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EFF co-founder John Gilmore removed from org's Board
- sva_ 5y agoIt was already posted a few times, but might be worth being reposted as it didn't get much traction. I'd be curious if somebody knows more about the reasons for him being removed? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28962841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28962841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28985369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28985369
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- akudha 5y agoThe EFF appears not to publish board minutes, nor to have posted its constitution or charter to its site (but does advocate for transparency) Are board minutes considered private? What is the logic behind not posting the constitution, that sounds odd...
- seba_dos1 5y agoWhat is that "but does advocate for transparency" even supposed to mean? EFF is not a government, it doesn't have to be transparent at all.
- Kbelicius 5y agoWhat is hard to understand here, really? Nobody said anything about EFF having to be transparent.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- seba_dos1 5y agoThat text in parenthesis is completely irrelevant to the rest of the sentence and feels cheap. It's clearly trying to convey "they advocate for transparency but aren't even transparent themselves", which is missing the point. I read it as a form of manipulation to instill particular feeling towards EFF in the reader.
- DharmaPolice 5y agoHow is that missing the point? Transparency isn't just for governments and if you advocate for transparency in others you should adopt it yourself.
- jessaustin 5y agoOur rulers are more powerful than we are. They already surveil our every communication, while avoiding public scrutiny whenever possible. So long as CIA and NSA exist, opponents of evil like EFF should be as private as they deem necessary. Although, removing Gilmore isn't a good look.
- seba_dos1 5y agoI can't agree with that. I can advocate for transparency in government and expect my right for personal privacy to be respected at the same time. The whole nature of what government and NGOs are makes points like "you should adopt it yourself" completely moot. EFFs transparency is regulated by it being a 501c charity. It has full right to demand transparency from governments while not being any more transparent than strictly required by law themselves. You may wish for them to be more transparent if you want to support them - it's your choice - but that has no bearing on their advocacy at all, because it's completely irrelevant. The reasons why governments should be transparent simply don't apply to entities that are not governments, because they don't hold the power that governments do. The worst thing that may come from lack of EFF's transparency is my curiosity not being fed with board minutes, possibly causing me to restrain from supporting them in the future - which is hardly comparable to how my country's government influences my life.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
- jedberg 5y agoIt's a 501c charity, so it does have to be somewhat transparent in exchange for its protected tax status.
- rectang 5y agoThe EFF is a 501(c)(3), so they have to file IRS form 990 and their financials are public: https://www.eff.org/about/annual-reports-and-financials https://www.eff.org/about/annual-reports-and-financials But I can't find any bylaws or board meeting minutes. I'm a bit disappointed.
- busterarm 5y agoWhat more do you expect from an organization made up of almost exclusively lawyers?
- ghaff 5y ago>Are board minutes considered private? Yes. The non-profit whose board I'm on does, I believe, have bylaws filed with the state we're incorporated in. And I know board member names (or maybe just the executive board) are filed as well. But we definitely don't have to make board minutes public.
- cwkoss 5y agoDoes anyone have insight into what the primary disagreements were between Gilmore and the rest of the board? It looks like there is subtext that there was a contentious issue they couldn't agree upon, I wonder what it is.
- J5892 5y agoHe's an old-school internet freedom activist. Judging from what's happened with many similar activists, I'm guessing a hard-line anti-censorship mindset isn't compatible with today's social/political landscape in which rampant misinformation on the internet has direct effects on meatspace. Of course, this is purely conjecture. It could be completely unrelated.
- whimsicalism 5y agoInformation distribution has always had direct effects on meatspace. That's what makes an anti-censorship stand relevant and important. Nobody would censor if there were no physical impacts.
- a-dub 5y agoi used to be into hardline freedom of speech... now i acknowledge that real life nuances are a lot more complicated. censorship is messy and complicated and usually involves a dangerous concentration of power, sure... but truly free and anonymous speech that can originate from places that are immune to it's effects or can be falsely attributed for the purposes of subversion can also result in a dangerous concentration of power. what's the difference between a censored truth and a chorus of convincing lies originated anonymously that buries the truth?
