LWN: Comments on "Debian votes on a statement — and a leader"

Debian votes on a statement — and a leader

marcH — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 03:58:54 +0000

> because mob mentality is despicable regardless of its underlying mission

Please correct me but I think RMS was left mostly alone until he succeeded in being re-instated as a _leader_? Places where _leaders_ cannot be neither critized nor ousted are typically described as "dictatorship". Now the FSF is not a democracy but its entire purpose is to be the leading copyleft force which obviously matters a lot to a project like Debian. So if Debian's majority strongly disapproves indeed the current FSF leader and believes it should be someone else then it makes sense for Debian to have an internal vote and a professional, respectful and not even binding statement. That's just a usual and normal part of politics.

I have no doubt you can find plenty of examples of "mob mentality" and people retweeting bad stuff about RMS without having actually verified anything themselves. Hey I bet you can even find some on some debian mailing lists right now, which probably influenced your vote? However the vote itself and the choices seem reasonable and professional. To make a voting decision you don't simply check which side has the most vocal idiots and go the other way, do you? I doubt it was just that.

Debian votes on a statement — and a leader

amacater — Sun, 18 Apr 2021 14:21:18 +0000

The voting period for both these questions is now passed and the Project Secretary has published the results.

Debian has a new Debian Project Leader. following the vote, Jonathan Carter, the incumbent DPL has been re-elected. Turnout in the
DPL election was slightly higher than in previous years. Thanks to him and to Sruthi for their candidacy. Results are at https://vote.debian.org/2021/vote_001

The result of the other GR is that Debian will not issue a public statement of any type on this subject [Choice 7 below]
Results are at https://www.debian.org/vote/2021/vote_002

A note to commenters

nybble41 — Fri, 16 Apr 2021 00:00:12 +0000

Certainly he can say whatever he likes, but the content of the article speaks for itself.

Debian votes on a statement

jschrod — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:38:20 +0000

* Plonk *

A note to commenters

jschrod — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:26:43 +0000

Since he is the author, he has the right to tell you what this article is about.

Debian votes on a statement

cortana — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 06:45:51 +0000

"concentration camp" is not a synonym for "extermination camp".

Debian votes on a statement

ldearquer — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 15:54:04 +0000

I could agree with you, if only the FSF was just 'another' organization, but it is *not*. And the reason is "GPLvX or later" ("as published by the Free Software Foundation")

FSF is effectively safeguarding the copyright (copyleft) of thousands of developers, so who is on charge is relevant to all of them. If, as you said, the FSF decided to promote proprietary software (which probably can't do openly, but it could happen in hidden manners), it could be a disaster in the form of GPLv4

Please don't read this as a statement in favor or against RMS, or GPLvX or later clauses. Trusting the FSF against future law changes or industry practices is everyone's choice.

Free software == free documentation for Debian [was Debian votes on a statement — and a leader]

chris_se — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 07:29:10 +0000

> So, back in 2012 or do, after a long negotiation with the FSF (or, RMS), a group of three GCC maintainers were delegated the permission/authority to relicense snippets of GCC docs upon request from GPL to GFDL, or the reverse, in order to facilitate this sharing. This solved the maintenance problem.

> But...the ideal of Free Software is that anyone can fork and modify it, in the same ways the original project can. Yet, this special relicensing arrangement effectively means that only the FSF or their delegated representatives can maintain GCC properly. That's not great.

Really? Wow, just wow. I always found the GFDL to be quite odd as a license, but if even the FSF itself has to work around the confines of the license itself, that just boggles my mind. If you read https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html it clearly states that the copyright assignment is done to facilitate license enforcement. This specific use of the copyright assignment goes beyond that reasoning. Now in this case I think that was the simplest pragmatic solution given the problem space, the fact that they had to bend their internal rule about how copyright assignments were to be used to effectively bend rules of the licenses themselves speaks volumes. It's quite ironic that the quest to spread the free software ideology (which is the main reason why invariant sections exist) stands in the way of an actual practical implementation of that ideology.

I think the FSF missed a large opportunity when drafting the GPL3 -- they could have made sure that it was a license that was well-suited to code and documentation, and made it so that the GFDL without invariant sections was compatible with the GPL3. In that case both code and documentation could be released under the GPL3, and nobody would have that specific problem.

