT THAT'S NOT A GODDAMN CRIME.
Richard doesn't understand many common social cues but as far as I can tell has ALWAYS respected stated boundaries.

The whole point of Richard Stallman is he's weird, sometimes "creepy," disagreeable, socially challenged, Asperger's-y, and simultaneously brilliant and perfectly suited to what he does best. That was something that always inspired me about him. Talk about "able-ism" - Stallman himself is pretty severely "challenged" but nonetheless contributes to the benefit of all. His story showed me that you don't have to be nice, or likeable, or agreeable, or socially skilled, to make profound contributions.

@rcz Also, I have some pretty deep philosophical disagreements with Richard about Free Culture vs Free Software. I wrote about them here: https://blog.ninapaley.com/2011/07/04/rantifesto/

That, too, is not a crime. He and I disagree on these matters. If people wanted to unseat him for legitimate disagreements like that, I wouldn't object. But this stupid mob-action PC crap is shameful.

I happen to have spent a great deal of time in person with RMS. Apart from being a long-time GNU maintainer and contributor, I was the FSF staff sysadmin about 20 years ago, and for a couple of years I spent most of my time in the GNU Project office at the MIT AI lab, two doors down from RMS's office. During that time, I saw him and spoke to him almost every day that he was in town, and in particular I saw him interact with women on several occasions.

What Nina wrote above is perfectly consistent with my own observations of Richard. For example, I personally witnessed him proposition a woman friend who was visiting him at the lab and stayed over one night. I was a few feet away when Richard told her that she could either sleep on the couch in the GNU Project office, or else she could join him in his personal office. She said that she'd prefer to sleep on the couch. He took it like a perfect gentleman, and did not ask a second time, nor was there any hint of resentment or unhappiness. That happened somewhere in the time range of 2001-2003.

Also take a look at what Silvia Paull, founder of GraceNet, had to say about the attacks against RMS, in her article Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him.

I could go on, but this comment is already long enough. See https://stallmansupport.org/ for several more articles worth reading.

Searching in vain for evidence of "abuse" or "sexual harassment"

Posted Apr 18, 2021 2:08 UTC (Sun) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (3 responses)

Thank you for this. YES. We people on the autistic spectrum seem "weird" sometimes for the neurotypicals.

The poor hygiene thing is a colorful anecdote/hearsay that demonstrates that perceived weirdness. Please do have in mind that here in Brasil, as a rule, people do SHOWER EVERY DAY. Maybe twice a day on hot days and/or on hotter venues. It's considered impolite and improper not to do so. Copious amounts of soap and shampoo. So, once it was told to me, personally, by a couple that supposedly hosted him during some event in Rio: "we offered him towels, soap and shampoo, he never showered and he smelled really bad."

So, I asked of them: "did you explain this to him, and said that it was a social imperative required, and a 'sine qua non' condition of his stay?" and they answered me "no, we just shoved the towel and shower stuff on his hands". I answered "do you know how stupid you were? When you are dealing with a foreign (and possibly autistic) person, you have to be open, explicit, and honest to the fullest extent. Next time you just say to him 'Hi, Richard, this is my home. We Brazilians have an ultra-high hygiene standard, and as a condition of your stay you'll have to shower every day before leaving the house, and this includes washing your hair thoroughly with shampoo and conditioner, and before going to bed. I know it may seem stupid and even unsanitary from your perspective, but this way you will eliminate a point of contention that many people around won't bring up directly with you but will certainly be commenting on when you're not around.' -- and lay out to him every single other rule for living, even temporarily, under your roof. This is not rocket science, it's even simpler than the alternative!"

The "abuse" and "sexual harassment" accusations might even come from the same kind of misunderstandings... things that could be dealt with easily. If people were to properly lower their guard, and stop relying on idiotic "social cues".

BEAR IN MIND that I am NOT AFFIRMING that RMS is a saint and that he was right on each and every case. We all can be abusive sometimes. But, given the gravity of the claims, I too would like to see SOME firm evidence that he acted (sistematically, no less!) in a way that could be described as "abusive" and "harassing", and both of those include "maliciously".

