LWN: Comments on "Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project"

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

obspsr — Sun, 18 Apr 2021 17:09:08 +0000

Did you ever faced a mirror ?

Project's meaning has changed

obspsr — Sun, 18 Apr 2021 16:47:35 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

frostsnow — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 04:22:27 +0000

I apologize for the long delay in replying.

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

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

fuhchee — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 23:29:17 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

Kluge — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 12:44:07 +0000

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

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

flussence — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 00:57:53 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

anselm — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 00:28:38 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

atai — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 23:25:11 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

atai — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 23:21:30 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

kamil — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 16:27:56 +0000

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

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

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

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

kamil — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 15:59:03 +0000

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

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

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

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

NYKevin — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 01:09:28 +0000

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

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

Project's meaning has changed

david.a.wheeler — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 21:06:49 +0000

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

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

Consider the GNU 'project' successfully concluded

ber — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 08:48:29 +0000

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

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

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

anselm — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 12:19:18 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

nix — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 09:30:25 +0000

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

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

donbarry — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 07:59:13 +0000

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

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

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

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

ale2018 — Sat, 26 Oct 2019 11:52:23 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

flussence — Sat, 26 Oct 2019 05:12:38 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

flussence — Sat, 26 Oct 2019 02:14:57 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

NYKevin — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 16:44:26 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

frostsnow — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 15:40:25 +0000

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

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

rioting_pacifist — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 14:39:14 +0000

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

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

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

mathstuf — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 12:46:11 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

dunlapg — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 11:19:28 +0000

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

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

flussence — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 07:59:13 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

anselm — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 04:24:29 +0000

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

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

frostsnow — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 00:20:55 +0000

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

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

NAR — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 21:05:02 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

NYKevin — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 20:43:48 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

simcop2387 — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 20:35:55 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

mjw — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 19:15:11 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

djdelorie — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 18:38:00 +0000

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

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

JoeBuck — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 18:37:08 +0000

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

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

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

josh — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 18:29:09 +0000

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

Rethinking the governance of the GNU Project

dowdle — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 18:13:36 +0000

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

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

2) Accept it

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

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