Debian votes on a statement

dgm — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 06:15:52 +0000

> In some places 'social justice' is a pejorative title, but justice is something we all rely on and people serving justice are to be respected.

Beware of this trap. The (miss)use of "Justice" here is an accident. What you call 'social justice' has nothing to do with real Justice, neither in the goals, nor in the methods. There is no law, no due process is followed, no impartiality, no defense and no possibility of recurse.

One could argue that the "justice" is used ironically, in fact.

Debian votes on a statement

smurf — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 17:55:37 +0000

… common good, of course. Bleh.

Debian votes on a statement

smurf — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 17:13:17 +0000

Whether or not I or anybody else thinks that this is morally acceptable is irrelevant.

People behaves as people does. It's a fact of life. We need to take it into account, especially if we want people to act more rationally.

For the record, IMHO the morally inacceptable part is people exploiting this fact to further their own agenda, no matter whether I, they, or anybody else thinks that that agenda is aligned with the common cood (or the least common harm, which isn't always the same thing).

Debian votes on a statement — and a leader

rra — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 16:20:58 +0000

This is just factually completely false. There are advocates of a secret ballot on all sides of the issue; one of the first people to raise this was an RMS supporter.

Debian votes on a statement

Wol — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 15:31:47 +0000

> > Whether this line of thought reflects reality or not is, as usual, far less significant than the fact that enough people think it does.

> Can you say, with a straight face, that this is morally acceptable?

Morally acceptable or not, as an observation of OTHER PEOPLE, it has far too much truth to ignore.

I'd say it's not morally acceptable to refuse to accept / deal with other peoples' delusions, sadly.

Cheers,
Wol

Debian votes on a statement

dgm — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 15:02:45 +0000

> Whether this line of thought reflects reality or not is, as usual, far less significant than the fact that enough people think it does.

Can you say, with a straight face, that this is morally acceptable?

Debian votes on a statement — and a leader

ehiggs — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 12:10:47 +0000

As Debian releases a lot of software under GPL, and GPL is defined by FSF, I think it's very relevant for people involved in Debian to voice an opinion on the topic of who runs the FSF.

I don't have an opinion on whether Debian as a project should make a statement, but I think a lot of the discussion is on Stallman's allegedly objectionable opinions and not on competent steering of the GPL.

Debian votes on a statement — and a leader

bpearlmutter — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 11:57:47 +0000

> I'd happily have him to stay in my house

Yeah that's what I thought! And truthfully, I'd be happy to host him again anytime. We owe him so much, and he has an innocent heart.

But when people say he's “difficult” they mean it. He wipes his snot off his fingers into his hair then slurps it off his curly locks at the dinner table. And that peculiarity doesn't even make the needle on the difficulty meter twitch. You know how people say they'd love to have a monkey as a pet, but then it turns out actually having a monkey as a pet is enormously more demanding than they'd anticipated? Hosting RMS is like that.

Free software == free documentation for Debian [was Debian votes on a statement — and a leader]

farnz — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 09:55:23 +0000

My recollection from the early days of the GFDL is that Stallman's particular vision of Free Software was being marginalised in the eyes of new developers. Instead of coming up with ways to make that vision matter to people, the FSF instead looked for a way to ensure that panegyrics for Stallman's vision would be included with all Free Software, and the result was the GFDL so that the FSF could ensure that the panegyrics were kept unchanged. That it's now used for funding requests is not a bug - that's the design of the GFDL as a way to keep the FSF relevant even if support for it declines.

Debian votes on a statement — and a leader

LtWorf — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 09:55:03 +0000

Issue is that the trusted parties are the same parties advocating for secret vote and it is very clear on which side of the vote they stand.

Debian votes on a statement

farnz — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 09:51:44 +0000

Concentration camps are not always death camps. They were first used in the Boer War back in the 19th century.

Debian votes on a statement

LtWorf — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 09:39:31 +0000

> For the record, in no country on this planet except the United States of America is there a mainstream political debate as to whether people should be able to waltz across the country's borders with no entitlement to be there.

Yes, USA is the only country in the world which borders a poorer country. No other country gets millions of refugees because USA went and bombed their homes.

Only USA has this problem.

Please…

This is the place to stop

corbet — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 03:40:37 +0000

Sigh. Why does it always come down to this kind of stuff? Please, people, we can do better than this. Stop this thread now.