Searching in vain for evidence of "abuse" or "sexual harassment"

Posted Apr 18, 2021 8:27 UTC (Sun) by dvdeug (guest, #10998) [Link] (2 responses)

> Please do have in mind that here in Brasil, as a rule, people do SHOWER EVERY DAY.

Please do have in mind that here in the USA, as a rule, people do shower every day. RMS knows this is a standard; if he doesn't follow it, it's because he chooses not to follow it.

> So, I asked of them: "did you explain this to him, and said that it was a social imperative required, and a 'sine qua non' condition of his stay?" and they answered me "no, we just shoved the towel and shower stuff on his hands". I answered "do you know how stupid you were?

Really? I'm pretty sure if I were kidnapped from Earth, and aliens shoved something into my hand, I would understand that to mean "use this". Certainly, if it confused me, and I shared a language, I would use it to try and figure what it was. They could be gifts or food, but it would be pretty obvious had RMS thought that. RMS is a genius; if he honestly didn't understand, it's probably because he didn't think about it, which shows he couldn't be bothered to think about what other people cared about.

> The "abuse" and "sexual harassment" accusations might even come from the same kind of misunderstandings... things that could be dealt with easily. If people were to properly lower their guard, and stop relying on idiotic "social cues".

People are screaming about how dare we, a group including a couple dozen GNU maintainers, complain about RMS's behavior. In 2006, less than a quarter of the CS students at MIT were female; you're telling me that a freshmen CS student, a stark minority at the time in MIT's CS department, should feel okay telling off a respected man in the department twice her age for hitting on her in a professional setting? I don't know how you think that RMS would have responded to that, but it doesn't look to me at all that said girl (17, 18 at oldest) would have got treated well by by the people who respected RMS.

https://twitter.com/quince/status/1172290838505738240?lan...

"When I got to MIT, upperclassmen told me that if I ever had to be in proximity to the professor discussed in this article, I should make sure I had a houseplant on me. "Broccoli in a pinch." One of those jokes-but-not-really that I laughed about at the time. Because RMS had some sort of pathological aversion to plants, apparently, and because it was common wisdom amongst us that he was incapable of interacting with a female student without being a creep about it. Like a lot of jokes, this joke served to transmit culture: 1) Interactions between RMS and teenage girl students are creepy, protect yourself. We care about you enough to tell you to protect yourself. ... For completeness, I got to MIT over 15 years ago. He's been a toxin in the water for a long, long time."

Female students at MIT have been warned about RMS's behavior for decades. I don't know how much explicit conversation RMS got about it, but if it's not RMS's fault, then it's the fault of everyone around him.

Re: Showering standards and communication

Posted Apr 18, 2021 15:37 UTC (Sun) by Nemo_bis (guest, #88187) [Link] (1 responses)

What's obvious for you might not be obvious for others. Asking a direct question avoids guesswork. Margarita Lacabe wrote:

> As described, he has phobias (his one, when I met him, was of having his head under water, which meant he seldom washed his hair.)[*]
> * We are told that in the 1990s Stallman developed a technique for washing his hair which felt safe, and since then he has washed his hair regularly.↑

https://stallmansupport.org/margarita-lacabe-my-relations...

Maybe that house did not provide the necessary equipment, and he didn't want to impose by asking for it. We know from the info package that he's very considerate about the risk of his requests being a burden:

> In some places, my hosts act as if my every wish were their command. By catering to my every whim, in effect they make me a tyrant over them, which is not a role I like. I start to worry that I might subject them to great burdens without even realizing.

https://github.com/ddol/rre-rms/raw/master/fulltext/20111...

Re: Showering standards and communication

Posted Apr 18, 2021 15:42 UTC (Sun) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Does anybody see this conversation leading to any kind of useful conclusion? I would like to propose that this would be a good time to let it wind down.

Thank you.

Searching in vain for evidence of "abuse" or "sexual harassment"

Posted Apr 18, 2021 8:37 UTC (Sun) by dvdeug (guest, #10998) [Link] (2 responses)

> He can, indeed, be "creepy." He commits no crimes, and backs off when told. He's presumably autistic. I understand why many women feel uncomfortable around him.

