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> how bad and anti-productive the FSF's PR has been at times in the past 26 years I'd apply that same sentiment to this article as well. They haven't received

by tcdent 11y ago

> how bad and anti-productive the FSF's PR has been at times in the past 26 years I'd apply that same sentiment to this article as well. They haven't received the recognition they deserve, and because they're always at the ready to remind you of it, they remain alienated. Nobody wants to have to apologize for circumstances that are everyone's fault... or no-one's. Don't get me wrong, I love most everything GNU stands for, but their message has never been well received because of it's confused agenda. They absolutely deserve the truth to be known, and we should be listening to their opinions, but when an authoritative statement serves essentially as a complaint about the state of their authority, it's no wonder we tune out. This was a great opportunity to elegantly explain the distinction, sans snark, sans agenda, but they failed so miserably even comments in this HN discussion are still using the wrong terminology.

mikegerwitz 11y ago
> This was a great opportunity to elegantly explain the distinction, sans snark, sans agenda, but they failed so miserably even comments in this HN discussion are still using the wrong terminology. First, I want to clarify that there is no "they" here: while I share the opinions of GNU and the FSF---and am quite involved with both---this article is not written for or by GNU (otherwise it'd be posted there). Explaining the distinction without explaining the purpose behind it is almost useless---that'd boil down to "please say GNU/kWindows to give credit to the GNU Project". But that completely misses the point. Credit for the GNU Project is important, but the underlying, more important _purpose_ is to talk about users' freedoms. So of course there is agenda involved. And what you call "snark" is a factual analysis of the problem. Hackers are known for their snark; I purposefully left it out of the article. (So I am curious what you think is snarky.)

by tcdent 11y ago

mikegerwitz 11y ago

> This was a great opportunity to elegantly explain the distinction, sans snark, sans agenda, but they failed so miserably even comments in this HN discussion are still using the wrong terminology. First, I want to clarify that there is no "they" here: while I share the opinions of GNU and the FSF---and am quite involved with both---this article is not written for or by GNU (otherwise it'd be posted there). Explaining the distinction without explaining the purpose behind it is almost useless---that'd boil down to "please say GNU/kWindows to give credit to the GNU Project". But that completely misses the point. Credit for the GNU Project is important, but the underlying, more important _purpose_ is to talk about users' freedoms. So of course there is agenda involved. And what you call "snark" is a factual analysis of the problem. Hackers are known for their snark; I purposefully left it out of the article. (So I am curious what you think is snarky.)