Debian votes on a statement

rodgerd — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 02:03:27 +0000

I hope you can one day recover from the cult.

Debian votes on a statement

jzb — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 17:49:56 +0000

"Because you've had the opportunity to loudly slander Stallman"

Excuse me? I did nothing of the kind. I referenced the fact that he's made statements outside of free software. As far as I know, nobody - not even RMS - disputes that. And that there have been accusations. Again, that's not in dispute, even RMS would have to acknowledge that accusations have been made. That's how we got to this point. I didn't make any accusations or even restate them or link to them.

Yes, I said I found his statements awful. That's hardly slanderous, even quietly so, much less "loudly slandering." You judge several terms "awful" in your reply, but seem to feel you can deny other people their judgment on RMS' statements.

"None of it has anything to do with software."

Pretty sure I acknowledged this. It has nothing to do with software, so RMS could have carried on doing his work without ever saying any of the things that people are now unhappy with. What people seem to be demanding is that a person like RMS be able to express opinions that are unpopular outside their work scope and then not experience any consequences as long as it doesn't directly relate to software. That's just not the way the world works.

We disagree on whether someone's actions outside of free software impact someone's ability to lead / be a leader for an organization like the FSF. It's not a question of litigating whether or not RMS has made statements that people don't like, he has. That's what led us to the point that Debian is considering a statement and (if so) which statement to make as an organization.

"Stallman's public statements are just the logical conclusion of his philosophical views, which are very widely held."

You assert his views are "very widely held" and "very popular" but it doesn't seem to be the case. If you have evidence that shows them to be popular or widely held I'd be interested in seeing it. They do not seem to be held by a majority of people. Typically popular views don't receive this sort of blowback. (I say typically, but I'd acknowledge some views -- like legalization of marijuana -- can be simultaneously popular or widely held and also professionally damaging depending on who voices them.)

The bottom line is whether people and organizations are willing to work with the FSF now that RMS has rejoined. You can feel however you like about that, but if there's widespread refusal to work with RMS / the FSF over this, it reduces the efficacy of the organization.

RMS isn't the first person, nor will he be the last, judged and possibly harmed by actions outside his primary vocation. He's a public figure, and that comes with perks and it comes with some downsides. The perk has been that people listen to him about things and take his opinions seriously, even when they are outside free software. Few people would complain if his opinions outside free software were being lauded and he brought additional positive attention to the FSF.

Free software == free documentation for Debian [was Debian votes on a statement — and a leader]

dvrabel — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 16:04:12 +0000

The FSF also think Free Documentation is essential [1], but falls short on achiving the same level of freedom as with software for reasons that are never really explained.

We can also contrast Creative Common's response to Debian's feedback to the CC -BY-SA v1.0 license (which it considered non-free) and how improvements were made and now Debian considers CC-BY-SA v3.0 as free. One organisation listened to constructive feedback and made improvements, the other did not.

[1] "Why Free Software needs Free Documentation" https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-doc.html

Free software == free documentation for Debian [was Debian votes on a statement — and a leader]

foom — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 15:52:58 +0000

Using GFDL for docs causes real issues with maintaining software, because the documentation is so closely related to the software it is documenting.

Take GCC, for example: there is regularly a need to share docs between the manual (licensed under GFDL), and comments in the code (licensed under GPL). For years, this was causing real issues with the ability to do normal sorts of refactoring and maintenance.

So, back in 2012 or do, after a long negotiation with the FSF (or, RMS), a group of three GCC maintainers were delegated the permission/authority to relicense snippets of GCC docs upon request from GPL to GFDL, or the reverse, in order to facilitate this sharing. This solved the maintenance problem.

But...the ideal of Free Software is that anyone can fork and modify it, in the same ways the original project can. Yet, this special relicensing arrangement effectively means that only the FSF or their delegated representatives can maintain GCC properly. That's not great.

Free software == free documentation for Debian [was Debian votes on a statement — and a leader]

milesrout — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 14:43:20 +0000

Debian can use words however it likes, as long as everyone in the Debian project understands that they're being used that way. But 'free software' as a term distinct from its plain English meaning of 'freeware' was created by Richard Stallman and I think if he doesn't include documentation then in general usage, without being very specific about the context, it doesn't.