> BUT THAT'S NOT A GODDAMN CRIME.
> Richard doesn't understand many common social cues but as far as I can tell has ALWAYS respected stated boundaries.

> The whole point of Richard Stallman is he's weird, sometimes "creepy," disagreeable, socially challenged, Asperger's-y, and simultaneously brilliant and perfectly suited to what he does best.

He may be perfectly suited to what he does best. But if he's creepy and socially challenged and many women feel uncomfortable around him, what he does best is not lead a group of people.

I found evidence quite easy to find: https://twitter.com/quince/status/1172290838505738240?lan... for example.

Searching in vain for evidence of "abuse" or "sexual harassment"

Posted Apr 18, 2021 13:07 UTC (Sun) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> He may be perfectly suited to what he does best. But if he's creepy and socially challenged and many women feel uncomfortable around him, what he does best is not lead a group of people.

Surely that depends on what "leading a group of people" actually means in practice? I don't think anyone would disagree that RMS's technical contributions have been nonexistent for the past decade or so, with individual GNU projects making their own day-to-day technical (and governance) decisions. Instead he spends his time as an advocate -- speaking, writing, and challenging others to reconsider their positions on certain subjects. Is he suddenly no longer capable or suited for those tasks?

A couple of additional anecdotes:

1) The sister of a very good friend of mine gets very anxious when politics come up in discussions. We try to be mindful of this when she is present but it gets quite exacerbating at times (especially over the past few years) and has led to us setting up alternative communication channels and actively excluding her from some goings-on. It doesn't seem "right" to do this but at the same time, it's not "right" for her to effectively dictate what we talk about when together.

2) My ex-wife is very uncomfortable around black men, due to unspecified childhood trauma caused by a single individual. Is it reasonable to expect every other black person to accommodate her discomfort, or is it incumbent upon her to deal with her own issues instead? What if her way of "dealing" is to actively avoid being around any black men? What if that avoidance means excluding acquaintances that have a black spouse from social gatherings?

My point here is that the responsibility for "someone else feeling uncomfortable" is usually shared by the individual that is uncomfortable, sometimes entirely so... and exclusion can be a form of accommodation. Meanwhile, there are other times where that discomfort is actually the point; personal growth and change rarely happens from a place of comfort and complacency.

Searching in vain for evidence of "abuse" or "sexual harassment"

Posted Apr 18, 2021 18:07 UTC (Sun) by mhw (guest, #13931) [Link]

I found evidence quite easy to find: https://twitter.com/quince/status/1172290838505738240?lan... for example.

I don't see any evidence there. All I see is someone propagating a decades-old rumor of unknown origin. Moreover, they freely admit that they've never even met Richard. There's no description of an actual interaction with RMS, never mind evidence.

Re: The Q&A after the talk by Marianne Corvellec at LibrePlanet 2017

Posted Apr 18, 2021 11:57 UTC (Sun) by Nemo_bis (guest, #88187) [Link]

> [...] a video of a talk by Marianne Corvellec at LibrePlanet [...]
> I strongly encourage everyone to see for themselves [...]
> https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/the-gnu-phi...

Thank you, I had not watched the video before. The audio isn't always intelligible and only some participants are visible. The recording can only tell us one angle of what happened in one instance, but I suspect different people are seeing very different things in this video.

I see a respectful and enthusiastic conversation between two persons on the meaning of "ethics" in English vs. "éthique" in French. (With occasional participation of a third person outside the video.) The conversation remains very friendly, judging from the continuous smiles and courteous tone. As someone interested in i18n, I'm particularly happy to notice a high level of intercultural awareness, in that all the participants explicitly remark how their reading of a message originating from another culture and language is liable to misinterpretation, and therefore they have to defer to the examination of the matter by a native speaker.

The beginning of the conversation is interrupted by someone who feels compelled to make sure that everyone exits the room at once. After a reassurance from the FSF that the room can be used beyond the initially allotted time, the presenter tells the audience that they are free to either leave or stay.