- akira2501 5y agoAnd this is something you believe is best solved through censorship of individuals by large tech companies?
- tpmx 5y agoI miss the times when the EFF and the ACLU would both do what's right 100% of the time, instead of doing what's fashionable. I think there's a trend here.
- aaomidi 5y ago> ACLU would do what's right 100% of the times Have you considered that your values might've changed? Or their values of "what's right 100% of the time" has changed?
- hoppyhoppy2 5y agoHowever you choose to describe it, the ACLU's values have changed in recent years and there's internal disagreement about the right path forward for the organization. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html (alternate links to the article: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html https://archive.is/newest/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06... / https://web.archive.org/web/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html https://web.archive.org/web/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/...)
- echelon 5y agoThe ACLU is supposed to defend free speech. Period. Even if we hate it. Now they pick and choose, and that's not right. Do I like people with hatred towards their fellow humans? Absolutely not. But I don't think we should muzzle them. One day, that'll come back and bite the rest of us. Likewise, the EFF needs to focus on the incredibly important missions of keeping software accessible and our privacy paramount. They're getting distracted too. edit: mistakenly mentioned FSF instead of EFF. I'm clear about the distinction, it was just a mistake. Thanks for pointing it out, mig39.
- azinman2 5y agoWhat do you mean by pick and chose? ACLU always has to pick their cases.. they cannot afford to be the nations lawyers nor should they be.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 1cvmask 5y agoThe last paragraph from the article regarding John Gilmore: He's widely credited as the source of the famous aphorism "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." - The EFF has routed around John Gilmore now.
- FabHK 5y agoa) That's not the last paragraph, but the antepenultimate. b) As far as I can tell, Gilmore was not trying to censor anyone. It seems more like the EFF has put Gilmore on the other side of their firewall.
- OnlineGladiator 5y ago> antepenultimate And I thought knowing what penultimate meant was fun. For those that don't know, penultimate means second to last and antepenultimate means third to last.
- FabHK 5y ago(There's also "preantepenultimate" if you ever want to say fourth to last without saying fourth to last...) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/preantepenultimate https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/preantepenultimate
- OnlineGladiator 5y agoNow I'm curious if there's a word meaning 'having more syllables than the definition itself' because we crossed that barrier back at antepenultimate (and penultimate already is tied with 'second to last').
- chrismorgan 5y agoWell, there’s sesquipedalia for long words. You can also try hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hippopotomonstrosesquipedalio....
- gego 5y agoPerhaps this is relevant although it is about the fsf(clarification added after comments): https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/16/glibc_gnulib_fsf_copyright/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/16/glibc_gnulib_fsf_copy... The glibc stewards are seeking input from developers to decide if the project should relax the requirement to assign copyright for all changes to the Free Software Foundation," I do not, and have never, had an assignment in place (it's a running joke that my patch contributions have been all-minus-signs)," wrote glibc contributor Rich Felker, "but given recent behaviour by the FSF board, I am completely unwilling to assign copyright to them in the future, so not making this change may affect my ability to contribute.
- Jolter 5y agoThis is about the EFF, not the FSF.
- gego 5y agoTrue, just thought it might give some insight into recent pain points, Gilmore's email at the eff is gnu after all :)
- not2b 5y agoNo, it isn't relevant. He's used that handle for about 40 years, but you can't use that to conclude much about his position on any current issue. He was a co-founder of Cygnus Support (which eventually merged with Red Hat), and the name was a recursive acronym for Cygnus: Your GNU Support.
- ineedasername 5y agoThe EFF appears not to publish board minutes, nor to have posted its constitution or charter to its site (but does advocate for transparency) That is a bit strange.
- TigeriusKirk 5y agoSeveral other board members are high profile people with regular social media usage. It'll be interesting to see what they have to say about this.
- squarefoot 5y agoUnless some sort of internal NDA prevents them to do so, which being the EFF would be ironic, albeit in a sad way.
