15 ms·

The Free Software Foundation is dying

171 points by gmemstr 3y ago

grapesurgeon 3y ago
[dead]
patemmschmitz 3y ago
Hello all, I found this debate after 4 days of "internet vacation" to fulfill a dream of my grandson (10 years old) to go with me on the Legoland roller coaster in Denmark. What shocks me is the reproach made to RMS to be old! The real reproach would be to be dogmatic, stubborn, incapable of compromise, which perhaps is partly justified. I am over 70 myself and still enjoy advising the European Commission on FLOSS and the EUPL license. Old age is when dreams give way to regrets, Kind regards, Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz - EC Joinup legal support
johannes1234321 3y ago
For the parts of the world I see I would question the present continuous form of the article. The FSF isn't dying. It is in all practical ways dead and all discussion around it is stuck to RMS. Which is sad, as we need a similar organisation as the "user freedom" is challenged more than ever, as users don't "own" their devices ever less, but also operations depends more and more on closed services, which are partially built around Free Software (in FSF's definition) while offering none of the freedoms anymore (as it is tied to the cloud service vendor)
Mizza 3y ago
Not much new here, but I do echo the call for new licenses. I would like to see an "Affero MIT" license where I get web-accessible credit for my contribution to a web service and something like an "Affero LGPL" to fill in the gap exposed by the ElasticSearch re-licensing debacle.
- simiones 3y ago
  How would an Affero LGPL (a weaker license than the AGPL) help in any way with the reason ES moved to a more restrictive license than the AGPL (as did MongoDB, for example)?
  - Mizza 3y ago
    I guess I don't have an answer for that specifically, but I think it shows the need for some innovation or flexibility to protect from Amazonification in order to avoid the situation from getting to that boiling point entirely.
    - simiones 3y ago
      The problem though is that this desire is incompatible with the existing definition of Free Software. The principle that users are free to use the code however they see fit, and distribute it to others as long as they extend this right to others, explicitly allows this type of Amazonification. That is, Amazon offered their users every right and information about how Elastic Search works. All of their modifications are public. I believe they even offer deployment information if you want to replicate it. The problem is that they are out-competing Elastic's managed offering on price and overall integration, and that they are not contributing to the Elastic Search code base, they are simply offering the existing code. This is all fully within the letter and spirit of any GNU license, and any further restriction would in fact be a violation of the 4 Freedoms described in the GPL. This is/was not a TiVo situation.
- erk__ 3y ago
  A example of a "Affero LGPL" would be the EU license: EUPL https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/custom-page/attachment/2020-03/EUPL-1.2%20EN.txt https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/custom-page/... Edit: This paper also gives a good overview of the license https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/c15c9e93-27e1-11ec-bd8e-01aa75ed71a1/language-en https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/c15...
  - patemmschmitz 3y ago
    True! Regarding distribution as a service, the EUPL is like the AGPL, but simply written, short and clear. It is copyleft, but allows combined derivatives to be distributed under 10 compatible licences (including MPL, OSL, GPL2 & 3 and AGPL). The European Union (nobel peace prize 2012) is adopting the Interoperable Europe Act, a regulation that will make the EUPL a default licence proposed for all Member States public bodies software as from 2024. And by the way, this new regulation will be supported by a "Interoperable Europe Community" of users. The purpose is still to define and may not be seen as creating a "European FSF" (Who said bureaucratic?)... However, Sometimes it is better to be supported by solid institutions than by an aging guru...
jmclnx 3y ago
>It’s time for Richard Stallman to go I was expecting to see this, there is nothing more corporations would like more then to see him gone. Then they can take full control of the FSF, already they have their hands in it. So far many of his predictions have come true and there are a few more that seems to be on their way to happening. What FSF should do is work stop the move to secure boot. Already there are Intel Laptops being created that will not allow us to replace Windows with Linux or a BSD. This link is one prediction that seems to be where we are well on our way to heading for: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html If he is removed from the FSF, that will come true. edit: spelling
- cassianoleal 3y ago
  If you're right (and I'm not saying you're not), the FSF is already gone. RMS is 70 years old and will not be around forever.
- brodouevencode 3y ago
  > Then they can take full control of the FSF, already they have their hands in it. This is neither good nor bad, so I'm not sure why your whole point seemingly is based on it. Corporations will act in their own self-interests just like everyone else. There are examples of where corporations worked together and it turned out well for all and examples of the opposite happening, so I'm not sure why this is necessarily framed in such a negative way. EDIT: consider the Linux Foundation. They combine private and corporate interests fairly well, with no corporate capture, and they are succeeding in ways the FSF never has.
  - richbell 3y ago
    > Corporations will act in their own self-interests just like everyone else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
    - brodouevencode 3y ago
      If the foundation is set up to allow this, then that's a fault of the structure of the foundation.
Scubabear68 3y ago
From my perspective, movements need multiple organizations that exist on different levels of the “extremism” spectrum. Just like there are various environmental NGO’s, some very radical, and others more mild and open to compromise, the free software movement needs the same. The FSF is the extreme org, the canary in the coal mine that is going to alert on critical issues, but also which frankly are going to send out a lot of false alerts. They are the die hards that will get it wrong constantly, but also will be the early alert system for true critical issues. We need other, more moderate voices they are willing to compromise more and be less extreme. That should not happen within FSF, but as a separate org.
- philistine 3y ago
  And yet this canary in the coal mine seems to have spent as much effort trying to get us to say GNU/Linux than on trying to fight its valid battles.
  - Scubabear68 3y ago
    Absolutely. That is what extreme organizations do. I monitor some extreme environmental groups who mostly are crying wolf about every little thing on the planet. But occasionally they twig to something real, and the more conservative orgs start catching on and taking up the call. FSF is constantly telling us the sky is falling. It isn’t, and your point about GNU/Linux is a good example. The FSF is still valuable in those rare cases where they find serious issues. I just learn to ignore them on the nonsense side.
ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
How is the FSF failing? There seems to be far more freedom respecting choices nowadays than in the past and we're now entering the dawn of "free" cpus with RISC-V. I'd also consider that Linux is more widely used than at any time in the past as well. What am I missing?
- brodouevencode 3y ago
  They are being eclipsed in terms of contributions by the Linux Foundation, AI groups, robotics groups, you name it. There was a lot of squandered potential there. Stallman has spent the majority of the time arguing pedantically about things he has no control over - for instance he would yell at you for saying "Linux" instead of "GNU-Linux". He outlived the utility of being the FSF leader about 30 years ago and should have passed on the baton then.
  - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
    Thanks. I would hesitate to call them "dying", but maybe just becoming less relevant compared to other organisations.
- acdha 3y ago
  Those things are happening without much involvement by the FSF – Linux, for example, is famously not an FSF project to the point that some activists tried to popularize the “GNU/Linux” label. I’m not saying that the FSF has no role or that some of the software it supports isn’t incredibly widely used (GCC, etc.) but that it’s seemed to be coasting for years, drifting out of the mainstream even for open source developers. That makes their mission harder to accomplish because everyone knows that they don’t speak for a large percentage of the community. This largely comes back to RMS. It’s fairly common for organizations to have trouble surviving the departure of a key founder, and in his case that is especially complicated by having run it for decades as largely a personal vehicle. This was especially glaring when he was invited back after leaving in a cloud: how much does a “so what if he drove people away, he’s been here for years!” message suggest that they’ll become more relevant in the future, especially with the people who saw that and decided never to touch an FSF effort?
PaulHoule 3y ago
Are they even coming out with any new software? I remember GNU being big in the 1990s and I know a new version of gawk came out recently, but it seems the center of gravity of “free software” (as in beer) has moved in the direction of the Apache foundation (so many data-related projects it is a “big data” problem to keep track of them all), Github, etc.
- chriswarbo 3y ago