My point is that to say 'Debian do a better job of upholding the values of Free Software' because Debian redefined 'free documentation' to mean 'documentation licensed like it's software even though it isn't' is a bit... unfortunate. Of course Debian does an excellent job upholding free software *as defined by Debian*... by definition.

Free software == free documentation for Debian [was Debian votes on a statement — and a leader]

amacater — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 14:18:04 +0000

As far as Debian is concerned free software == free documentation: everything is 100% free. There was a GR about it back in 2004 that changed the Debian Social Contract. Since this was changing a foundational document, it required a 3:1 majority.
It created a stir at the time and some people might still want to fight it over again but it's been there for seventeen years. See also https://www.debian.org/vote/2004/vote_003

Stop

corbet — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 13:52:46 +0000

This must stop right here. Now, please.

Debian votes on a statement — and a leader

milesrout — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 11:06:10 +0000

>He's not polished, he doesn't wear a tie or sometimes even shoes, he's argumentative and a difficult house guest and has atrocious manners. But he has given his life to the cause, and he speaks from the heart.

And personally I think that's far better than a slick corporate exec in a slick suit talking in corporate buzzword lingo about 'open source'.

I'd happily have him to stay in my house and I greatly enjoyed his talk that I attended when I was around 12 years old. If not for Richard Stallman's talk I doubt I would have any appreciation for things like the dangerous use of the term 'intellectual property' as a catch-all for entirely unrelated laws around copyright, patents and trademarks. I don't think I'd appreciate the danger of DRM. I'd have learnt about these things later, perhaps, but without the vigor and passion that went into his speech.

And I wouldn't have been able to see the Church of Emacs skit. Instead I'd have had 'oh by the way before I start my talk, this is company X and we build privacy-invading SaaS adtech platform Y, we're recruiting developers to make the world a worse place' at the beginning of the talk like almost every conference talk has these days.

Debian votes on a statement — and a leader

milesrout — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 10:58:45 +0000

>Debian do a better job of upholding the values of Free Software (and it accompanying documentation) than the FSF and have done so for decades.

>The FSF considers the (non-free) GNU Free Documentation License (with its invariant sections and unmodifiable front and back cover texts) as acceptable whereas Debian does not [1]. The GCC documentation sits in the "contrib" (not "main") section of Debian because Debian considers it insufficiently free.

Software and documentation are different things. Free software and free documentation are different things. The FSF is no worse protector or advocate for free software even if they advocated releasing documentation under an entirely proprietary license.

Debian votes on a statement

milesrout — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 10:53:33 +0000

Your vile rhetoric isn't worth responding to substantively. If you want to have a real conversation about this issue (you clearly don't) I'm happy to have one. If you just want to make offensive and baseless accusations against Richard Stallman then consider our discussion at a close.

Debian votes on a statement

milesrout — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 10:47:49 +0000

I'm glad I have you on record denying the holocaust.

Debian votes on a statement

flussence — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 09:59:01 +0000

> It's disgusting to suggest that facilities for illegal border-crossers to be detained in while they await trial are in any way equivalent or even comparable to Nazi death camps.

Children separated from their parents and crammed into covid-superspreading cages at 1800% over capacity for weeks longer than the permitted detention period are very much comparable to that, but I just wanted you on record as defending it.

Debian votes on a statement — and a leader

bpearlmutter — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 09:33:42 +0000

> Basically with secret voting you need to trust that the person doing the counting will not cheat.

Basically with cryptography you can have secret voting without having to trust that the person doing the counting will not cheat.

And if anyone is in a position to do crypto of that sort properly, it's Debian.