- bsedlm 5y agoThere's a fundamental incompatibility between ownership-based capitalist markets (and their orderly political state association) and free and open source software owned by "the community". I believe the trend we are now on would lead us to a kind world in which even natural language has a concrete political entity (like a corporation or government) owning it in such a way that they'll pursue unauthorized speakers. For some it might seem far-fetched that natural language could ever be owned like this; hopefully they're right and this end won't ever be possible; just because it's a trend towards that does not mean we'll ever get to such an extreme.
- ineedasername 5y agoWhile I think the EFF's mission is a good one, I don't always like their tactics, which often resemble those of politicians or corporations. Here's a current example [0]. The message is basically "don't scan our phones, respect our privacy". Sounds okay, but it has practically no details. Nothing about what exactly would be scanned, why it would be scanned the, how it would be scanned... nothing. Judging by most HN'ers conversations on the topic before, most would even support EFF's message on the issue! But look at their methods. They should be doing an information campaign. Instead, that reads as propaganda campaign. [0] https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-activists-lead-protest-demanding-apple-cancel-iphone-scanning-program-and-keep https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-activists-lead-protes...
- whimsicalism 5y agoMore HN bikeshedding. Sloganeering is actually critical for mass movements for political change.
- dimitrios1 5y agoMore improper use of a "gotcha". Perhaps those who consider themselves to be part of the educated class find sloganeering distasteful and thus contrary to the goals of the movement? After all, it's likely those part of the educated class that are going to do the real groundwork on these important matters of policy. Perhaps if it was a good slogan, it wouldn't need discussion. All of these are possibilities. How essential are slogans, in your view?
- criddell 5y agoSlogans are fine as long as the details are available somewhere for those that want to dig in.
- whimsicalism 5y agoI feel like the linked article from GP has plenty of additional details linked. There is also plenty of media coverage on what they are discussing. I am confused what is perceived as actually missing and why that missing content is somehow an indict on EFF
- torgian 5y agoSo they advocate transparency, yet there aren’t any board minutes or even a look into what happened. Weird.
- TheChaplain 5y agoMy guess is that if the information were to be exposed it would likely change a lot of peoples opinions about them. But I hope I am wrong.
- topynate 5y agoIf the reasons don't leak (they usually do) then it will still be possible to see what Gilmore was blocking by watching what the EFF does over the next six months that it hasn't done before.
- wnissen 5y agoI have to admit that I am relieved this appears to be merely a difference of belief, and not related to disgusting behavior of any kind.
- afsFF 5y agoWithout any further information, this looks like "old idealistic libertarian out, new malleable directors in". ACLU, OSI, now EFF. Expect your freedoms to erode further.
- hyproxia 5y ago>OSI If you honestly think that the OSI were ever the "good guys", then do I have the news for you...
- porknubbins 5y agoIts like there was some weakness in the DNA of these classic libertarian organizations born out of 60s era idealism. I don’t know whether crypto or some other decentralized tech will solve this but I hope the internet will evolve beyond needing these legacy organizations.
- notadev 5y agoThis Twitter thread implies it’s related to his “siding with” Jacob Applebaum of the Tor Project, when he was accused of sexual misconduct. https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/1452714046218649603?s=21 https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/1452714046218649603?s=21
- tpmx 5y agoAh, so his sin was that he called for a formal legal process instead of "trial by rumor". Burn the witch!
- cbvx10 5y agoOk, advocating against extrajudicial punishment (like djb also did) is of course monstrous behavior for woke directors. So the EFF has also departed from its mission. We learn (https://www.eff.org/de/pages/effs-diversity-statement https://www.eff.org/de/pages/effs-diversity-statement): "Diversity of life experiences makes a big difference in how we identify and litigate cases, design privacy-enhancing software, and organize our activism." Another institution has been taken over. I can't find the donor list, it would be interesting.
- evouga 5y agoI know nonprofit governance moves at a glacial pace, but surely there must have been some instigating incident more recent than five years ago?
- esja 5y agoThese days, anything you have ever done, however long ago, is sufficient grounds for the zealots.
- arminiusreturns 5y agoWow I sorta lost track of Jacob and wasn't aware of this drama. I followed the trail a bit and here are the relevant court docs. Jacobs: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14868600/25/todd-v-lovecruft/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14868600/25/todd-v-love... Todds: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14868600/24/todd-v-lovecruft/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14868600/24/todd-v-love...