  GNU Guix (package manager and OS distro) is a pretty big project, that's fairly recent.
  - wallmountedtv 3y ago
    Well GNU Guix is publicly against the current structure of the FSF and especially RMS.[1] So Guix as an example is not really a great defense of FSF and the GNU Project's operating structure. 1: https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr...
    - chriswarbo 3y ago
      Thanks, you're right (I hadn't come across that before)
  - mistrial9 3y ago
    all of the classic packages could use younger people involved. Its not an accident that you read about young talented people here spending a year or three on some private project.
- layer8 3y ago
  Apache only provides organizational infrastructure for OSS projects, the foundation doesn’t drive the development and maintenance proper. Apache projects are usually either heavily supported by companies, or else on life support if not dead.
- michaelcampbell 3y ago
kettunen 3y ago
I lost all the respect that I had for FSF when they decided to re-elect Stallman. Would love to see a lot of changes in that foundation.
- honeybadger1 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - kettunen 3y ago
    It's his history and actions that made him unsuitable for the position. Despite that, they still decided allow him to return to the board. While RMS and FSF have done great things in the past, actions should have consequences and movement shouldn't be tied to one person.
    - blueflow 3y ago
      The previous attempt of removing him was executed as an appalling witch-hunt. Yes, Stallman is insensitive, but when people saw something more insensitive being done to him, they sided with him. I'm all in for finding a replacement for Stallman, but that must be done in a more careful manner.
shortrounddev 3y ago
> We need more leaders of color, women, LGBTQ representation, and others besides. The present leadership, particularly from RMS, creates an exclusionary environment in a place where inclusion and representation are important for the success of the movement. I'm not a fan of RMS, but this is the exact kind of left wing platitude that people think will revive an organization, but really just signals thats the organization is more concerned with the appearance of reform, rather than substance. It is the death rattle of an organization which has allowed itself to become ideological rather than pragmatic (which is funny considering how ideological the FSF is) The problem with FSF is that it either hasn't made its point clear, or has failed to convince people. People are naturally turned off by the GPL because they do not want to give their company's code away; they see it as a risk to their businesses. I worked for a company which licensed its product as GPLv2. One of our clients (who we trained on the product) saw this and then began competing with us by selling their own version of our product. The company released a newer version of the code and made it proprietary. The FSF answer to this is that this is exactly how the GPL is intended to work, and we should compete on quality of service and frequency of updates rather than having a monopoly on our code base, but that's simply not an argument that businesses buy. It is an uphill battle convincing companies to give away their code to an ecosystem that they will, in the long run, potentially benefit from. The FSF fails to do this, and usually only makes ideological arguments presented by a long-haired, bare-footed, libertarian hippie with a history of extremely controversial takes on the topic of child molestation.
- pferde 3y ago
  The funniest part is that this Devault's argument is the exact opposite of "inclusion and representation". Make arguments for RMS's removal based on his actions, but wanting him gone because of his gender, skin colour and/or age is just as exclusionary as Ku Klux Klan is. It's just wrong.
  - eletrotupi 3y ago
    [flagged]
- HideousKojima 3y ago
appleflaxen 3y ago
> The content for this site is CC-BY-SA. The code for this site is MIT. This made me laugh a bit, given the arguments being made. (I'm not calling him a hypocrite; it's fine to use MIT licenses and make these arguments. It was just a funny concluding statement on the blog page)
- ninjin 3y ago
  Drew is known to use everything from MIT to AGPL depending on what he thinks serves the given software best (heck, Hare has a rather complex mixture of licenses [1]). I have in the past disagreed with these decisions, but I think pointing out the licensing choice for his website code is a bit of a distraction. [1]: https://sr.ht/~sircmpwn/hare/#licensing https://sr.ht/~sircmpwn/hare/#licensing
calvinmorrison 3y ago
the "problem" with the FSF is the no-true-scottsman license. It just ends with, if you aren't ideologically in line with GNU, you're not free software. It's like debian refusing to package firefox. It lacks the practicality and realpolitick one needs to make free software more widely used and understood.
rickydroll 3y ago
The Free software foundation needs its Martin Luther and Reformation. Stallman has quite literally become the pope of the Free software foundation and we need to remember that like with the Protestant Reformation, the individual has their own, unmediated relationship with free software. There are other apt analogies between the Protestant Reformation and the Free software foundation but I will leave discovering that as an exercise to the reader.
- AuthorizedCust 3y ago
  We’re already there. For example, look at the spectrum of licenses free software can fall under.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Most of each represent a return to the PD and Shareware days, only rebraded to modern times.
- pelasaco 3y ago
  Well, based on your analogy, people unsatisfied with Stallman, should leave the FSF and found their own "church" instead of trying to destroy his image and legacy, or at least to take FSF by force. (I don't have an opinion about Stallman. My comment is just about your analogy).
  - Iolaum 3y ago
    This has happened already, look at Open Source Initiative, Software Freedom Conservancy and others.
    - pelasaco 3y ago
      well looks like none is doing what FSF does or then what's the point to keep attacking Stallmann? Let the old man alone, doing his own little thing alone, right? Looks like it's more about power than open source and looks like you didn't understand the difference between open source and free software: "The two terms describe almost the same category of software, but they stand for views based on fundamentally different values. Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement."[1] [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.en https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
GNUfanaticism 3y ago
>It’s time for Richard Stallman to go. >We need more leaders of color, women, LGBTQ representation, and others besides. The FSF is dying. What we need is women, people of color, minorities, and other people who have never played a major part in contributing, spreading or practicing free software ethos to lead the movement. There is nothing inherently wrong with diversity, but this is an attempt to spread an agenda, not save the Free Software Foundation. A character like Richard Stallman is and have been a necessity for the movement to be what it is. We cannot let people of weak character lead the movement. We must reject non-free, proprietary software, not fall into a spiral of pragmatism until we are OSS.
- david38 3y ago
  [flagged]
- gray5 3y ago
  I’m no fan of Stallman but he’s got quite a following in LATAM so this is a weird angle.
- ddevault 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - AstixAndBelix 3y ago
    Richard Stallman was/is a grade A hacker and that's how the free software movement started as. So, which kind of individuals would now be best suited for leadership positions in the FSF? An MBA? A lawyer? FAANG project manager?
    - ddevault 3y ago
      The right leaders are (1) grade A hackers who (2) don't make women feel uncomfortable, selected from a pool which does not arbitrarily filter for skin tone et al. Bonus, we could even consider cultivating an environment where more people feel safe, represented, and included, and if they learn how to be grade A hackers in this environment we can expand our volunteer pool to include the majority of Earth's population that is not an English-speaking white cishet man.
nailer 3y ago
I'm not sure enough people believe that proprietary software is immoral to make the FSF relevant anymore. Rather the Open Source philosophy won out.
yarg 3y ago
> Reform the leadership. It’s time for Richard Stallman to go. > We need more leaders of color, women, LGBTQ representation, and others besides. Stallman is in many ways a problem - but the solution is finding technically and socially competent leadership with a vision that aligns with the core ideologies of the FSF and the ability to lay it out as a coherent long-term plan. Forced diversity has not ever and will not ever make that sort of thing easier to achieve.
- bo1024 3y ago
  Technical and socially competent leadership is compatible -- actually, well-aligned -- with diverse representation.
  - yarg 3y ago
    There's a difference between organic and forced diversity. When someone starts out with bullet-point one devoted to orthogonal social issues and not the actual goals of the foundation and how to reach them, it's fairly clear where they stand.
    - kmeisthax 3y ago
      "Orthogonal social issues?" So are we just going to pretend that unauditable, proprietary facial recognition software isn't being actively weaponized against minorities? Like, cops using secret rules to determine guilt would be considered dystopian basically anywhere.
      - yarg 3y ago
        Yes, the issues are completely orthogonal to the effective operation of an open source software foundation. If you want to have a talk about the also completely unrelated issue of facial recognition, we can do that too.
