4 ms·

Ok I’m missing a key part of this: Why should I care about this recurring drama? Is the leadership of the FSF even important? I’ve gone my whole life without ne

Ok I’m missing a key part of this: Why should I care about this recurring drama? Is the leadership of the FSF even important? I’ve gone my whole life without needing to follow board composition of the FSF.

PurpleFoxy 6y ago
Following on from that, what does the FSF even do now other than making cringe infographics and some weird animated series about proprietary software being supervillains?
spoonjim 6y ago
Having a party on your “side” of an opinion spectrum that is very extreme — like the FSF under Stallman - is important for maintaining the Overton window of acceptability where you want it. If you want the minimum wage raised to $10, Bernie Sanders arguing for $15, and bringing people into that worldview, helps you. Such has been the FSF for open source especially in its nascent days with corporate interests still thinking they could kill it.
- propertymagnate 6y ago
  Great comment - the extremes of the overton window determine what is acceptable as the middle. And the middle is crucial, as we are, as people, almost always framing issues as having two sides, and compromising to something in that middle. Without one of those extremes including your own position or including it and being further left/right, no compromise will ever happen that includes what you want.
- vmception 6y ago
  so from what I can tell, people tried node-based "cancelling" where they try to ostracize people and organizations associated with the target person, and it failed and this is the tail-end of that saga the FSF folded in the past, and has since called the weakness of this vendetta and particular approach, and it would be redundant to even rehash the particular comments Stallman has said or evaluate his leadership people have tried tying morality to prosperity, and there is no reality where that is related okay, anyway
johannes1234321 6y ago
A reason: Lots of software is licensed under "GPL V2, or newer" or "GPL v3, or newer" The Free Software Foundation can release a new version of that license, which will relicense all those works under those new terms.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  As I read it, users will still have the option to choose the existing concrete license (ignoring “or later”), so if V4 became a restrictive license somehow, “V2 or later” is no more restrictive for users who don’t want it to be.
  - pigeonhole123 6y ago
    What if it became less restrictive?
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      Fair! Many contributors would likely relicense under a fixed version, so old code that was licensed “or later” is permanently leaked under the license they now find too permissive, but code that’s not maintained has significantly less value.
  - ginko 6y ago
    I think the worry is that a V4 could be less restrictive. Imagine the FSF gets bought out and releases a GPLv4 that's essentially the MIT license. All existing "GPLvX or later" software like the Linux kernel could then be extended without releasing the source code.
    - chungy 6y ago
      Linux is mostly GPLv2-only. Parts of it are under MIT, BSD, or even GPLv2-or-later, but the whole work is GPLv2-only. I wish you were correct. Hypothetically there could be a new version of the GPL that is crafted without any CDDL incompatibilities and we'd finally get to import ZFS into Linux, but alas, even if a GPLv4 came around to do that, Linux wouldn't benefit.
pydry 6y ago
A principled head of the FSF is bad for corporate profit margins but good for anybody else who participates in the free software ecosystem. There are quite a lot of powerful people who would like to see it water down its principles. Thats a lot easier without Stallman. I don't for a second believe that this is actually about what RMS said. This scandal has corporate PR fingerprints all over it.
- vmception 6y ago
  I was wondering who would have this vendetta to elevate RMS' various comments as so insensitive compared to what other people do or say They just seem so innocuous, unrelated to leadership, and with FSF being too obscure of an organization to even bother. Even the generalized argument in favor of dismantling perceived oppressive systems by ostracizing all the leaders just seems so misplaced here. Thanks for a perspective on who and why.

PurpleFoxy 6y ago

Following on from that, what does the FSF even do now other than making cringe infographics and some weird animated series about proprietary software being supervillains?

spoonjim 6y ago

Having a party on your “side” of an opinion spectrum that is very extreme — like the FSF under Stallman - is important for maintaining the Overton window of acceptability where you want it. If you want the minimum wage raised to $10, Bernie Sanders arguing for $15, and bringing people into that worldview, helps you. Such has been the FSF for open source especially in its nascent days with corporate interests still thinking they could kill it.

propertymagnate 6y ago
Great comment - the extremes of the overton window determine what is acceptable as the middle. And the middle is crucial, as we are, as people, almost always framing issues as having two sides, and compromising to something in that middle. Without one of those extremes including your own position or including it and being further left/right, no compromise will ever happen that includes what you want.
vmception 6y ago
so from what I can tell, people tried node-based "cancelling" where they try to ostracize people and organizations associated with the target person, and it failed and this is the tail-end of that saga the FSF folded in the past, and has since called the weakness of this vendetta and particular approach, and it would be redundant to even rehash the particular comments Stallman has said or evaluate his leadership people have tried tying morality to prosperity, and there is no reality where that is related okay, anyway

johannes1234321 6y ago

A reason: Lots of software is licensed under "GPL V2, or newer" or "GPL v3, or newer" The Free Software Foundation can release a new version of that license, which will relicense all those works under those new terms.

sokoloff 6y ago
As I read it, users will still have the option to choose the existing concrete license (ignoring “or later”), so if V4 became a restrictive license somehow, “V2 or later” is no more restrictive for users who don’t want it to be.
- pigeonhole123 6y ago
  What if it became less restrictive?
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Fair! Many contributors would likely relicense under a fixed version, so old code that was licensed “or later” is permanently leaked under the license they now find too permissive, but code that’s not maintained has significantly less value.
- ginko 6y ago
  I think the worry is that a V4 could be less restrictive. Imagine the FSF gets bought out and releases a GPLv4 that's essentially the MIT license. All existing "GPLvX or later" software like the Linux kernel could then be extended without releasing the source code.
  - chungy 6y ago
    Linux is mostly GPLv2-only. Parts of it are under MIT, BSD, or even GPLv2-or-later, but the whole work is GPLv2-only. I wish you were correct. Hypothetically there could be a new version of the GPL that is crafted without any CDDL incompatibilities and we'd finally get to import ZFS into Linux, but alas, even if a GPLv4 came around to do that, Linux wouldn't benefit.

pydry 6y ago

A principled head of the FSF is bad for corporate profit margins but good for anybody else who participates in the free software ecosystem. There are quite a lot of powerful people who would like to see it water down its principles. Thats a lot easier without Stallman. I don't for a second believe that this is actually about what RMS said. This scandal has corporate PR fingerprints all over it.

vmception 6y ago
I was wondering who would have this vendetta to elevate RMS' various comments as so insensitive compared to what other people do or say They just seem so innocuous, unrelated to leadership, and with FSF being too obscure of an organization to even bother. Even the generalized argument in favor of dismantling perceived oppressive systems by ostracizing all the leaders just seems so misplaced here. Thanks for a perspective on who and why.