$ apt show belenios-tool
Package: belenios-tool
Version: 1.14+dfsg-1
Priority: optional
Section: misc
Source: belenios
Maintainer: Debian OCaml Maintainers <debian-ocaml-maint@lists.debian.org>
Installed-Size: 4,413 kB
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.29), libgmp10 (>= 2:5.1.1), zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4)
Homepage: http://www.belenios.org/
Download-Size: 1,574 kB
APT-Sources: http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/main amd64 Packages
Description: verifiable voting system (command-line tool)
Belenios aims at providing an easy to use voting system, guaranteeing
state-of-the-art security, namely vote privacy and verifiability. It
can be used in many types of elections, ranging from scientific
councils to sport associations.
.
It consists of a command-line tool and a web server. Both use the
same backend and can be used to organize elections and perform
verifications.
.
Security properties of the system are:
* Vote privacy: No one can learn the vote of a voter. Vote privacy
relies on the encryption of the votes.
* End-to-end verifiablity: Every voter can check that her vote has
been counted and only eligible voters may vote. End-to-end
verifiablity relies on the fact that the ballot box is public
(voters can check that their ballots have been received) and on
the fact that the tally is publicly verifiable (anyone can recount
the votes). Moreover, ballots are signed by the voter credential
(only eligible voters are able to vote).
.
This package provides the command-line tool, which is the most
convenient way to exercise the verifiability capabilities of the
system. It can be used to run an election without using the web
server, and to monitor an election running on a web server.

Debian votes on a statement — and a leader

bpearlmutter — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 09:26:56 +0000

Such threats have come from both sides.

I think we should all deplore any threats, period. Without adding any sly little bon mots against the side we disagree with.

Debian votes on a statement — and a leader

bpearlmutter — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 09:11:30 +0000

I'm a Debian Developer, and that's not very factual.

Debian considers the GFDL to be a free license when it has no associated "invariant" texts. It's true that the GCC manual has invariant texts, but to be fair, (a) they're pretty minimal, and (b) the FSF would doubtless grant a waiver if someone wanted to include portions of the manual in another free work for which the invariant texts were inappropriate. So it's a very technical violation that is pushing the GCC manual out of main.

RMS and the FSF have held a hard line on firmware and tivo-ization, harder than the line Debian has held. As things evolve, it seems that RMS made the correct call on those. Right now you can get a cardiac pacemaker implanted deep in your chest, running a Linux kernel, and be unable to modify it. The manufacturer can modify it though. Remotely. Ditto WiFi security cameras, mobile phones, etc etc.

It's rude, and cruel, and inaccurate to say that RMS has become irrelevant. Merely in outreach, he's recruited tens if not hundreds of thousands of people to the cause of free software. By giving public speeches all over the world, a role he has taken on despite seeming so poorly suited for it. He's not polished, he doesn't wear a tie or sometimes even shoes, he's argumentative and a difficult house guest and has atrocious manners. But he has given his life to the cause, and he speaks from the heart.

Debian votes on a statement — and a leader

carORcdr — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 05:59:52 +0000

Excellent and factual.

Debian votes on a statement

carORcdr — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 05:36:59 +0000

BUT when you title your derivative work--in a copyright sense--as GNU/Linux you have associated yourself with the external organization--Free Software Foundation and their controlled-affiliate the GNU Project. When the Debian Project views the actions of an organization that they have chosen to associate themselves with as contrary to their views they have an OBLIGATION to communicate such views.

Ian, thank you for your enormous contribution!

Debian votes on a statement

milesrout — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 04:29:54 +0000

The United States is not, in any way, shape or form, running concentration camps. It's disgusting to suggest that facilities for illegal border-crossers to be detained in while they await trial are in any way equivalent or even comparable to Nazi death camps.

For the record, in no country on this planet except the United States of America is there a mainstream political debate as to whether people should be able to waltz across the country's borders with no entitlement to be there.

Debian votes on a statement — and a leader

dvrabel — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 04:07:51 +0000

Debian do a better job of upholding the values of Free Software (and it accompanying documentation) than the FSF and have done so for decades.

The FSF considers the (non-free) GNU Free Documentation License (with its invariant sections and unmodifiable front and back cover texts) as acceptable whereas Debian does not [1]. The GCC documentation sits in the "contrib" (not "main") section of Debian because Debian considers it insufficiently free.

In a discussion on one of the Debian lists, Stallman said: "For the manual to be free, you must be able to publish a modified version of the manual. In other words, a modified manual."

Which I think shows a complete failure to grasp the importance of technical documentation having the same freedoms as the software it documents, and also shows how Stallman has such a limited vision of how other people could make use of the documentation.

I don't understand why after the debacle of the GNU FDL (which has remained unfixed and non-free for nearly 20 years) why people still retain any trust in the FSF properly supporting the original Free Software vision.

[1] https://www.debian.org/vote/2006/vote_001.en.html