        ParetoOptimal 3y ago
cgio 3y ago
Maybe it’s dying because it already succeeded in its goals. That’s a good thing. From my myopic perspective, RMS is FSF. And he has changed the discussion around software forever. Now we need another kind of freedom, we feel it but cannot articulate it. And whoever articulates it, I wish them all the best, whether they do so under the banner of FSF or something else. One thing I am almost sure of is that whatever watering down of FSF message, as I feel this article suggests, will not be it.
- dale_glass 3y ago
  > Maybe it’s dying because it already succeeded in its goals. Not really? Stallman obviously wants everything possible to be GPL licensed and harped on about GNU/Linux for decades, and so far all that is gradually fading away. The modern landscape is much different from when things started, the core tools are a far smaller proportion of a modern OS and have been rewritten many times since, including in non-GPL licenses. These days there's efforts to rewrite them in Rust, usually not under the GPL. I think under better management the FSF would do a better job of dealing with this. Both in watching for new developments and making sure not to lose relevance (eg, IMO the FSF should lead the effort to build new Rust-based versions of the GNU tools), and in being in touch with the modern tech landscape (eg, cloud)
- dagw 3y ago
  Maybe it’s dying because it already succeeded in its goals. I'm pretty sure they don't see it that way. The last big ideological 'war' was between FSF and OSI and it's quite clear that FSF lost. Open source proponents successfully allied with and used the FSF the launch their own platform to achieve their goals. Once their goals where achieved they dropped the FSF in the dust. In fact the FSF lost so badly most people don't even remembers what they fought for or even that they lost.
- rollcat 3y ago
  > Now we need another kind of freedom, we feel it but cannot articulate it. Simple: empower the user. Focus on the user's freedom to do things. I think FSF's goals can be easily rephrased in terms of that "new" freedom, while remaining consistent with the original vision. I also think this is where free software is failing very hard in the recent decades. I was running Debian+SailfishOS as my daily drivers up until 2019, when I completely switched to the Apple ecosystem, after one simple realisation: it empowered me and granted me the freedom to do more with my devices. There is no intrinsic reason why Apple is better at empowering their users than FOSS is, I think it's the exact opposite: FOSS as a principle and as a development practice has proven over and over again that it can compete with, and even take out proprietary juggernauts - in spaces other than personal computing. I have on my desk (just for fun) a PowerBook G4 (2001) with OSX 10.5 (2007), and I think that machine + OS is still ahead in usability vs a modern release of KDE or Gnome. I don't know, I don't think bridging that gap is impossible, but that might require unthinkable compromises like acknowledging the need for proprietary Wifi firmware, CPU microcode, or single sign-on for Google/Outlook/iCloud mail and calendar. So I'm not sure if it will ever happen.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
Good. Stallman and by extension the FSF are agenda-driven radicals. Following their guidelines ironically leaves the user with very little freedom.
- npteljes 3y ago
  Seems ironic, isn't it? In a complete anarchy, you'd have less freedom as you have now, despite the lack of law. But rules and law, while limiting freedom technically, are exactly the things that enable freedom. Because nature doesn't recognize freedom, and the boundaries that define it, and so, they are crossed all the time.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
causality0 3y ago
The organization’s messaging is tone-deaf, ineffective, and myopic. That's putting it nicely. The FSF's messaging is religious bordering on cultish. Frankly I'm amazed they've accomplished as much as they have despite constantly shaming developers for daring to ask to be paid for their labor.
bionade24 3y ago
It's crazy that the FSF only stands up for license violations of the GNU project, not all GPL licensed projects. That's the reason the software freedom conservancy was created in the 1st place. RMS' management of the GNU project derailed long ago, from him vetoing for his jokes in project he's not involved anymore, going OT & insulting on mailing lists and often threatening GNU maintainers by stating that their project belongs to GNU, not them.
- MaxBarraclough 3y ago
  Both organisations require copyright assignment. https://sfconservancy.org/assignment/ https://sfconservancy.org/assignment/
  - bionade24 3y ago
    The SFC currently tries to win a lawsuit out of "GPL software user" perspective: https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html
    - MaxBarraclough 3y ago
      Good point, I should have been more precise: they require copyright assignment if you want a special commitment from them to enforce the licence terms of your project. Will be interesting to see where that lawsuit goes.
bo1024 3y ago
Appreciate and agree with this article. It is nice to see an article that strongly agrees with the principles of FSF, but also critical of their clear stagnation. It's also disappointing to see a number of comments here that dismiss the call for more diversity in leadership and participation, and more connections to other communities. I think this is very important to spread the reach of the FSF.
phendrenad2 3y ago
I have a theory that people who blog at a site named after themselves are the most authoritatively wrong bloggers. Someone cannot really argue that something is failing without showing that it once succeeded at those goals. The FSF has never been very widely known or effective, except for creating a few pieces of software (gcc, emacs) and a few epic failures (hurd). The FSF has already done enough. It created the GPL license, which is a huge achievement and enough that we can leave the FSF alone without trying to "fix" it or mold it into something new. If Drew wants an effective FSF, hey, you can go make your own. If your ideas are so great, it'll surely rocket past the FSF and become the new standard-bearer in the open-source world. But ideas are cheap...
brodouevencode 3y ago
There's going to be a lot of negativity in these comments. I don't have numbers and this is purely anecdotal observation, but there is a large contingent of supporters of the FSF that base their association to the foundation on their political positions (read: a very large number of communists, democratic socialists, and anarchists support FSF). Any criticism of RMS will be met with at least anti-corporate but most likely anti-capitalist rhetoric. Full disclosure: I cut off my contributions to the FSF in fall of 2004. It was obvious it outlived its utility even then. Now I ride to downvote hell...
- HideousKojima 3y ago
  Copyright is anti-capitalist. It's a state-granted and state-enforced monopoly on intellectual property (which is itself a legal fiction). I'm about as anti-communist and anti-socialist as they come, and I still support the free software movement because I see the current state of software licensing (not to mention issues with hardware ownership etc.) as rent-seeking by those who do not want to have to compete in the free market without the force of the state backing them up. It also undermines individual property rights. Whether or not the FSF is still the best champion for this cause is a different matter, but I support anyone pushing against the world of proprietary software.
  - brodouevencode 3y ago
    You are absolutely on to something here. We need an alternative to FSF.
  - kmeisthax 3y ago
    > Copyright is anti-capitalist ...uh, what? Like, if you're referring to, say, some hypothetically limited version of copyright where it's more or less a private right-of-action for artists to sue publishing firms for unpaid work, then sure. That would be anti-capitalist, specifically because the Soviets tried that. As it currently stands copyright is the foundation of modern capitalism. Yes, it doesn't feel like that if you're, say, a right-libertarian or a hardcore free market guy. However, you have to remember that capitalism and a free market are two different things. Capitalists do not care if the market is free, they care if line goes up. They will happily choke off the free market using monopoly power or government power if it will make them more money. A large corporation deciding that you will own nothing and be happy does not make them suddenly hardcore pinko commies. This is just the end stage of capitalism: once you run out of legitimate ways to make a profit, you find ways to steal from others. That's why we used to have antitrust laws[0] to keep companies from becoming democratically unaccountable quazi-governments of their own. And in my opinion the greatest own-goal right-libertarians ever made was campaigning against their use. [0] Antitrust law in the US has been functionally braindead since the "consumer welfare" standard was adopted by a bunch of federal judges litigating from the bench in the 1980s.
ddevault 3y ago
[flagged]
- shortrounddev 3y ago
  > I am not calling for non-proportional representation, or for forcing proportional representation either. Then what, precisely, are you calling for when you call for more surface-level diversity in the leadership? How do you achieve proportional representation without manual manipulation? And why do you think that DEI is the first problem worth listing? If we're criticizing Stallman as an unpopular and uncharismatic leader, it seems like his documented history of comments about child molestation should be #1, not vague hand waving over race and sex.