Searching in vain for evidence of "abuse" or "sexual harassment"

Posted Apr 18, 2021 12:15 UTC (Sun) by dvrabel (subscriber, #9500) [Link] (3 responses)

You personally witnessed a possible incident of sexual harassment. Your failure to recognize it as such does not mean it did not happen. You don't mention whether you made any effort to ascertain if the woman subjected to the unwanted request for sex felt comfortable or safe afterwards so it isn't possible to say whether this particular incident was harassement. Regardless, plenty of other women have said that Stallman's behaviour made them feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

For reference, here is a plain english explanation of sexual harrassment[1] (as defined by UK law) which makes it clear that it's the perception or feelings of the person being harrassed that matters, and not the intent of the harrasser. Nor does harassement require a persistent or repeated pattern of behaviour to any one person.

I appreciate that laws are different in different countries and I believe the US law is considerably weaker but as a community we should be striving for something _much_ better than the bare minimum requred by the law of any one country if we want our community to a welcoming and safe space.

I think what you probably should have done is:

1. Challenged Stallman's behaviour (something like 'not cool, Richard' might be a reasonable, non-confrontational start).
2. Asked Stallman to leave the room (you can't do the next step while he's still in earshot).
3. Checked that the woman felt safe and comfortable. In this case, offering alternate accommodation arrangements would have been sensible.

[1] https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/discrimi...

Politely asking once, and only once, as "sexual harassment"

Posted Apr 18, 2021 17:40 UTC (Sun) by mhw (guest, #13931) [Link] (2 responses)

For the record, over the last two decades I've spent hundreds of hours listening to and learning from strong women friends of mine about these issues, including some MIT student activists who have since graduated. Believe it or not, I'm not insensitive to these issues, nor am I wholly ignorant of them.

For example, I'm aware that most women have had far too many experiences of men punishing them for saying "no" in various ways, sometimes subtle but nonetheless real. Because this happens so often, simply being asked can be profoundly uncomfortable for women, and moreover can make them feel unsafe because women have justifiably learned to expect punishment when they say "no". Most men cannot relate to this, because our lived experiences are profoundly different.

Having said all of that, the fact remains that in order for new intimate relationships to form between two people without the aid of third-party intermediaries, at some point one of them must ask the other if they are interested in pursuing an intimate relationship. When that happens, there is always a risk that the answer will be "no".

With this in mind, I have one question for you: in your view, is there any way to ask this question without risking charges of "sexual harassment"? If so, how?

Politely asking once, and only once, as "sexual harassment"

Posted Apr 18, 2021 20:26 UTC (Sun) by dvrabel (subscriber, #9500) [Link]

I guess I should have expected the lame "men have to sexually harrass women or the human race will die out" argument. This is not worthy of a serious response.

Politely asking once, and only once, as "sexual harassment"

Posted Apr 18, 2021 22:00 UTC (Sun) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

> in your view, is there any way to ask this question without risking charges of "sexual harassment"? If so, how?

There is always at least a theoretical risk, particularly if you're seen as an Important person in the context in which you're asking (and yes, in the context of the kind of conference RMS would be likely to attend in the first place, RMS is absolutely Important), but it's certainly possible to reduce that risk to manageable levels (FSVO manageable) even when you're asking almost completely the wrong person.

With that said, describing how is outside my competence; I'm reasonably sure I owe all of my relationships to large doses of sheer dumb luck.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 14:45 UTC (Sat) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (1 responses)

> [3] He won't, because that would be both unethical and unkind.

Would it, though, really?

I have a tough time trying to reason why would it be unkind (let alone unethical) that RMS joined an organization commited to upholding the four freedoms, provide a consistent GNU system, collaborate with the broader free software community, and welcome contributions from all and everyone.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 15:08 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

I apologize; I meant to say that RMS would consider mild trolling to be unethical and unkind.

