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I really have no idea why anyone wants to keep RMS in charge of the FSF based on his work product alone. What has the FSF been doing other than slowly sliding i

I really have no idea why anyone wants to keep RMS in charge of the FSF based on his work product alone. What has the FSF been doing other than slowly sliding into irrelevancy over the past 20 years?

rantwasp 6y ago
yet here we are arguing about the FSF. Why do people care if it’s irrelevant?
- anaerobicover 6y ago
  Granted that on the internet, people argue for fun. But in meatspace, people usually argue about things that they think art important and should be different. So in this case, parent seems to me to be saying "the downslide of the FSF is bad, and we should fix it, and I think RMS does not help fix it". Or, "it's not irrelevant yet, and shouldn't be, but RMS is making it so".
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    These are accurate summaries of the point I was trying to make.
prepend 6y ago
GPLv3 came out in 2007 so that’s less than 20 years. They also sue people [0] who break the license, so that’s good. I’m not sure how relevant FSF is supposed to be. They seem more relevant than ever, but aren’t a huge deal. They just run GPL and promote open source. And they’re one of many groups. So it’s ok, I think, to just do your thing and not blow up and be huge. They are small ($1M annual budget [1] and 14 staff) and think that’s ok when compared to stuff like Mozilla where their CEO makes more than the entire FSF budget. The ROI from FSF compared to Mozilla seems really good and impactful. Also, RMS isn’t “in charge” he’s on a board that includes four other people. [0] https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2016/fall/the-role-of-lawsuits-in-gpl-compliance https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2016/fall/the-role-of-lawsuits-... [1] 1.4M in 2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  > GPLv3 came out in 2007 so that’s less than 20 years. One would hope that he'd have an achievement at least once a decade. > They also sue people [0] who break the license, so that’s good. That's nice. No need to keep engineers around if they're just going to maintain a license then. Fire everyone and hire lawyers. > I’m not sure how relevant FSF is supposed to be. Very, I imagine. Very few organizations want to be small. Given that copyleft licenses are losing badly to more permissive licenses, I imagine that they'd prefer to be bigger and more effective. > They are small ($1M annual budget [1] and 14 staff) and think that’s ok when compared to stuff like Mozilla where their CEO makes more than the entire FSF budget. The ROI from FSF compared to Mozilla seems really good and impactful. I'd argue the opposite. Mozilla, for all of its faults, is actually trying to get open source and privacy respecting software into the hands of end users who aren't inherently ideological about this stuff. We can debate endlessly about their tactics and results, but in this decade at least they're massively more effective and important than the FSF. I'd argue that the FSF is small in terms of staff and budget because the leadership has failed.
  - prepend 6y ago
    You can argue whatever you like. You stated “slowly sliding into irrelevancy over the past 20 years” and you were clearly wrong. When I pointed out a few items they do to disprove your timeframe, you moved the goalposts and made statements as if the examples I gave were the only things FSF did. You made an easy statement to disprove, I disproved it. Feel free to research FSF and learn about what they do. You’ll certainly find examples of their impact “this decade.” I won’t look them up for you as I fear you’d then want examples from this femtosecond.

I really have no idea why anyone wants to keep RMS in charge of the FSF based on his work product alone. What has the FSF been doing other than slowly sliding into irrelevancy over the past 20 years?

rantwasp 6y ago

yet here we are arguing about the FSF. Why do people care if it’s irrelevant?

anaerobicover 6y ago
Granted that on the internet, people argue for fun. But in meatspace, people usually argue about things that they think art important and should be different. So in this case, parent seems to me to be saying "the downslide of the FSF is bad, and we should fix it, and I think RMS does not help fix it". Or, "it's not irrelevant yet, and shouldn't be, but RMS is making it so".
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  These are accurate summaries of the point I was trying to make.

prepend 6y ago

GPLv3 came out in 2007 so that’s less than 20 years. They also sue people [0] who break the license, so that’s good. I’m not sure how relevant FSF is supposed to be. They seem more relevant than ever, but aren’t a huge deal. They just run GPL and promote open source. And they’re one of many groups. So it’s ok, I think, to just do your thing and not blow up and be huge. They are small ($1M annual budget [1] and 14 staff) and think that’s ok when compared to stuff like Mozilla where their CEO makes more than the entire FSF budget. The ROI from FSF compared to Mozilla seems really good and impactful. Also, RMS isn’t “in charge” he’s on a board that includes four other people. [0] https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2016/fall/the-role-of-lawsuits-in-gpl-compliance https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2016/fall/the-role-of-lawsuits-... [1] 1.4M in 2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation

ashtonkem 6y ago
> GPLv3 came out in 2007 so that’s less than 20 years. One would hope that he'd have an achievement at least once a decade. > They also sue people [0] who break the license, so that’s good. That's nice. No need to keep engineers around if they're just going to maintain a license then. Fire everyone and hire lawyers. > I’m not sure how relevant FSF is supposed to be. Very, I imagine. Very few organizations want to be small. Given that copyleft licenses are losing badly to more permissive licenses, I imagine that they'd prefer to be bigger and more effective. > They are small ($1M annual budget [1] and 14 staff) and think that’s ok when compared to stuff like Mozilla where their CEO makes more than the entire FSF budget. The ROI from FSF compared to Mozilla seems really good and impactful. I'd argue the opposite. Mozilla, for all of its faults, is actually trying to get open source and privacy respecting software into the hands of end users who aren't inherently ideological about this stuff. We can debate endlessly about their tactics and results, but in this decade at least they're massively more effective and important than the FSF. I'd argue that the FSF is small in terms of staff and budget because the leadership has failed.
- prepend 6y ago
  You can argue whatever you like. You stated “slowly sliding into irrelevancy over the past 20 years” and you were clearly wrong. When I pointed out a few items they do to disprove your timeframe, you moved the goalposts and made statements as if the examples I gave were the only things FSF did. You made an easy statement to disprove, I disproved it. Feel free to research FSF and learn about what they do. You’ll certainly find examples of their impact “this decade.” I won’t look them up for you as I fear you’d then want examples from this femtosecond.