6 ms·

RMS's role in the FSF was president, and now Member of the Board of Directors. Sure this requires some technical skills, but the main factor is leadership and t

RMS's role in the FSF was president, and now Member of the Board of Directors. Sure this requires some technical skills, but the main factor is leadership and the ability to bring people together. If anyone believes that RMS is fit for that role, that says a lot about the state of FOSS.

mantas 6y ago
What is bringing people together - RMS-style "we're here to code" or progressive "everything is politics"?
- vsdawn 6y ago
  Indeed "we're here to code" is the winner. Anything else just turns software into high school popularity contests, and there are thousands of other organizations who cater to that.
  - geofft 6y ago
    It's kind of incredible that the position of "we're here to code" is being attributed to RMS. He strenuously fought against that position for so long. It's why he objected to accepting the term "open source," even though the open source movement was producing free software and vice versa. It's why he designed GCC in a way to make it hard to add proprietary add-ons and rejected changes to make it more modular, a change that would have fit better with a "we're here to code" mindset (and, in the end, a change that left it vulnerable to competition from LLVM). It's why he cares so much about using the term "GNU/Linux" instead of "Linux" - if we're just here to code, who cares about naming? It's why he advocates strong copyleft, even though weaker licenses are also acceptable for free software. See, for instance, https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html : > Proprietary software developers, seeking to deny the free competition an important advantage, will try to convince authors not to contribute libraries to the GPL-covered collection. For example, they may appeal to the ego, promising “more users for this library” if we let them use the code in proprietary software products. Popularity is tempting, and it is easy for a library developer to rationalize the idea that boosting the popularity of that one library is what the community needs above all. If the GNU philosophy were "we're here to code," then that argument would be convincing. (And indeed there are and were many people taking a "we're here to code" view - DJB, for instance, who insisted that he didn't copyright his software and it didn't need a license and all talk of licensing was a distraction; people who put their software on GitHub without a license; people who use GitHub and other non-free services instead of taking a principled stand against them; etc. Stallman's activism stood in opposition to all of those views.)
    - mantas 6y ago
      Code licensing is an essential part of coding.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > RMS-style "we're here to code" or progressive "everything is politics" Richard Stallman is definitely an “everything is politics” type. If he ever was on the “we’re here to code” side, it was before he ran into the issues that led him to found the FSF, which is also an everything-is-politics organization. You might prefer an aloof, privileged “we’re here to code” attitude, but projecting that onto Richard Stallman of all people is ludicrous.
  - mantas 6y ago
    When you got to pick sides and there's no nuance left, RMS is less politics than cancel culture.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > When you got to pick sides and there's no nuance left That's exactly RMS’s perennial position. The only difference between him and the most extreme trigger-happy advocate of some specific narrow position on gender or racial politics is the subject area on which Stallman focusses.
      - mantas 6y ago
        Yes. And I'd rather keep those subjects separate. Let's talk code extremism in code world and other circles can keep their extremists. Otherwise any subject would be fragmented to no end. Just think if open source activists would refuse to participate in (non-programming) political activities because invite was made with M$ Word.
        joshuamorton 6y ago
        Rms does essentially that.
phkahler 6y ago
RMS wrote the original GPL and founded the FSF on his own. He difined a movement, and its principles. I call that leadership. More power to him.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ekianjo 6y ago
So would you rather want someone who cancels or censors disenting opinions? Dogmatism has bright days ahead apparently. Diversity was never meant to be that everyone was supposed to think the same way, as far as I recall.
- inopinatus 6y ago
  This false dichotomy is equally toxic. Leadership always means bringing people together, not imposing one or other set of idiosyncrasies.
  - simion314 6y ago
    Are you sure that is definition of leadership? Maybe it is more about leading a team to accomplish a goal and not gathering a big crowd and win a popularity contest but failing at your goals, the later seems more like politics.
  - m000 6y ago
    Roman emperors brought people together by throwing other people to the lions. So I'd guess throwing RMS to the mob would also count as good leadership?
    - inopinatus 6y ago
      There's a reason that period is referred to as "decline and fall", and use of histrionic language such as "throwing to the mob" is exemplary of the idiocy surrounding this topic. People with behavioural disorders need neither be forgiven their transgressions, nor publicly berated in some infantile display of tyranny, but may/should instead be quietly levered out. Competent managers have been doing so for aeons, including with high profile folks displaying problematic habits, like RMS.
      - m000 6y ago
        > People with behavioural disorders need neither be forgiven their transgressions, nor publicly berated in some infantile display of tyranny, but may/should instead be quietly levered out. I agree with that. I don't call for forgiving RMS, just for proportionate measures to contain his behaviour while not depriving him from his life's work. I believe we went from wrist slaps ("please do not handle your cards inside the conference venue") to mob lynching ("RMS should cease to exist"). Being a member, but not a president, of the FSF board seems like an appropriate middle road to me. And it's up to the rest of the board that reinstated him to keep him contained. In the meantime, anyone else is welcome to: Not invite RMS to their conference. Refuse him registration, if he tries. Give his photo to the security, if needed. That would be proportionate and warranted measures, until RMS provenly gets his act straight. And if he's not ok with that, he's still free to willfully resign.
roenxi 6y ago
Disagreeable people have done amazing things for the Free Software movement. It is, at heart, a highly intolerant movement. It does not care about compromise, it cares about principles. It does not tolerate half-hearted attempts and lip service. Compromise and bringing people together is the slow track to becoming subservient to corporate interests. Mozilla works with people and we end up with an OK browser that is strategically playing second fiddle to Google. Brave was really quite an eye opener for me as a reminder that a web browser doesn't have to tag along on the path Chrome dictates. Which is ironic given that they use Chrome as a base and Firefox has its own rendering engine.
- threatofrain 6y ago
  Brave's main distinction is the cryptocurrency thing... as a browser it doesn't offer an interesting difference over the competition for privacy. And as privacy is a cat and mouse game, I'm not sure that Brave has developed the reputation that they get an edge on this problem over Apple or Mozilla. After that I'm not sure what it's offering. What is the eye opening factor here? In what ways has Brave really taken leadership? If Google or Apple did the same things Brave did with their cryptocoin donation scheme it would seem incredibly abusive. Also, if Apple promoted that they used local machine learning to develop profiles for optimal ad placement on you, it would only damage their brand.
  - roenxi 6y ago
    That is a bit like saying the iPhone is just a Blackberry with a touchscreen. Change doesn't have to be all that big to be important. The "cryptocurrency thing" is enough. Brave is attempting to bring about a vision where the user has direct access to the advertising ecosystem. That is offering users a slice of advertising revenue. That is significant. And it is a level of radical that Mozilla/Firefox simply isn't showing. They are basically acting like the internet is done, Chrome figured it out and they just have to provide the same again but with a different rendering engine and some configuration tweaks. Acceptable, but uninspiring and sort-of pointless. Anyone who cares about having a good web browser jumped ship to Chrome.
toomim 6y ago
RMS created the FSF, and you're asking if he is fit for the role? He created the role. It fits him like a glove, because he created it from his own vision. If you don't think he is fit for the role, then you don't understand what you're talking about.
simion314 6y ago
RMS created FSF and the GNU , but if there are more competent people that are also un-cancelablle with out of context quotes then please support those peole to create a better movement.
danielrpa 6y ago
There are many ways in which someone can be a lead. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of people at FSF able to build relationships and advise on managing people. We don't need every single person on the board to have the same profile. RMS is a symbol and an ideological leader, traits which are very important for the role and likely much more valuable to the FSF than this person who just left (whom I've never heard of before).

mantas 6y ago

What is bringing people together - RMS-style "we're here to code" or progressive "everything is politics"?

vsdawn 6y ago
Indeed "we're here to code" is the winner. Anything else just turns software into high school popularity contests, and there are thousands of other organizations who cater to that.
- geofft 6y ago
  It's kind of incredible that the position of "we're here to code" is being attributed to RMS. He strenuously fought against that position for so long. It's why he objected to accepting the term "open source," even though the open source movement was producing free software and vice versa. It's why he designed GCC in a way to make it hard to add proprietary add-ons and rejected changes to make it more modular, a change that would have fit better with a "we're here to code" mindset (and, in the end, a change that left it vulnerable to competition from LLVM). It's why he cares so much about using the term "GNU/Linux" instead of "Linux" - if we're just here to code, who cares about naming? It's why he advocates strong copyleft, even though weaker licenses are also acceptable for free software. See, for instance, https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html : > Proprietary software developers, seeking to deny the free competition an important advantage, will try to convince authors not to contribute libraries to the GPL-covered collection. For example, they may appeal to the ego, promising “more users for this library” if we let them use the code in proprietary software products. Popularity is tempting, and it is easy for a library developer to rationalize the idea that boosting the popularity of that one library is what the community needs above all. If the GNU philosophy were "we're here to code," then that argument would be convincing. (And indeed there are and were many people taking a "we're here to code" view - DJB, for instance, who insisted that he didn't copyright his software and it didn't need a license and all talk of licensing was a distraction; people who put their software on GitHub without a license; people who use GitHub and other non-free services instead of taking a principled stand against them; etc. Stallman's activism stood in opposition to all of those views.)
  - mantas 6y ago
    Code licensing is an essential part of coding.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> RMS-style "we're here to code" or progressive "everything is politics" Richard Stallman is definitely an “everything is politics” type. If he ever was on the “we’re here to code” side, it was before he ran into the issues that led him to found the FSF, which is also an everything-is-politics organization. You might prefer an aloof, privileged “we’re here to code” attitude, but projecting that onto Richard Stallman of all people is ludicrous.
- mantas 6y ago
  When you got to pick sides and there's no nuance left, RMS is less politics than cancel culture.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > When you got to pick sides and there's no nuance left That's exactly RMS’s perennial position. The only difference between him and the most extreme trigger-happy advocate of some specific narrow position on gender or racial politics is the subject area on which Stallman focusses.
    - mantas 6y ago
      Yes. And I'd rather keep those subjects separate. Let's talk code extremism in code world and other circles can keep their extremists. Otherwise any subject would be fragmented to no end. Just think if open source activists would refuse to participate in (non-programming) political activities because invite was made with M$ Word.
      - joshuamorton 6y ago
        Rms does essentially that.

