Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Posted Sep 20, 2023 9:45 UTC (Wed) by farnz (subscriber, #17727)In reply to: Forty years of GNU by coriordan
Parent article: Forty years of GNU
What makes me deeply sad is that he's failed to pass on the torch as he's got older; there is no clear RMS successor appointed with RMS's approval to any of the roles he has filled, and there's no sign that he has mentees who are learning what it will take to replace him in 30 years time. There is a very good chance that the FSF will fade into irrelevance after he dies, and the whole GNU project will follow him, leaving just the GPL to show for all of RMS's great works.
And even then, there's a good chance that the GPL will fade too, and just become "that Linux license" instead of the force for social good it was designed to be. This would be a very sad end to a great career.
Posted Sep 20, 2023 12:40 UTC (Wed)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (4 responses)
On the 40th anniversary of GNU, why not celebrate the *many* things RMS /did/ accomplish, and give him the credit for that?
Posted Sep 20, 2023 13:14 UTC (Wed)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link] (2 responses)
Because the thing that makes me sad is that unless this changes, we're unlikely to see a "century of GNU". And the good things RMS has done mean that I feel that it would be appropriate for GNU to keep going long after he's gone, not just as a memorial to the good he's managed so far, but as an active organisation that's continuing to make the world a better place.
Posted Sep 20, 2023 13:51 UTC (Wed)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (1 responses)
We can look for faults, and we will always find them, everywhere.
Is your mindset one that chooses to emphasise the faults? At a juncture of an anniversary to celebrate what was achieved?
WRT GNU, even if the project and the FSF whithers, it has had a major impact on software and the culture of software engineering. An influence will continue, regardless.
It's 40 years of GNU. Let's just celebrate the immense achievements.
Posted Sep 20, 2023 14:05 UTC (Wed)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link]
My mindset is "it is a shame that we're choosing to run to a world where GNU anniversaries are no longer relevant". There's a lot else to criticise about GNU, but those things are things that I would expect to see fixed over the next few decades if GNU keeps going (and new reasons to criticise will come out of those fixes, but that's life).
An organisation like GNU does not have to die with its founder; IBM is still around, yet all of its founders have died. And I would love to see many more anniversaries of GNU, not have this be the last one we celebrate before it fails.
Why are you so keen on the idea that GNU should fail?
Posted Sep 20, 2023 16:12 UTC (Wed)
by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
[Link]
Indeed, I intended above to say I wish the FSF article celebrated those things, and not non-existent stuff like the "GNU operating system" or make claims that no other OS cares about user freedom.
In ESR's article "The cathedral and the bazar", the cathedral was not just proprietary software, but GNU. Linus basically invented the bazar model. Free software exploded after that, including the development of GNU software (remember the gcc/egcs split and subsequent unification?)
GNU taking credit things for what they did do (which is a lot!) is entirely fitting. But for over thirty years, with this GNU/Linux nonsense, they have been trying to grab credit for things they did not do. And, by saying they are the only ones focused on user freedom, denying credit from other projects.
BSD may or may not have been ahead of linux in the absence of the AT&T lawsuit—undoubtedly the lawsuit hurt them—but I think Linus's development model is better, he went as far as to write a new version control system just to support his model (which has been adopted by FreeBSD!), and I feel even without the lawsuit Linux would have pulled ahead. But that's a counterfactual. And the BSDs have contributed a lot. And, yes, I mean Linux, not GNU.
Posted Sep 20, 2023 13:24 UTC (Wed)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link]
This reminds me of what happened with Islam. Its founder left behind a blueprint covering nearly every aspect of society... except how to choose his successor (and leaders in general). Barely a decade after his death things had already begun to fracture, and within a generation, succession had largely become a matter of heredity (and who could back up that claim with a sufficiently large army) . This culminated (48 years after Mohammed's death) with the Karbala massacre that became the root of the Sunni-Shiite schism. 1353 years later, it _still_ dominates Middle Eastern geopolitics.
> and there's no sign that he has mentees who are learning what it will take to replace him in 30 years time.
Unfortuntely, RMS probably doesn't have 30 years. As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago...
Posted Sep 20, 2023 14:02 UTC (Wed)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link] (25 responses)
Is that his failure, or ours?
Maybe we, the community, should be working on this, trying to figure out exactly what his role is, looking at what strengths lead to his successes, and maybe organising some regular forum where topics could be discussed and hopefully some candidates to take over Richard's role would emerge.
Posted Sep 20, 2023 14:14 UTC (Wed)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link] (2 responses)
His failure.
He left the FSF presidency in 2019, and started the processes that would lead to him ultimately being replaced, allowing GNU to continue on. Then, instead of asking the FSF to create a special position for him (something he's surely earned), he took the presidency back in 2021.