  - m000 3y ago
    I was watching the Netflix documentary about Abercrombie & Fitch [1] the other day. At some point they were forced by a court to improve the diversity of the company. How did they handle it? (a) They created a Chief Diversity Officer position, and hired a black guy to staff it, (b) they padded their diversity numbers with low-pay/0-hour contract employees at the lowest level possible. Diversity is fostered by initiatives, not mandates. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19034522/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19034522/
  - akerl_ 3y ago
    The article seems to be making the case that if you want to foster support for a movement, having somebody in a leadership role who alienates a plurality of your potential pool of members is a bad idea. Nit picking that the article didn't pick your preferred example to make the same point seems like, well, nit picking.
    - shortrounddev 3y ago
      he alienates people not because hes white or male but because he's an uncharismatic libertarian toad
    - chuddington 3y ago
boomboomsubban 3y ago
This article could be summed up with "there should be a completely different free software organization that behaves the way I want it to." Ok? Go ahead and start it.
- iLemming 3y ago
  Is your typical answer to any criticism of an open-source project: "You don't like it? Fork it and build your own!"? It's like a child who flips the board when they don't like being told, "That's not how this game is played..."
  - boomboomsubban 3y ago
    This article is saying "the FSF should change it's leadership, it's message, end it's support of GNU, and ditch the GPL." At that point, why call it the FSF?
etothepii 3y ago
> despite the 16,000-word FAQ which supplements it. Perhaps it is because of it ...
emu7652 3y ago
>We need more leaders of color, women, LGBTQ representation, and others... That is dangerous mindset, so dangerous that I think the article is just trolling, trying to trigger people. But in case if author was serious, choosing leadership or any position for tha matter, should be based on their vision, skill, the weight of their respect is set community rather that on their sexual orientation, color of their skin, country of origin and ect. Discrimination needs to go. And this writing, suggests discrimination based on race or sexuality and gender. I'll be honest I stopped reading after that point. From the beginning the ranting was already a salt mine, but kinda wanted to see what direction they were going with it.
- ParetoOptimal 3y ago
  > That is dangerous mindset, so dangerous that I think the article is just trolling, trying to trigger people. But in case if author was serious, choosing leadership or any position for tha matter, should be based on their vision, skill, the weight of their respect is set community rather that on their sexual orientation, color of their skin, country of origin and ect. Discrimination needs to go. And this writing, suggests discrimination based on race or sexuality and gender. The dangerous mindset is acting as if people with the power of hiring positions are unbiased and don't hire based on soft skills, "culture fit", and other irrational things. > Discrimination needs to go. Yes it does, but... it hasn't. The status quo is a heavyweight and inertia pushes it forward... would you have minorities suffer until the mythical future where discrimination doesn't exist comes?
- Ekaros 3y ago
  I think main question really should be how effective they would be in the role. And what truly are the goals of FSF and how could right leadership aim at those. Now some might thing diversity and inclusion should be the goals, but I think many disagree and consider that there is enough other organizations being able to do those things. FSF should have unique value proposition if it wants to continue to exist. And leadership should be effective for that value proposition.
  - emu7652 3y ago
noirscape 3y ago
The main problem the FSF runs into, over and over, is that they're barking up the wrong tree if their goal is political change (which it's at least stated to be). Drew doesn't really address this directly, although many of the things he points at I would say are related to this. RMS is a big reason why the FSF is the way it is ie. its why their site is a disorganized mess of philosophical ramblings, poorly organized (and often badly written, resulting in people believing things about their licenses that aren't accurate[0]) legal FAQs and kinda poorly written predictive fiction attempts from Stallman. Your average user isn't going to give a shit about this. Your average programmer already knows and builds on top of FOSS - FOSS is the great portfolio establisher of the programming world at this point. You don't need to convince them. Your average user deals with far simpler (and frankly far more dystopian) problems like "my entire workflow broke because Google removed one of their apps and I was completely reliant on it", "Spotify removed all music of my favorite artist and now I don't have access to the music I paid for" and "Microsoft made it so that I can't use my computer without a Microsoft account anymore". The FSF has an extremely myopic view here that if it's not invented in FOSS land, it's not worth talking about. The GNU Project has an attitude that actively works against bringing people over to FOSS tooling unless they go all-in. Most people don't... do that, they'd rather gradually replace things as they become an issue. Your average user runs Windows and has an iPhone or an Android. Your average developer needs to target these platforms. What does the FSF provide through the GNU for developers and users? Preachy nonsense about how you should buy a Thinkpad and live like a digital hermit. Sure you can barely participate in modern society, but you're at least free! FOSS successes come when a project does attempt to bridge the user problem. LineageOS is an extremely useful Apache licensed Custom ROM that's widely used as an Aftermarket OS for Android phones for example. LibreOffice (formerly OpenOffice, MPL licensed) only became a household-ish tool because it openly was meant as an alternative word processor that strives to at least be compatible with Office (and most of its layout is basically borrowed from the last version of Office before they introduced the ribbon - aka the most production efficient version of Office). People gradually replace, but the FSF demands a total switch in workflows if you want to play on their turf, which for most people is frankly impossible. They can call Facebook and Google silly names all they want, but grandma needs them to schedule her bingo club on Friday. And unless you want to take up the effort of teaching 10 octogenarians how to use a FOSS WebDAV calendar app and Matrix, how to set their devices up for it and more importantly, how that works when their tablet is replaced 3 years later. It's basically unreasonable unless the workflow and experience is exactly identical to that of the tools it's replacing. And it basically never is. The FSF needs to start trying to work for FOSS being a reasonable option for end-users if it wants to live - the developer work is done, it's been done for upwards of 20 years now. Their insistence to keep focusing on the dev side has just let Google et al. create the dystopia they warned about just by ignoring FOSS (ironically the very thing the FSFs proposition claims was easily avoidable if we just build the tools. - We build them. Then Apple and Google just steamrolled the entire relevance of FOSS through either having proper UX design or shoring it up.) [0]: Anything to do with the AGPL.
baerrie 3y ago
I feel like there is a stronger case in saying open source is dying, or at least being corrupted. The vast majority of OSS is served by github, a company owned by Microsoft which already uses it for its own profits. In time the OSS movement may be completely compromised. Perhaps FSF shouldn’t change much and continue functioning as a beacon to guide us rather than a motor to drive us.
m000 3y ago
I find the proposed changes a bit disingenious. The gist is that Stallman should hand over the FSF franchise, to some unspecified persons, with free rein to do whatever they want with it, as long as it is loosely relevant with free software. It's only natural that Stallman will refuse, and I can't blame him for that. I mean, why not start your own "Libre Software Foundation" and get those unnamed "emerging leaders" behind your agenda? Why would you need to be the continuation of FSF if you plan to radically change it?
- kentrado 3y ago
  I think you are correct. It seems to me to be a power struggle disguised as something that should be done for the good of the FOSS movement.
hollowturtle 3y ago
>We need more leaders of color, women, LGBTQ representation, and others besides. I can’t really understand where the US is heading with this agenda. As a EU citizen I’m often puzzled and worried, why can’t the sentence just be “We need more competent leaders”? This should imply diversity per se, and btw who decides a place has enough diversity? There will be a diversity judge on workplaces?
- ParetoOptimal 3y ago
  > As a EU citizen I’m often puzzled and worried, why can’t the sentence just be “We need more competent leaders”? This should imply diversity per Confirmation bias and the inertia of continuing to choosing white males for leadership positions mean that there is no such thing as meritocracy. Even if there were (there won't be), there are issues of representation and opportunity which can only be addressed by actively seeking more diversity.
- ghusto 3y ago
  I've given this some thought before. I think it's born from guilt, you know, because of the messed up history they had. They think that if they change the branch names from master to main, everything's fine now. The irony is that I live in a country where there was also some _very_ messed up history, and the reason things _are_ alright now, is because they don't keep dragging that shit up. Everybody acknowledges that it was unacceptable bullshit, and moved on. The key difference is acknowledging and facing what your ancestors did, and _then_ moving on.
  - t-3 3y ago
    The really strange part is that the majority of Americans have no historical connection to that messed up past at all. The group of people whose ancestors were even in the country while slavery was legal or women couldn't vote or before the Civil Rights movement is getting smaller and smaller every year.
    - ParetoOptimal 3y ago
      > The really strange part is that the majority of Americans have no historical connection to that messed up past at all. The legacy of all of it is still alive and white americans still benefit from the oppression at the expense of minorities. Essentially, it was never made right to the benefit of modern white americans... therefore the guilt they feel is founded because at some level they see the benefits of their privilege even if they deny it out loud. > The group of people whose ancestors were even in the country while slavery was legal or women couldn't vote or before the Civil Rights movement is getting smaller and smaller every year. Did you know the majority of black Americans couldn't get home loans until about 1990? Even then it was very difficult. Think about if your great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents all only lived in apartments or didn't have as secure of a housing situation. What effect might that have on someones upbringing?
janmarsal 3y ago
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ngvrnd 3y ago
“That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.”
einpoklum 3y ago
This post is mostly wrong, wrong, wrong. > Hammering on about “GNU/Linux” nomenclature Linux is just a kernel, not an OS. It was bundled with the GNU system, which was missing a kernel. See explanation here: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html For many years you could use Debian over the FreeBSD kernel, for example - having the GNU system, plus a bunch of non-GNU software, over another kernel. These days, maybe we should call them GNU/systemd/Linux systems :-( > maligning the audience as “useds” rather than “users” Nowhere on the FSF website do I see that term used (I checked with their search function). I do see this term on GNU.org, applied to Facebook "users". I think it is not maligning people, it is critiquing behavior, and that is quite appropriate in that context. > antagonism towards our allies in the open source movement I hope you mean the Free Software (or FOSS) movement - right? Anyway, which allies do you mean? I hope you don't suggest that Facebook, Google, Amazon and the like are our allies. Or maybe your conception of "us" is simply different? > none of this aids the cause. Ah, but what is "the" cause? > The pages and pages of dense philosophical essays and poorly organized FAQs do not provide a useful entry point or reference for the community. It seems you disagree with the content more than you do with the website entry points. It is quite a useful reference; but again, perhaps your "the community" is different. > As for copyleft, well, it’s no coincidence that many people struggle with the FSF’s approach. ... over 1 million npm packages use a permissive license while fewer than 20,000 use the GPL; cargo sports a half-million permissive packages and another 20,000 or so GPL’d. 1. There's LGPL, which is intended for libraries (and npm packages would typically be that). 2. "Dedicating" software to be free, in the GPL sense, is no trivial matter. Sometimes you just can't do it because you don't own the legal rights; sometimes its because potential commercial users you are interested in will avoid GPLed stuff; and there are other reasons. But it is the direction we should be converging towards: Software as something that is fundamentally free, period. No more lock-ins and development siloing and other artificial sabotage of software development due to narrow commercial interests. > The FOSS community is now dominated by people who are beyond the reach of the FSF’s message. To the extent that's true - _that_ is the problem. And the author is part of that problem. But it's really not that new: In the 1980s and 1990s most of these people were simply mostly interested in closed-source commercial software. > It’s time for Richard Stallman to go No. > and the demographics [Richard Stallman] represents is becoming a minority Richard Stallman does not represent demographics. His community and institutional positions are not representational, they are based on his theoretical and practical contributions. > reach out to emerging leaders throughout the FOSS world, and ask them to take charge of the FSF’s mission. How is this different from how the FSF does recruitment right now? (I don't know, I'm asking) > The message needs to be made much more accessible and level in tone, and the relationship between free software and open source needs to be reformed so that the FSF and OSI stand together as the pillars at the foundations of our ecosystem. Let the OSI adopt the FSF's positions, then, and we'll have a "level tone" and everyone will "stand together". > Decouple the FSF from the GNU project Interesting. But - how closely are they coupled? > Develop new copyleft licenses I'm not a license expert, for sure. But - to the extent that the author's critique is of ease of reading and understanding what the license means, this is at least a worthwhile idea. But to the extent that the author suggests "permissive" licenses instead of freedom-preserving ones, that would be in line with the implied suggestion to just drop the free software philosophy altogether.
davexunit 3y ago
The FSF (and GNU) have had plenty of opportunity to be encouraging to new people and ideas but instead they punish you for caring. The FSF office has historically been a revolving door where people enter bright and hopeful and leave disappointed and jaded. The union bargaining unit is mostly powerless. GNU mailing lists (the meta ones like gnu-prog-discuss), are mostly devoid of interesting discussion, preferring endless bikeshedding and resistance to trying new things. Plenty of people who contribute to GNU avoid those lists because they are so toxic. The inescapable founder's syndrome surrounding RMS and conspiratorial thinking that any change is equivalent to corporate takeover stops all change. GNU could be run collectively and democratically, but the old guard prefers to worship the man RMS used to be, when he actually was a brilliant programmer, and let him do whatever. The people who will bring free software into the modern day will come from outside the FSF bubble.
gavinhoward 3y ago
Whenever you're making an assertion that representation should be the top priority, you're saying that merit is not. That is not good. We need the best leaders for FOSS, whoever they are; their skin color, sex, and sexuality are secondary. But about new licenses: I've written a few [1], and I'm currently getting them checked by a lawyer. I think these licenses are an improvement, but feedback is welcome. [1]: https://yzena.com/licenses/ https://yzena.com/licenses/
vrtx0 3y ago
IMHO, this just seems to be another polarizing piece of clickbait, rehashing the pointless “RMS vs. ESR” diatribes. The author frequently posts in support of the OSI (applied for a seat, endorses their “we get to define open source” nonsense, etc.). A March 2022 post rants against Elastic and others because of a non-OSI “open source” license change, while glossing over Amazon’s and the OSI’s roles leading to that change. It also makes a strange argument about bias, which almost comically contradicts itself at the end. IMHO, the OSI, FSF, RMS and ESR have all done more harm than good to the open source community. I’m not saying they’re all equal, or even always bad, but I’m not a fan of bringing one-sided political or philosophical arguments into the hobby and career I’ve truly enjoyed for over 20 years. And no, my contributions don’t somehow mean I get to define what “open source” means for everyone.
ergonaught 3y ago
> It’s time for Richard Stallman to go I stopped donating to FSF upon his resignation. I resumed donating after he returned to the Board. In short, I disagree.
IndigoIncognito 3y ago
Why is everyone hating on Stallman, what did he do? Surely you can't eject someone for being a straight white male?
- rcoveson 3y ago
  I'm somebody who usually finds himself defending Stallman, so please let me gently nudge you to read at least the trivially discoverable criticism of him before making the assumption you're making.
  - IndigoIncognito 3y ago
    Are you referring to his views on paedophilia?
- iLemming 3y ago
  Maybe because he holds incredibly uncompromising views that he defends with much fervor? Sometimes, it appears as if an overeducated child throws tantrums. Mature individuals understand that nothing in the real world is black and white. Even when one holds strong beliefs, it's essential to try and find a compromise. Otherwise, one's rhetoric doesn't differ much from religious fanaticism. Having a fanatic as a leader guarantees to attract haters.
Longlius 3y ago
I dunno why there's such an inordinate focus on changing the FSF. The FSF is what it is. It feels like instead of going another ten rounds with the leadership, it'd be more productive for the detractors of the FSF to simply make the organization they want. Unless, of course, the goal isn't actually about organizing at all and is actually about using the FSF's brand for clout and tapping on its already established network of donors.
- akerl_ 3y ago
  You frame that like it's a bad thing. If I want free software to thrive, and I think the FSF is doing a bad job of that, reforming the FSF has a lot of upsides over trying to bootstrap my own replacement.

171 points by gmemstr 3y ago

[dead]

Hello all, I found this debate after 4 days of "internet vacation" to fulfill a dream of my grandson (10 years old) to go with me on the Legoland roller coaster in Denmark. What shocks me is the reproach made to RMS to be old! The real reproach would be to be dogmatic, stubborn, incapable of compromise, which perhaps is partly justified. I am over 70 myself and still enjoy advising the European Commission on FLOSS and the EUPL license. Old age is when dreams give way to regrets, Kind regards, Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz - EC Joinup legal support

johannes1234321 3y ago

For the parts of the world I see I would question the present continuous form of the article. The FSF isn't dying. It is in all practical ways dead and all discussion around it is stuck to RMS. Which is sad, as we need a similar organisation as the "user freedom" is challenged more than ever, as users don't "own" their devices ever less, but also operations depends more and more on closed services, which are partially built around Free Software (in FSF's definition) while offering none of the freedoms anymore (as it is tied to the cloud service vendor)

Mizza 3y ago

Not much new here, but I do echo the call for new licenses. I would like to see an "Affero MIT" license where I get web-accessible credit for my contribution to a web service and something like an "Affero LGPL" to fill in the gap exposed by the ElasticSearch re-licensing debacle.

simiones 3y ago
How would an Affero LGPL (a weaker license than the AGPL) help in any way with the reason ES moved to a more restrictive license than the AGPL (as did MongoDB, for example)?
- Mizza 3y ago
  I guess I don't have an answer for that specifically, but I think it shows the need for some innovation or flexibility to protect from Amazonification in order to avoid the situation from getting to that boiling point entirely.
  - simiones 3y ago
    The problem though is that this desire is incompatible with the existing definition of Free Software. The principle that users are free to use the code however they see fit, and distribute it to others as long as they extend this right to others, explicitly allows this type of Amazonification. That is, Amazon offered their users every right and information about how Elastic Search works. All of their modifications are public. I believe they even offer deployment information if you want to replicate it. The problem is that they are out-competing Elastic's managed offering on price and overall integration, and that they are not contributing to the Elastic Search code base, they are simply offering the existing code. This is all fully within the letter and spirit of any GNU license, and any further restriction would in fact be a violation of the 4 Freedoms described in the GPL. This is/was not a TiVo situation.
erk__ 3y ago
A example of a "Affero LGPL" would be the EU license: EUPL https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/custom-page/attachment/2020-03/EUPL-1.2%20EN.txt https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/custom-page/... Edit: This paper also gives a good overview of the license https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/c15c9e93-27e1-11ec-bd8e-01aa75ed71a1/language-en https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/c15...
- patemmschmitz 3y ago
  True! Regarding distribution as a service, the EUPL is like the AGPL, but simply written, short and clear. It is copyleft, but allows combined derivatives to be distributed under 10 compatible licences (including MPL, OSL, GPL2 & 3 and AGPL). The European Union (nobel peace prize 2012) is adopting the Interoperable Europe Act, a regulation that will make the EUPL a default licence proposed for all Member States public bodies software as from 2024. And by the way, this new regulation will be supported by a "Interoperable Europe Community" of users. The purpose is still to define and may not be seen as creating a "European FSF" (Who said bureaucratic?)... However, Sometimes it is better to be supported by solid institutions than by an aging guru...

jmclnx 3y ago

>It’s time for Richard Stallman to go I was expecting to see this, there is nothing more corporations would like more then to see him gone. Then they can take full control of the FSF, already they have their hands in it. So far many of his predictions have come true and there are a few more that seems to be on their way to happening. What FSF should do is work stop the move to secure boot. Already there are Intel Laptops being created that will not allow us to replace Windows with Linux or a BSD. This link is one prediction that seems to be where we are well on our way to heading for: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html If he is removed from the FSF, that will come true. edit: spelling

cassianoleal 3y ago
If you're right (and I'm not saying you're not), the FSF is already gone. RMS is 70 years old and will not be around forever.
brodouevencode 3y ago
> Then they can take full control of the FSF, already they have their hands in it. This is neither good nor bad, so I'm not sure why your whole point seemingly is based on it. Corporations will act in their own self-interests just like everyone else. There are examples of where corporations worked together and it turned out well for all and examples of the opposite happening, so I'm not sure why this is necessarily framed in such a negative way. EDIT: consider the Linux Foundation. They combine private and corporate interests fairly well, with no corporate capture, and they are succeeding in ways the FSF never has.
- richbell 3y ago
  > Corporations will act in their own self-interests just like everyone else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
  - brodouevencode 3y ago
    If the foundation is set up to allow this, then that's a fault of the structure of the foundation.

Scubabear68 3y ago

From my perspective, movements need multiple organizations that exist on different levels of the “extremism” spectrum. Just like there are various environmental NGO’s, some very radical, and others more mild and open to compromise, the free software movement needs the same. The FSF is the extreme org, the canary in the coal mine that is going to alert on critical issues, but also which frankly are going to send out a lot of false alerts. They are the die hards that will get it wrong constantly, but also will be the early alert system for true critical issues. We need other, more moderate voices they are willing to compromise more and be less extreme. That should not happen within FSF, but as a separate org.

philistine 3y ago
And yet this canary in the coal mine seems to have spent as much effort trying to get us to say GNU/Linux than on trying to fight its valid battles.
- Scubabear68 3y ago
  Absolutely. That is what extreme organizations do. I monitor some extreme environmental groups who mostly are crying wolf about every little thing on the planet. But occasionally they twig to something real, and the more conservative orgs start catching on and taking up the call. FSF is constantly telling us the sky is falling. It isn’t, and your point about GNU/Linux is a good example. The FSF is still valuable in those rare cases where they find serious issues. I just learn to ignore them on the nonsense side.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago

How is the FSF failing? There seems to be far more freedom respecting choices nowadays than in the past and we're now entering the dawn of "free" cpus with RISC-V. I'd also consider that Linux is more widely used than at any time in the past as well. What am I missing?

brodouevencode 3y ago
They are being eclipsed in terms of contributions by the Linux Foundation, AI groups, robotics groups, you name it. There was a lot of squandered potential there. Stallman has spent the majority of the time arguing pedantically about things he has no control over - for instance he would yell at you for saying "Linux" instead of "GNU-Linux". He outlived the utility of being the FSF leader about 30 years ago and should have passed on the baton then.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  Thanks. I would hesitate to call them "dying", but maybe just becoming less relevant compared to other organisations.
acdha 3y ago
Those things are happening without much involvement by the FSF – Linux, for example, is famously not an FSF project to the point that some activists tried to popularize the “GNU/Linux” label. I’m not saying that the FSF has no role or that some of the software it supports isn’t incredibly widely used (GCC, etc.) but that it’s seemed to be coasting for years, drifting out of the mainstream even for open source developers. That makes their mission harder to accomplish because everyone knows that they don’t speak for a large percentage of the community. This largely comes back to RMS. It’s fairly common for organizations to have trouble surviving the departure of a key founder, and in his case that is especially complicated by having run it for decades as largely a personal vehicle. This was especially glaring when he was invited back after leaving in a cloud: how much does a “so what if he drove people away, he’s been here for years!” message suggest that they’ll become more relevant in the future, especially with the people who saw that and decided never to touch an FSF effort?

PaulHoule 3y ago

Are they even coming out with any new software? I remember GNU being big in the 1990s and I know a new version of gawk came out recently, but it seems the center of gravity of “free software” (as in beer) has moved in the direction of the Apache foundation (so many data-related projects it is a “big data” problem to keep track of them all), Github, etc.

chriswarbo 3y ago
GNU Guix (package manager and OS distro) is a pretty big project, that's fairly recent.
- wallmountedtv 3y ago
  Well GNU Guix is publicly against the current structure of the FSF and especially RMS.[1] So Guix as an example is not really a great defense of FSF and the GNU Project's operating structure. 1: https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/ https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-pr...
  - chriswarbo 3y ago
    Thanks, you're right (I hadn't come across that before)
- mistrial9 3y ago
  all of the classic packages could use younger people involved. Its not an accident that you read about young talented people here spending a year or three on some private project.
layer8 3y ago
Apache only provides organizational infrastructure for OSS projects, the foundation doesn’t drive the development and maintenance proper. Apache projects are usually either heavily supported by companies, or else on life support if not dead.
michaelcampbell 3y ago

kettunen 3y ago

I lost all the respect that I had for FSF when they decided to re-elect Stallman. Would love to see a lot of changes in that foundation.

honeybadger1 3y ago
[flagged]
- kettunen 3y ago
  It's his history and actions that made him unsuitable for the position. Despite that, they still decided allow him to return to the board. While RMS and FSF have done great things in the past, actions should have consequences and movement shouldn't be tied to one person.
  - blueflow 3y ago
    The previous attempt of removing him was executed as an appalling witch-hunt. Yes, Stallman is insensitive, but when people saw something more insensitive being done to him, they sided with him. I'm all in for finding a replacement for Stallman, but that must be done in a more careful manner.

shortrounddev 3y ago

> We need more leaders of color, women, LGBTQ representation, and others besides. The present leadership, particularly from RMS, creates an exclusionary environment in a place where inclusion and representation are important for the success of the movement. I'm not a fan of RMS, but this is the exact kind of left wing platitude that people think will revive an organization, but really just signals thats the organization is more concerned with the appearance of reform, rather than substance. It is the death rattle of an organization which has allowed itself to become ideological rather than pragmatic (which is funny considering how ideological the FSF is) The problem with FSF is that it either hasn't made its point clear, or has failed to convince people. People are naturally turned off by the GPL because they do not want to give their company's code away; they see it as a risk to their businesses. I worked for a company which licensed its product as GPLv2. One of our clients (who we trained on the product) saw this and then began competing with us by selling their own version of our product. The company released a newer version of the code and made it proprietary. The FSF answer to this is that this is exactly how the GPL is intended to work, and we should compete on quality of service and frequency of updates rather than having a monopoly on our code base, but that's simply not an argument that businesses buy. It is an uphill battle convincing companies to give away their code to an ecosystem that they will, in the long run, potentially benefit from. The FSF fails to do this, and usually only makes ideological arguments presented by a long-haired, bare-footed, libertarian hippie with a history of extremely controversial takes on the topic of child molestation.