There is another reason why RMS would not attempt to join; it would grant this Assembly legitimacy (eg with respect to speaking on behalf of "The GNU Project") that it does not currently have or deserve.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 21:46 UTC (Fri) by dullfire (guest, #111432) [Link]

While I strongly believe that idea of libre software is the ethical way for software to be, I can't conscience joining/endorsing a group who's "social contract" is basically one large document intended to deceive people into thinking one group represents another group (who the first group might be a non-authoritative subset of).

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 16:53 UTC (Fri) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link] (6 responses)

> They also do not claim to be "The GNU Project",

From their mailing list:

> by creating this assembly, we affirmed that GNU Project leadership is in our hands
-- Ludovic Courtès

I don't think it gets more unambiguous than that.

https://lists.gnu.tools/hyperkitty/list/assembly@lists.gn...

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 21:36 UTC (Fri) by tlamp (subscriber, #108540) [Link] (2 responses)

>From their mailing list:
>
>> by creating this assembly, we affirmed that GNU Project leadership is in our hands
>-- Ludovic Courtès
>
>I don't think it gets more unambiguous than that.

1. Ludovic Courtès is not listed in the list "maintainers and contributors participate in the GNU Assembly" so unambiguous my ass...
https://gnu.tools/en/people/

2. As written in my comment, this was ten years in the making. But yeah, that one mail really shows that this is a coup d'état... /s

3. From the last few replies from your handle here and in related comments sections from the last weeks, you have quoted stuff out of context, made strawman, and just general false statements linking bogus sources in the hope that they give you some credibility. Please just stop that, it's ridiculous.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 16, 2021 23:19 UTC (Fri) by mhw (guest, #13931) [Link]

1. Ludovic Courtès is not listed in the list "maintainers and contributors participate in the GNU Assembly" so unambiguous my ass...
https://gnu.tools/en/people/

I see Ludovic in that list. Are we seeing different things? Is anyone else here failing to see him in that list?

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 17, 2021 8:21 UTC (Sat) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link]

1. He is listed.

2. If you are already aware this was ten years in the making, it should be fairly obvious that Courtès would be a part of this, listed or not. He has been one of the most vocal proponents of a change in governance.

3 If you have something specific to argue, please do so. If not, please refrain from throwing out nebulous accusations.

Moderation of conversations on GNU

Posted Apr 18, 2021 12:05 UTC (Sun) by Nemo_bis (guest, #88187) [Link] (2 responses)

I see the topic of moderation has come up over there.

Moderation of conversations on GNU

Posted Apr 19, 2021 13:49 UTC (Mon) by dullfire (guest, #111432) [Link] (1 responses)

> they came back later, this time using softer words, but always rehashing their opposition to what we were doing, questioning the code of conduct even after being told it’s not up for discussion, and so forth.

Maybe they don't mean what they said (but since that's all they said, I can only see that), but the 'code of conduct' not being up for discussion in general seems... like a poor idea (perhaps they meant it was not up for discussion on that IRC channel... but they didn't say that).

Kicking trolls is one of the things all IRC channels have to deal with (at least those that don't want to be a cesspit of trolls and spam). I'm pretty sure most manage to do that without being invite only or having a "majority".

The fact that making it an exclusive group in response to being question/disagreed with doesn't reflect well in my personal view (if they are being trolled, I would suspect the best way to handle that would be to have an "Acceptable IRC behavior" doc, and if people violate that, kick/ban them with the violation as the reason).

Moderation of conversations on GNU

Posted Apr 20, 2021 13:01 UTC (Tue) by Nemo_bis (guest, #88187) [Link]

It's not clear to me whether these spaces follow a lower standard than the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/kind-communication.html propose, for instance this crucial passage:

> Please assume other participants are posting in good faith, even if you disagree with what they say.

"Assume good faith" is a common principle in many communities, for instance in wikis (http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/AssumeGoodFaith ), but many find hard. It would be sad if these spaces outside the GNU Project followed a lower behavioral standard.

Kicking off the GNU Assembly

Posted Apr 18, 2021 0:22 UTC (Sun) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

Sorry, you don't get to come here and start throwing around that "the enemy is both weak and strong" rhetoric.


Copyright © 2021, Eklektix, Inc.
Comments and public postings are copyrighted by their creators.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds