10 ms·

There are people protesting against RMS, and especially how he's non-inclusive of women. I understand why people want to remove him from his position of power,

by Zababa 6y ago

There are people protesting against RMS, and especially how he's non-inclusive of women. I understand why people want to remove him from his position of power, but I fear that by removing him we would lose one of the uncompromising figures of software freedom. For example, the author refers to "the other open source compiler", which I suppose is LLVM. But LLVM allows Apple to not release some optimizations because it's not copyleft. I fear that by insisting so much on removing RMS we may move from "activist open source" to "corporation allowed open source". Is this paranoia on my part? Or maybe I'm valuing freedom more than inclusivity because, as a white male, I don't feel the need for inclusivity as much as other people? I'm not sure of the answer, but I feel that there's a tradeoff that is made by removing RMS that isn't explicit and calculated. I'd like to hear other views on that and what people think.

deft 6y ago
That's exactly what they are intending to achieve, it's not about protecting women or whatever else. One of the debian leaders even admits this. Embrace. Extend. And now, extinguish.
- Zababa 6y ago
  > That's exactly what they are intending to achieve, it's not about protecting women or whatever else. One of the debian leaders even admits this. Do you have some proof of that? That's a pretty big claim. I wasn't able to find anything.
  - deft 6y ago
    You'd have to join the private discussions going on to see it for yourself.
    - krapp 6y ago
      So no, then.
rbanffy 6y ago
> I fear that by removing him we would lose one of the uncompromising figures of software freedom. No. If he wants to continue to defend Free Software, that's his decision. What this is about is how the FSF reinstated him in secret and how that, ignoring his past behavior and his half-hearted apologies, damages the reputation of the Foundation and the movement.
- Zababa 6y ago
  I understand how keeping him damages the reputation of the FSF, but I wonder if removing him wouldn't also damage their reputation. From what I understand, choosing to keep him is favoring "purity of ideas" about free software over inclusivity while choosing to remove/not keep him is favoring inclusivity over "purity of ideas" about free software. At least that's how I see it, I would love to discover a figure of free software that's as uncompromising as RMS on free software while being more inclusive than him. If there's one, I think that they would be a great replacement for him. My question may boil down to "Who will champion RMS's good ideas if he's gone?". I fear that people are throwing the baby with the bathwater in his case.
  - geofft 6y ago
    He stepped down in 2019. The FSF added him to the Board this weekend. Moreover, they did so with no announcement - the only source was Stallman's own statement at LibrePlanet, and the FSF had to issue a clarification that nobody involved with LibrePlanet knew that he was returning. https://twitter.com/fsf/status/1374399897558917128 https://twitter.com/fsf/status/1374399897558917128 It took them a few days to update their website. They still haven't said why he returned (did he ask? did they ask?), what he plans to do on the board, etc. Nobody was paying attention until he rejoined. He never stepped down as leader of the GNU Project, nor did the FSF ever suspend its relationship with the GNU Project. They could have just not added him, and maybe some weird people like me (https://twitter.com/geofft/status/1207131726176227330 https://twitter.com/geofft/status/1207131726176227330) would have thought less of them for it, but it's pretty clear they were continuing to exist as an organization, continuing to run events, etc. Which I guess brings up your last point, about who will champion his good ideas. First, the man is 68 years old, and the challenges facing free software and the importance of the cause are both greater than ever. He won't live forever, despite his prophetic appearance, and the FSF ought to have been figuring out who will champion the cause in the future. And he can't be everywhere at once and championing everything at once. Second, he did leave (at least on paper) in 2019. They've had over a year to actually figure out that answer. If the FSF has no answer for how to advocate for free software without the person of Richard Stallman, and that's why they brought him back, I really have no idea what they're doing at all. (And if you're wondering if there's anyone else who can be as uncompromising about free software, without being an un-asset, I want you to watch the acceptance speech of the Free Software Award from last weekend: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2021/mar/22/fsf-award-bkuhn/ https://sfconservancy.org/news/2021/mar/22/fsf-award-bkuhn/)
geofft 6y ago
Not a direct answer to your question, but the very existence of LLVM as a serious competitor to GCC is evidence of RMS's leadership failure, and even if you ignore everything in this letter, the GCC Steering Committee should be looking at whether he's helping to steer in the right direction. There was a fascinating thread here the other day about how LLVM was offered to the FSF, copyright assignment and all, and that it was rejected: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535789 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535789 LLVM differs from GCC in two major ways. First, nontechnically, it's under a weak copyleft instead of a strong one. Second, technically, it has a modular architecture. There's a libLLVM that you can use to parse programs and do all sorts of transformations on them. RMS refused to create an equivalent libGCC and even to structure GCC in such a way where maintaining a private fork with a libGCC would be easy, because he feared that proprietary software developers would use GCC's code to handle the hard part of compilation and not free their proprietary extensions. He thought he scored an early victory on this front when he got NeXT to release their Objective-C frontend for GCC publicly and contribute it back. But it was, of all companies, Apple themselves (the effective successor of NeXT) that invested into LLVM. It turned out that not only is developing a compiler within reach for a proprietary software company, developing a better compiler was easily within reach when freed from the artificial constraint of making it non-modular. LLVM was able to compete with GCC because it had a technically better design that GCC rejected for political reasons. And, ultimately, that technical excellence is now threatening GCC's dominance. It also turns out that many software projects are willing to license their code freely anyway, without the requirement of strong copyleft. Rust probably would not have been anywhere near as successful if it didn't have libLLVM to build on top of and had to start from scratch. And Rust is under no license obligation from LLVM to be free software, but it is nonetheless free software. Apple continues to contribute many things (though not everything) to LLVM not because they have to, as they did with GCC, but because it's technically better for them to work with the public project. So RMS's political constraints on GCC were ultimately ineffective for the free software movement, because the very proprietary developers he was worried about found an alternative, and they're releasing code anyway. RMS being "uncompromising" would be a virtue if he were effective and talented in his choices of where he's uncompromising. But he's not. (There are other examples of this: the lack of free software strategy for the web because he has an uncompromising refusal to use the web and therefore to learn anything about it; the failure of Ogg Vorbis as a format because of the strong copyleft of its reference implementation, which the GNU website now mentions as a lesson to learn from and avoid; the relative lack of uptake of the AGPL, and the users who would have wanted it like MongoDB and Elastic instead choosing a non-free license; etc.)
CJefferson 6y ago
One thing to think about, looking at the linked thread, the 2nd, 7th, 9th and 11th top code contributors to GCC have all already replied to say they want rid of RMS -- the only RMS supporters in that thread are people who have never contributed to GCC. This isn't a new problem, with only a small number of issues, people in the community have found RMS to be unhelpful and blocking for over 20 years -- I myself used to commit to GCC (not a lot, maybe 60 commits). I left to help with early clang partially because of irriation with how RMS's direction was ruining GCC. People in GCC haven't loved having him around for the last 20 years, they tolerated him as it was considered too much work to get rid of him.
jasonpeacock 6y ago
You're making an assumption that RMS is the only person who can be a champion of free software. That's incorrect, there are many people who can and do vigorously support free software but because of RMS they are not able to get a seat at the table (or don't want it, because of RMS's well-known bad behavior). Remove one person and you open the door to many other equally or more capable people.
- morpheuskafka 6y ago
  From the list, to prove your point at how far this has gone: > The socialist collective angry bullshit will go on rising from the dead. > Richard Stallman executed a truly extraordinary feat that has never been accomplished by anyone before. > Christopher Dimech > General Administrator - Naiad Informatics - GNU Project (Geocomputation) You are definitely right, even aside from RMS's personal conduct, the level of personal worship around him is extremely concerning and unhealthy. Its understandable that they want to keep their distance from many of the more corporate-aligned people, but this kind of focus on RMS is just too far. His "St. Ignucius" routine, business card that would not be acceptable in literally any other professional setting, and absurd speaking contract thing all show how this has been enabled for far too long.
bradgranath 6y ago
Regardless, he's not getting any younger. What is "activist open source" supposed to do once he's gone? The whole thing can't hinge on ONE human. That's a bonkers dependency.

by Zababa 6y ago

deft 6y ago

That's exactly what they are intending to achieve, it's not about protecting women or whatever else. One of the debian leaders even admits this. Embrace. Extend. And now, extinguish.

Zababa 6y ago
> That's exactly what they are intending to achieve, it's not about protecting women or whatever else. One of the debian leaders even admits this. Do you have some proof of that? That's a pretty big claim. I wasn't able to find anything.
- deft 6y ago
  You'd have to join the private discussions going on to see it for yourself.
  - krapp 6y ago
    So no, then.

rbanffy 6y ago

> I fear that by removing him we would lose one of the uncompromising figures of software freedom. No. If he wants to continue to defend Free Software, that's his decision. What this is about is how the FSF reinstated him in secret and how that, ignoring his past behavior and his half-hearted apologies, damages the reputation of the Foundation and the movement.

Zababa 6y ago
I understand how keeping him damages the reputation of the FSF, but I wonder if removing him wouldn't also damage their reputation. From what I understand, choosing to keep him is favoring "purity of ideas" about free software over inclusivity while choosing to remove/not keep him is favoring inclusivity over "purity of ideas" about free software. At least that's how I see it, I would love to discover a figure of free software that's as uncompromising as RMS on free software while being more inclusive than him. If there's one, I think that they would be a great replacement for him. My question may boil down to "Who will champion RMS's good ideas if he's gone?". I fear that people are throwing the baby with the bathwater in his case.
- geofft 6y ago
  He stepped down in 2019. The FSF added him to the Board this weekend. Moreover, they did so with no announcement - the only source was Stallman's own statement at LibrePlanet, and the FSF had to issue a clarification that nobody involved with LibrePlanet knew that he was returning. https://twitter.com/fsf/status/1374399897558917128 https://twitter.com/fsf/status/1374399897558917128 It took them a few days to update their website. They still haven't said why he returned (did he ask? did they ask?), what he plans to do on the board, etc. Nobody was paying attention until he rejoined. He never stepped down as leader of the GNU Project, nor did the FSF ever suspend its relationship with the GNU Project. They could have just not added him, and maybe some weird people like me (https://twitter.com/geofft/status/1207131726176227330 https://twitter.com/geofft/status/1207131726176227330) would have thought less of them for it, but it's pretty clear they were continuing to exist as an organization, continuing to run events, etc. Which I guess brings up your last point, about who will champion his good ideas. First, the man is 68 years old, and the challenges facing free software and the importance of the cause are both greater than ever. He won't live forever, despite his prophetic appearance, and the FSF ought to have been figuring out who will champion the cause in the future. And he can't be everywhere at once and championing everything at once. Second, he did leave (at least on paper) in 2019. They've had over a year to actually figure out that answer. If the FSF has no answer for how to advocate for free software without the person of Richard Stallman, and that's why they brought him back, I really have no idea what they're doing at all. (And if you're wondering if there's anyone else who can be as uncompromising about free software, without being an un-asset, I want you to watch the acceptance speech of the Free Software Award from last weekend: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2021/mar/22/fsf-award-bkuhn/ https://sfconservancy.org/news/2021/mar/22/fsf-award-bkuhn/)

geofft 6y ago

Not a direct answer to your question, but the very existence of LLVM as a serious competitor to GCC is evidence of RMS's leadership failure, and even if you ignore everything in this letter, the GCC Steering Committee should be looking at whether he's helping to steer in the right direction. There was a fascinating thread here the other day about how LLVM was offered to the FSF, copyright assignment and all, and that it was rejected: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535789 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535789 LLVM differs from GCC in two major ways. First, nontechnically, it's under a weak copyleft instead of a strong one. Second, technically, it has a modular architecture. There's a libLLVM that you can use to parse programs and do all sorts of transformations on them. RMS refused to create an equivalent libGCC and even to structure GCC in such a way where maintaining a private fork with a libGCC would be easy, because he feared that proprietary software developers would use GCC's code to handle the hard part of compilation and not free their proprietary extensions. He thought he scored an early victory on this front when he got NeXT to release their Objective-C frontend for GCC publicly and contribute it back. But it was, of all companies, Apple themselves (the effective successor of NeXT) that invested into LLVM. It turned out that not only is developing a compiler within reach for a proprietary software company, developing a better compiler was easily within reach when freed from the artificial constraint of making it non-modular. LLVM was able to compete with GCC because it had a technically better design that GCC rejected for political reasons. And, ultimately, that technical excellence is now threatening GCC's dominance. It also turns out that many software projects are willing to license their code freely anyway, without the requirement of strong copyleft. Rust probably would not have been anywhere near as successful if it didn't have libLLVM to build on top of and had to start from scratch. And Rust is under no license obligation from LLVM to be free software, but it is nonetheless free software. Apple continues to contribute many things (though not everything) to LLVM not because they have to, as they did with GCC, but because it's technically better for them to work with the public project. So RMS's political constraints on GCC were ultimately ineffective for the free software movement, because the very proprietary developers he was worried about found an alternative, and they're releasing code anyway. RMS being "uncompromising" would be a virtue if he were effective and talented in his choices of where he's uncompromising. But he's not. (There are other examples of this: the lack of free software strategy for the web because he has an uncompromising refusal to use the web and therefore to learn anything about it; the failure of Ogg Vorbis as a format because of the strong copyleft of its reference implementation, which the GNU website now mentions as a lesson to learn from and avoid; the relative lack of uptake of the AGPL, and the users who would have wanted it like MongoDB and Elastic instead choosing a non-free license; etc.)

CJefferson 6y ago

One thing to think about, looking at the linked thread, the 2nd, 7th, 9th and 11th top code contributors to GCC have all already replied to say they want rid of RMS -- the only RMS supporters in that thread are people who have never contributed to GCC. This isn't a new problem, with only a small number of issues, people in the community have found RMS to be unhelpful and blocking for over 20 years -- I myself used to commit to GCC (not a lot, maybe 60 commits). I left to help with early clang partially because of irriation with how RMS's direction was ruining GCC. People in GCC haven't loved having him around for the last 20 years, they tolerated him as it was considered too much work to get rid of him.

jasonpeacock 6y ago

You're making an assumption that RMS is the only person who can be a champion of free software. That's incorrect, there are many people who can and do vigorously support free software but because of RMS they are not able to get a seat at the table (or don't want it, because of RMS's well-known bad behavior). Remove one person and you open the door to many other equally or more capable people.

morpheuskafka 6y ago
From the list, to prove your point at how far this has gone: > The socialist collective angry bullshit will go on rising from the dead. > Richard Stallman executed a truly extraordinary feat that has never been accomplished by anyone before. > Christopher Dimech > General Administrator - Naiad Informatics - GNU Project (Geocomputation) You are definitely right, even aside from RMS's personal conduct, the level of personal worship around him is extremely concerning and unhealthy. Its understandable that they want to keep their distance from many of the more corporate-aligned people, but this kind of focus on RMS is just too far. His "St. Ignucius" routine, business card that would not be acceptable in literally any other professional setting, and absurd speaking contract thing all show how this has been enabled for far too long.

bradgranath 6y ago

Regardless, he's not getting any younger. What is "activist open source" supposed to do once he's gone? The whole thing can't hinge on ONE human. That's a bonkers dependency.