phkahler 6y ago

RMS wrote the original GPL and founded the FSF on his own. He difined a movement, and its principles. I call that leadership. More power to him.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ekianjo 6y ago

So would you rather want someone who cancels or censors disenting opinions? Dogmatism has bright days ahead apparently. Diversity was never meant to be that everyone was supposed to think the same way, as far as I recall.

inopinatus 6y ago
This false dichotomy is equally toxic. Leadership always means bringing people together, not imposing one or other set of idiosyncrasies.
- simion314 6y ago
  Are you sure that is definition of leadership? Maybe it is more about leading a team to accomplish a goal and not gathering a big crowd and win a popularity contest but failing at your goals, the later seems more like politics.
- m000 6y ago
  Roman emperors brought people together by throwing other people to the lions. So I'd guess throwing RMS to the mob would also count as good leadership?
  - inopinatus 6y ago
    There's a reason that period is referred to as "decline and fall", and use of histrionic language such as "throwing to the mob" is exemplary of the idiocy surrounding this topic. People with behavioural disorders need neither be forgiven their transgressions, nor publicly berated in some infantile display of tyranny, but may/should instead be quietly levered out. Competent managers have been doing so for aeons, including with high profile folks displaying problematic habits, like RMS.
    - m000 6y ago
      > People with behavioural disorders need neither be forgiven their transgressions, nor publicly berated in some infantile display of tyranny, but may/should instead be quietly levered out. I agree with that. I don't call for forgiving RMS, just for proportionate measures to contain his behaviour while not depriving him from his life's work. I believe we went from wrist slaps ("please do not handle your cards inside the conference venue") to mob lynching ("RMS should cease to exist"). Being a member, but not a president, of the FSF board seems like an appropriate middle road to me. And it's up to the rest of the board that reinstated him to keep him contained. In the meantime, anyone else is welcome to: Not invite RMS to their conference. Refuse him registration, if he tries. Give his photo to the security, if needed. That would be proportionate and warranted measures, until RMS provenly gets his act straight. And if he's not ok with that, he's still free to willfully resign.

roenxi 6y ago

Disagreeable people have done amazing things for the Free Software movement. It is, at heart, a highly intolerant movement. It does not care about compromise, it cares about principles. It does not tolerate half-hearted attempts and lip service. Compromise and bringing people together is the slow track to becoming subservient to corporate interests. Mozilla works with people and we end up with an OK browser that is strategically playing second fiddle to Google. Brave was really quite an eye opener for me as a reminder that a web browser doesn't have to tag along on the path Chrome dictates. Which is ironic given that they use Chrome as a base and Firefox has its own rendering engine.

threatofrain 6y ago
Brave's main distinction is the cryptocurrency thing... as a browser it doesn't offer an interesting difference over the competition for privacy. And as privacy is a cat and mouse game, I'm not sure that Brave has developed the reputation that they get an edge on this problem over Apple or Mozilla. After that I'm not sure what it's offering. What is the eye opening factor here? In what ways has Brave really taken leadership? If Google or Apple did the same things Brave did with their cryptocoin donation scheme it would seem incredibly abusive. Also, if Apple promoted that they used local machine learning to develop profiles for optimal ad placement on you, it would only damage their brand.
- roenxi 6y ago
  That is a bit like saying the iPhone is just a Blackberry with a touchscreen. Change doesn't have to be all that big to be important. The "cryptocurrency thing" is enough. Brave is attempting to bring about a vision where the user has direct access to the advertising ecosystem. That is offering users a slice of advertising revenue. That is significant. And it is a level of radical that Mozilla/Firefox simply isn't showing. They are basically acting like the internet is done, Chrome figured it out and they just have to provide the same again but with a different rendering engine and some configuration tweaks. Acceptable, but uninspiring and sort-of pointless. Anyone who cares about having a good web browser jumped ship to Chrome.

toomim 6y ago

RMS created the FSF, and you're asking if he is fit for the role? He created the role. It fits him like a glove, because he created it from his own vision. If you don't think he is fit for the role, then you don't understand what you're talking about.

simion314 6y ago

RMS created FSF and the GNU , but if there are more competent people that are also un-cancelablle with out of context quotes then please support those peole to create a better movement.

danielrpa 6y ago

There are many ways in which someone can be a lead. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of people at FSF able to build relationships and advise on managing people. We don't need every single person on the board to have the same profile. RMS is a symbol and an ideological leader, traits which are very important for the role and likely much more valuable to the FSF than this person who just left (whom I've never heard of before).