He could have chosen to leave the presidency for someone else to fill. He could have asked the FSF to create a Founder-Emeritus position for him (not uncommon in academic or industrial circles), and even set it up so that the Founder-Emeritus takes over the President's rights and responsibilities if the Presidency is empty (thus allowing him to leave it empty, and signalling a desire for someone to step in). He could very easily be telling us what he wants a future replacement to look like - he's demonstrated an ability to write philosophical documents that force you to think.
Posted Sep 20, 2023 18:28 UTC (Wed)
by donbarry (guest, #10485)
[Link] (1 responses)
I frankly think he should have returned as well to the presidency, and that Alexandre Oliva not been hounded off the board (he remains a voting member, a parallel panel to the board that chooses board members). But I am very glad that both continue to be involved with the organization, and that figures who got caught up in prosecuting the witch hunt have departed.
Missing from this discussion is the fact that billions of dollars of profit and "property" are now tied up with aspects of free software licensing. The ham-fisted and transparently vicious attacks promoted by Microsoft and its, witting or not, apparatchiks like the OSF smearing the GPL as a "cancer" or a "virus" twenty years ago have been replaced by more subtle forms of mass manipulation. Those whose salaries and "respectability" are tied to promoting the line of the large cartels often do so without even being cognizant of the social forces which have recruited them to do its bidding.
Posted Sep 20, 2023 19:16 UTC (Wed)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link]
I stand corrected - I was relying on past statements by Alexandre Oliva on what RMS had done after rejoining.
But it's a bad sign that such changes can happen, and yet it's not clear to relatively well-informed outsiders (LWN readers) that FSF leadership has changed. The FSF used to be such a significant player in the world of software that even entities diametrically opposed to Free Software would tell you about what the FSF was doing now. If now we've reached a point where the FSF is simply irrelevant to people interested in Free Software (LWN readers and the like), then that's a really sad place.
Posted Sep 20, 2023 16:24 UTC (Wed)
by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
[Link] (19 responses)
His doing, but not a failure: it's deliberate.
Let's remember that he was made to step down due to his toxic personal behaviour (I use the word toxic carefully; it's well-documented in his case) and then brought back in. That suggests an institutional setup that, he ensured, couldn't survive without him. But one day he will be gone and what then?
Posted Sep 21, 2023 9:43 UTC (Thu)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (18 responses)
There was a lot of back and forth in the comments here on a LWN story not so long ago. The feeling I'm left with is that RMS may be a very socially awkward person, there are no real examples of any actual nasty behaviour from him.
Posted Sep 21, 2023 9:44 UTC (Thu)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (17 responses)
Posted Sep 21, 2023 10:43 UTC (Thu)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (16 responses)
He has the classic autistic trait that he would be horrified if he thought he were upsetting other people, he just doesn't understand the consequences of his actions until they are spelled out to him.
Cheers,
Posted Sep 21, 2023 10:54 UTC (Thu)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (13 responses)
These conversations are largely pointless. Many people have had poor personal interactions with RMS. Many people have had reasonable personal interactions with him. But most of the people making the most noise have never had any personal interactions with him, but seem to want to espouse their certainty one way or the other at length. That just drowns out people's actual experiences without adding anything.
Posted Sep 21, 2023 11:13 UTC (Thu)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (12 responses)
Also, it was in the previous set of comments where you left the inference hanging of RMS abusing his power as an elder, FOSS rockstar wrt to the dinner with the young student - without mentioning it occurred when RMS was also young, and before any of the FOSS fame, and that the lady was left feeling uncomfortable and sorry for him.
I mean this with respect, and I know you mean well and want to do justice to all sides of the story - you have very reasonable blog posts on RMS' behaviour - but aren't you sort of engaging in the same thing you are saying we should desist from? I.e., you're adding (and have added) incomplete, one-side-of-the-story accusations here (above comment and previous), which will just fuel that "espouse their certainty one way or another" behaviour in others - which I know you are uncomfortable with.
I havn't met RMS, but have heard stories 1st hand from women who have (and who have met other FOSS luminaries). I don't want to have to judge, but when accusations against RMS were (and still are) regularly thrown around, as part of a campaign to get him removed from FOSS positions, then I - and others - have little choice but to (hopefully carefully) read the available evidence and form a (hopefully well considered) opinion as to whether I should change my support for various things.
To date, I have not read any accusations that hold up. Nearly all lack substance - they're vague accusations at best. Quite a few are just /false/. The remainder are social awkwardness and humour that falls flat with some (also, judging humour from times past by today's standards - and not necessarily a 100% representative standard).
Posted Sep 21, 2023 11:19 UTC (Thu)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (11 responses)
Posted Sep 21, 2023 11:27 UTC (Thu)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (9 responses)
It seems like there's no malice there in RMS' position. It's RMS being RMS in analysing language in terms of (his view of) technical correctness and elegance and ignoring social aspects. His reasoning is based on grammar elegance, and not any of the other socio-political stuff which may come with nasty motivations.
Posted Sep 21, 2023 11:32 UTC (Thu)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (8 responses)
Posted Sep 21, 2023 11:38 UTC (Thu)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (7 responses)
Posted Sep 21, 2023 11:46 UTC (Thu)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (6 responses)
Posted Sep 21, 2023 12:00 UTC (Thu)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (5 responses)
A well-rounded person should be able to cope with a well-meaning autistic-type person using words in odd ways (inc. using pronouns in ways other than the well-rounded person would prefer).
Posted Sep 21, 2023 13:59 UTC (Thu)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Sep 21, 2023 14:48 UTC (Thu)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (3 responses)
On personal experience, again, a number of people have engaged in a campaign to paint RMS as unsuitable for any kind of visible role in FS, resulting in numerous tweets, blogs, and articles in various tech media (inc. here). To the extent that /any/ article touching on RMS now, inc this one marking the anniversary of GNU, has comments intended to further that campaign.
It is impossible for me - or any one else who participates in Free Software, and who has any kind of influence in things (inc., in paying dues) - to not have to read and form judgements. I, and everyone else, is being _encouraged_ to engage with this and form a judgement, particularly to condemn and excommunicate RMS.
And while in the beginning I took the accusations at face value, and was greatly disappointed in RMS and him being something of a low-level sex predator, the more I read the more it struck me the claims lacked substance. And when I interrogate those who are informed in the claims (and who I consider reasonable and good-faith actors - hence worth engaging with), and reading more of the falsehoods in some of the claims, I have since gone the other way. I have become very sceptical of this campaign. To the point I consider it mostly an unwarranted smear campaign, and maliciously so in some cases.
Again, I, and everyone else, was surely _invited_ to engage with those accusations and judge RMS by those who raise them (and keep doing so). That was the point of that campaign. We can't be blamed for doing so and digging into the evidence and interrogating things. And having done so, I find I am _required_ to push back against a lot of the accusations - as they lack substance, or they are simply false, or they indicate social-awkwardness issues in RMS *and* potentially /also/ some slight degree of a lack of tolerance, flexibility, and/or empathy from the /accuser/. I can't sit by, I just think - having followed this and dug in, that where one side is put forth someone should at least put the other side.
On the change behaviour comment: Can't say myself, don't have experience. Interested in data-points. That type of personality I can imagine would be willing to change on general social points when they were pointed out to them, but also that personality will dig in completely on any point where they have formed some "technically correct" view. ;)
Posted Sep 21, 2023 14:50 UTC (Thu)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link]
Posted Sep 21, 2023 15:00 UTC (Thu)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (1 responses)
There surely is a difference and it should be possible to see the intent, and avoid being hurt?
Posted Sep 21, 2023 16:27 UTC (Thu)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
You're being rational. Most people aren't.
And, from my view, I'm sorry but my world revolves around me. What I call myself is IMPORTANT. What refers to ME is IMPORTANT. I can put up with people making mistakes, but I get seriously offended if they choose not to get it right.
Okay, I try to reciprocate that - I use your choice of name when referring to you, I use your choice of pronoun (if it doesn't grate too much with me), etc etc. I would be (and am) insulted by people not using my choice of name, therefore it's only right I should use your choice.
(But not least, it's important because if you don't refer to me on my terms, how am I supposed to know you're referring to me? :-)
Cheers,
Posted Oct 3, 2023 10:34 UTC (Tue)
by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958)
[Link]
I read his statement as merely a more general discussion about grammar, that wouldn't prevent the use of less optimal solutions until consensus is reached on a better one.
Posted Sep 21, 2023 11:35 UTC (Thu)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link]
There's a degree of "ableism" in not allowing for this fact when judging him, given there appears to be 0 nastiness coming from RMS in any of the "accusations" against him. Bad behaviour is bad behaviour and should always be addressed, but an autistic person - without ever any sign of malice - being unable to follow social cues, obsessing over technicalities (inc. in grammar), is something that well-rounded, well-functioning adults should be able to work around.
Posted Sep 21, 2023 16:11 UTC (Thu)
by rsidd (subscriber, #2582)
[Link]
Posted Sep 20, 2023 20:34 UTC (Wed)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (1 responses)
It's interesting to contrast RMS and Guido van Rossum. RMS clings to whatever power he has. Guido van Rossum voluntarily relinquished his position as BDFL once Python outgrew him, but remains an active voice in Python development.
I intensely dislike Python myself, but I have way more faith that Python will still be actively developed in 2050. I'm not so sure about the FSF's products.
Posted Sep 21, 2023 10:02 UTC (Thu)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link]
That influence will live on well past python. Who cares what institutional acronyms are or are not attached, when the ideas live on?
Posted Sep 25, 2023 10:05 UTC (Mon)
by jafd (subscriber, #129642)
[Link]
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
On the 40th anniversary of GNU, why not celebrate the *many* things RMS /did/ accomplish, and give him the credit for that?
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Is that his failure, or ours?
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Wol
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Wol
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU
Forty years of GNU