- 4bpp 5y agoMany posts are comparing this development to the ACLU's gradual heel/face turn (depending on which camp you are cheering for), but here I am left wondering, as someone with little knowledge about the workings and legal foundations of NGOs, why these sorts of developments even happen. Why do nonprofits not get "hardcoded" to advance a particular cause in a particular way, by way of a charter or otherwise? Is this just not legally possible, is it not done for some other reason, or is it done but all of the changes we are observing fall short of violating the relevant legal code (which just means that our predecessors failed to make it specific enough)? I imagine that, as a prospective donor, I would certainly much prefer if there were some form of legal assurance that the Dog-Grooming Union that I would be giving money to will continue advancing the cause of well-groomed dogs tomorrow, rather than deciding that it would instead rather fight for the cause of creating salons for cats, or even completely turn around and say that it will now fight against human intervention in the natural phenotypical fur-styles of dogs. (As a concrete example, this feeling of incomprehension always makes me wonder about "GPL vN or later" licenses. If the ACLU can start agitating against free speech, what would stop some future societal development from inspiring the FSF to release a GPL v4 that says "this source code is exclusive property of Microsoft to use as it sees fit"?)
- evouga 5y agoPerhaps if you're a donor to a nonprofit, you could sue its directors for breach of fiduciary duty of fidelity to purpose? Although I doubt this could successfully prevent slow drift in the mission of an entire organization (as we're seeing with the ACLU).
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Why do nonprofits not get "hardcoded" to advance a particular cause in a particular way, by way of a charter or otherwise? Because if they did, and the charter could not be amended, then a change in the opinion of people who support the mission on the optimal mechanism kills the organization and requires the costs of building a whole new organization. The same reason why the whole of the law of a nation isn't fixed for all time out the outset.
- 5y ago
- dandotway 5y agoPournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy[1] states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration. Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc. The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle#Pournelle's_iron_law_of_bureaucracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle#Pournelle's_ir...
- AtlasBarfed 5y agoRelated: Machiavelli. I like to term the Second class that generally predominates in large enterprises, normally termed "middle management", the "Middle Management Machiavellis" for whom life is nothing but budget boundary assault/defense, and the assassin's game of angling for promotions. I am thankful programming jobs paid pretty well such that it was roughly equivalent to several levels up the ladder in other professions without nearly the same soul-crushing view into the venality of mankind. But this, I think, is a temporary thing. I look at the shockingly low salaries of ACTUAL ENGINEERS that went to ACTUAL ENGINEERING SCHOOL like chemical engineering, nuclear engineering, civil engineering, and they make much less than programmers.
- ahzhou 5y agoRe: salaries of non-software engineers. The thing that’s hard to intuit is that salary isn’t a reflection of the difficulty or importance of your job. It’s a reflection of economics. The skill set of a software engineer enables a better business model than that of a civil engineer. These superior economics get reflected in better salaries, even if the two people are equally skilled in their respective fields. A construction company will need to spend cash on machines, permitting, raw materials, labor, and more to earn money. A software business needs to pay for compute and labor.
- chrismcb 5y agoSo, what is a good free speech organization that is worth donating to?
- fsflover 5y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28997501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28997501
- Aeolun 5y ago> The post on our website speaks for itself, and we don’t have much to add. This is essentially a personnel matter, so we will be keeping the details confidential. While it’s unfortunate that we reached a point where a governance role was no longer appropriate, we are pleased that John is staying in an emeritus role. John’s work and guidance from EFF’s founding helped make us who we are today and we are eternally grateful that he saw the need to have a digital rights organization, and indeed a digital rights movement, to ensure that our civil liberties remain protected as technology changes. Thank you for your organization. Bye!
- phoneperson 5y agoI am not a fan of conspiracy theories but https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2021/10/25/john_gilmore_removed_from_eff_board/#c_4355759 https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2021/10/25/john_gil... seemed interesting. I also remember him defending stallman so maybe this played a role?