3 ms·

GNU-FSF Cooperation Update

48 points by stargrave 7y ago

sneak 7y ago
Is this related to the perception, accurate or otherwise, of rms’s failure as a leader of the free software movement? I have my own opinions about it but it seems that lots of people have their own that either align or oppose mine; things he has done recently have been quite polarizing (whether or not in 50/50 proportion TBD). A lot of these sorts of press release style posts are more implication than statement, written into a context or situation created by current events that is almost never written about explicitly in a post or statement, leaving one guessing at the implied context to which it is a response. Is this such a response to the rms drama? Is it unrelated?
- nordsieck 7y ago
  > Is this such a response to the rms drama? Is it unrelated? Could be. I think the other strong possibility is just that the FSF is confronted with a world that features lots of permissive licenses and lots of software as a service. I don't think it's controversial to say that the Affero GPL has not garnered much adoption, and that GPL (v2 or v3) licenses have been in slow decline for a sustained period of time.
- loeg 7y ago
  It's hard to imagine this /not/ being related to the two organizations no longer sharing Stallman as President/Dictator/whatever. It's not really clear to me who actually cares about the GNU project specifically, or even FSF, or how they plan to "cooperate." Developers that like the GPL will continue hacking using it; developers that don't will continue hacking without it. Maybe I'm out of the loop.
  - uluyol 7y ago
    GNU is more than a license, there are many important projects that are all under the GNU umbrella that are still governed by the organization. Examples: gcc, coreutils, glibc, bash, r, ...
    - jacobush 7y ago
      True, and gcc is still immensely important. But we used to live or die by gcc. It was imperative that we had it and it was important that it got decent updates. Now, with LLVM, the world is just a little bit more relaxed on that front.
    - loeg 7y ago
      My impression is that developers are drawn to and associate with these specific projects rather than the GNU umbrella. But I might be mistaken.
- ratmice 7y ago
  One thing to consider is that the copyrights for the GNU project, are assigned to (and thus owned by) the FSF. I interpret this "minimizing change in the practical aspects of this cooperation", as implying that the status quo, of the GNU project assigning copyright to FSF hasn't changed, and would probably be in nobody's interest to change.
bradwood 7y ago
Sounds like a lot of words amounting to nothing...
- civodul 7y ago
  Yeah. Some of us GNU hackers submitted concrete proposals to the FSF back in December: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2019-12/msg00026.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2019-12/... . Radio silence.

48 points by stargrave 7y ago

Is this related to the perception, accurate or otherwise, of rms’s failure as a leader of the free software movement? I have my own opinions about it but it seems that lots of people have their own that either align or oppose mine; things he has done recently have been quite polarizing (whether or not in 50/50 proportion TBD). A lot of these sorts of press release style posts are more implication than statement, written into a context or situation created by current events that is almost never written about explicitly in a post or statement, leaving one guessing at the implied context to which it is a response. Is this such a response to the rms drama? Is it unrelated?

nordsieck 7y ago
> Is this such a response to the rms drama? Is it unrelated? Could be. I think the other strong possibility is just that the FSF is confronted with a world that features lots of permissive licenses and lots of software as a service. I don't think it's controversial to say that the Affero GPL has not garnered much adoption, and that GPL (v2 or v3) licenses have been in slow decline for a sustained period of time.
loeg 7y ago
It's hard to imagine this /not/ being related to the two organizations no longer sharing Stallman as President/Dictator/whatever. It's not really clear to me who actually cares about the GNU project specifically, or even FSF, or how they plan to "cooperate." Developers that like the GPL will continue hacking using it; developers that don't will continue hacking without it. Maybe I'm out of the loop.
- uluyol 7y ago
  GNU is more than a license, there are many important projects that are all under the GNU umbrella that are still governed by the organization. Examples: gcc, coreutils, glibc, bash, r, ...
  - jacobush 7y ago
    True, and gcc is still immensely important. But we used to live or die by gcc. It was imperative that we had it and it was important that it got decent updates. Now, with LLVM, the world is just a little bit more relaxed on that front.
  - loeg 7y ago
    My impression is that developers are drawn to and associate with these specific projects rather than the GNU umbrella. But I might be mistaken.
ratmice 7y ago
One thing to consider is that the copyrights for the GNU project, are assigned to (and thus owned by) the FSF. I interpret this "minimizing change in the practical aspects of this cooperation", as implying that the status quo, of the GNU project assigning copyright to FSF hasn't changed, and would probably be in nobody's interest to change.

bradwood 7y ago

Sounds like a lot of words amounting to nothing...

civodul 7y ago
Yeah. Some of us GNU hackers submitted concrete proposals to the FSF back in December: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2019-12/msg00026.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2019-12/... . Radio silence.