3 ms·

IMO, Stallman is a good philosophical leader, but a terrible organizational leader. "On the board" is a decent compromise. But he has been a huge contributor t

IMO, Stallman is a good philosophical leader, but a terrible organizational leader. "On the board" is a decent compromise. But he has been a huge contributor to GNU's decent into irrelevance in recent years. As an organization, they're perpetually stuck in the 1990s.

astrange 6y ago
FSFLA is actually pretty productive as I understand it. FSF US seems to spend all their time starting irrelevant political campaigns with terrible pun-based slogans.
- blagie 6y ago
  FSF US is pretty much a one-man show, and does pretty well for a one-man show for impact. It's basically RMS and a few people to support him, as far as I can tell. A one-man show with the one man missing made no sense to me.
m463 6y ago
Honestly, I think the GNU software is a little like "giving a man a fish" Meanwhile, the GPL License is more "teaching a man to fish", and I think the software written and protected by this license has grown, both in importance and coverage. Lots of people are "getting it" as we clearly see how "our" phones and computers are really not living up to their promise.
dehrmann 6y ago
> he has been a huge contributor to GNU's decent into irrelevance in recent years. As an organization, they're perpetually stuck in the 1990s. I agree, but this reason, alone, is enough for him to be off the board. Maybe his time has passed, maybe free software has grown into something larger than he has vision for, maybe it grew in a way incompatible with his vision.
- klodolph 6y ago
  GNU, which develops software, should have separate leadership from the FSF, which does advocacy. Stallman should have given up GNU long ago to someone better, but he’s much better at advocacy which is what the FSF does.
noobermin 6y ago
What makes you say this?
- zucker42 6y ago
  Not the OP, but GNU/FSF has stagnated in the past 20 years. There's no cohesive vision; GNU is more of a ecletic collection of software packages than a complete OS. The FSF has no huge influence; most of its impact is based on its historical role.
  - noobermin 6y ago
    I guess more of what I'm asking is how rms contributed to GNU's lack of traction rather than whether it is declining/not gaining traction or not.
    - dralley 6y ago
      https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU4MzE https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU4MzE
    - zucker42 6y ago
      Given he's the leader of GNU and formerly the leader of the FSF, he's responsible for any failure of GNU/FSF to live up to their potential. Given that free software and open source have only become more popular recently, and given that other free software organizations have not been shrinking (Debian, Apache, NLNet, OpenCollective, Linux Foundation), I think it's fair to say the FSF and GNU could be more successful with better leadership and a shift in vision or strategy (even without compromising on its ideals).
    - nrclark 6y ago
      I know that this opinion is controversial - but I think GPLv3 really hurt GNU a lot. And that license was 100% RMS's doing, as well as the decision to force it onto most/all GNU projects. GPLv3 basically forced the embedded Linux community to dump the GNU userspace in favor of Busybox. That's a lot of active developers who stopped using and contributing to Bash, Coreutils, and a whole host of other projects. RMS propelled free software forward in the early days, and should be remembered as a visionary. It's been downhill for GNU since 2008 though, and that's a trend I'd love to see changed.

astrange 6y ago

FSFLA is actually pretty productive as I understand it. FSF US seems to spend all their time starting irrelevant political campaigns with terrible pun-based slogans.

blagie 6y ago
FSF US is pretty much a one-man show, and does pretty well for a one-man show for impact. It's basically RMS and a few people to support him, as far as I can tell. A one-man show with the one man missing made no sense to me.

m463 6y ago

Honestly, I think the GNU software is a little like "giving a man a fish" Meanwhile, the GPL License is more "teaching a man to fish", and I think the software written and protected by this license has grown, both in importance and coverage. Lots of people are "getting it" as we clearly see how "our" phones and computers are really not living up to their promise.

dehrmann 6y ago

> he has been a huge contributor to GNU's decent into irrelevance in recent years. As an organization, they're perpetually stuck in the 1990s. I agree, but this reason, alone, is enough for him to be off the board. Maybe his time has passed, maybe free software has grown into something larger than he has vision for, maybe it grew in a way incompatible with his vision.

klodolph 6y ago
GNU, which develops software, should have separate leadership from the FSF, which does advocacy. Stallman should have given up GNU long ago to someone better, but he’s much better at advocacy which is what the FSF does.

noobermin 6y ago

What makes you say this?

zucker42 6y ago
Not the OP, but GNU/FSF has stagnated in the past 20 years. There's no cohesive vision; GNU is more of a ecletic collection of software packages than a complete OS. The FSF has no huge influence; most of its impact is based on its historical role.
- noobermin 6y ago
  I guess more of what I'm asking is how rms contributed to GNU's lack of traction rather than whether it is declining/not gaining traction or not.
  - dralley 6y ago
    https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU4MzE https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU4MzE
  - zucker42 6y ago
    Given he's the leader of GNU and formerly the leader of the FSF, he's responsible for any failure of GNU/FSF to live up to their potential. Given that free software and open source have only become more popular recently, and given that other free software organizations have not been shrinking (Debian, Apache, NLNet, OpenCollective, Linux Foundation), I think it's fair to say the FSF and GNU could be more successful with better leadership and a shift in vision or strategy (even without compromising on its ideals).
  - nrclark 6y ago
    I know that this opinion is controversial - but I think GPLv3 really hurt GNU a lot. And that license was 100% RMS's doing, as well as the decision to force it onto most/all GNU projects. GPLv3 basically forced the embedded Linux community to dump the GNU userspace in favor of Busybox. That's a lot of active developers who stopped using and contributing to Bash, Coreutils, and a whole host of other projects. RMS propelled free software forward in the early days, and should be remembered as a visionary. It's been downhill for GNU since 2008 though, and that's a trend I'd love to see changed.