pferde 3y ago
The funniest part is that this Devault's argument is the exact opposite of "inclusion and representation". Make arguments for RMS's removal based on his actions, but wanting him gone because of his gender, skin colour and/or age is just as exclusionary as Ku Klux Klan is. It's just wrong.
- eletrotupi 3y ago
  [flagged]
HideousKojima 3y ago

appleflaxen 3y ago

> The content for this site is CC-BY-SA. The code for this site is MIT. This made me laugh a bit, given the arguments being made. (I'm not calling him a hypocrite; it's fine to use MIT licenses and make these arguments. It was just a funny concluding statement on the blog page)

ninjin 3y ago
Drew is known to use everything from MIT to AGPL depending on what he thinks serves the given software best (heck, Hare has a rather complex mixture of licenses [1]). I have in the past disagreed with these decisions, but I think pointing out the licensing choice for his website code is a bit of a distraction. [1]: https://sr.ht/~sircmpwn/hare/#licensing https://sr.ht/~sircmpwn/hare/#licensing

calvinmorrison 3y ago

the "problem" with the FSF is the no-true-scottsman license. It just ends with, if you aren't ideologically in line with GNU, you're not free software. It's like debian refusing to package firefox. It lacks the practicality and realpolitick one needs to make free software more widely used and understood.

rickydroll 3y ago

The Free software foundation needs its Martin Luther and Reformation. Stallman has quite literally become the pope of the Free software foundation and we need to remember that like with the Protestant Reformation, the individual has their own, unmediated relationship with free software. There are other apt analogies between the Protestant Reformation and the Free software foundation but I will leave discovering that as an exercise to the reader.

AuthorizedCust 3y ago
We’re already there. For example, look at the spectrum of licenses free software can fall under.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Most of each represent a return to the PD and Shareware days, only rebraded to modern times.
pelasaco 3y ago
Well, based on your analogy, people unsatisfied with Stallman, should leave the FSF and found their own "church" instead of trying to destroy his image and legacy, or at least to take FSF by force. (I don't have an opinion about Stallman. My comment is just about your analogy).
- Iolaum 3y ago
  This has happened already, look at Open Source Initiative, Software Freedom Conservancy and others.
  - pelasaco 3y ago
    well looks like none is doing what FSF does or then what's the point to keep attacking Stallmann? Let the old man alone, doing his own little thing alone, right? Looks like it's more about power than open source and looks like you didn't understand the difference between open source and free software: "The two terms describe almost the same category of software, but they stand for views based on fundamentally different values. Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement."[1] [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.en https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

GNUfanaticism 3y ago

>It’s time for Richard Stallman to go. >We need more leaders of color, women, LGBTQ representation, and others besides. The FSF is dying. What we need is women, people of color, minorities, and other people who have never played a major part in contributing, spreading or practicing free software ethos to lead the movement. There is nothing inherently wrong with diversity, but this is an attempt to spread an agenda, not save the Free Software Foundation. A character like Richard Stallman is and have been a necessity for the movement to be what it is. We cannot let people of weak character lead the movement. We must reject non-free, proprietary software, not fall into a spiral of pragmatism until we are OSS.

david38 3y ago
[flagged]
gray5 3y ago
I’m no fan of Stallman but he’s got quite a following in LATAM so this is a weird angle.
ddevault 3y ago
[flagged]
- AstixAndBelix 3y ago
  Richard Stallman was/is a grade A hacker and that's how the free software movement started as. So, which kind of individuals would now be best suited for leadership positions in the FSF? An MBA? A lawyer? FAANG project manager?
  - ddevault 3y ago
    The right leaders are (1) grade A hackers who (2) don't make women feel uncomfortable, selected from a pool which does not arbitrarily filter for skin tone et al. Bonus, we could even consider cultivating an environment where more people feel safe, represented, and included, and if they learn how to be grade A hackers in this environment we can expand our volunteer pool to include the majority of Earth's population that is not an English-speaking white cishet man.

nailer 3y ago

I'm not sure enough people believe that proprietary software is immoral to make the FSF relevant anymore. Rather the Open Source philosophy won out.

yarg 3y ago

> Reform the leadership. It’s time for Richard Stallman to go. > We need more leaders of color, women, LGBTQ representation, and others besides. Stallman is in many ways a problem - but the solution is finding technically and socially competent leadership with a vision that aligns with the core ideologies of the FSF and the ability to lay it out as a coherent long-term plan. Forced diversity has not ever and will not ever make that sort of thing easier to achieve.

bo1024 3y ago
Technical and socially competent leadership is compatible -- actually, well-aligned -- with diverse representation.
- yarg 3y ago
  There's a difference between organic and forced diversity. When someone starts out with bullet-point one devoted to orthogonal social issues and not the actual goals of the foundation and how to reach them, it's fairly clear where they stand.
  - kmeisthax 3y ago
    "Orthogonal social issues?" So are we just going to pretend that unauditable, proprietary facial recognition software isn't being actively weaponized against minorities? Like, cops using secret rules to determine guilt would be considered dystopian basically anywhere.
    - yarg 3y ago
      Yes, the issues are completely orthogonal to the effective operation of an open source software foundation. If you want to have a talk about the also completely unrelated issue of facial recognition, we can do that too.
      - ParetoOptimal 3y ago

cgio 3y ago

Maybe it’s dying because it already succeeded in its goals. That’s a good thing. From my myopic perspective, RMS is FSF. And he has changed the discussion around software forever. Now we need another kind of freedom, we feel it but cannot articulate it. And whoever articulates it, I wish them all the best, whether they do so under the banner of FSF or something else. One thing I am almost sure of is that whatever watering down of FSF message, as I feel this article suggests, will not be it.

dale_glass 3y ago
> Maybe it’s dying because it already succeeded in its goals. Not really? Stallman obviously wants everything possible to be GPL licensed and harped on about GNU/Linux for decades, and so far all that is gradually fading away. The modern landscape is much different from when things started, the core tools are a far smaller proportion of a modern OS and have been rewritten many times since, including in non-GPL licenses. These days there's efforts to rewrite them in Rust, usually not under the GPL. I think under better management the FSF would do a better job of dealing with this. Both in watching for new developments and making sure not to lose relevance (eg, IMO the FSF should lead the effort to build new Rust-based versions of the GNU tools), and in being in touch with the modern tech landscape (eg, cloud)
dagw 3y ago
Maybe it’s dying because it already succeeded in its goals. I'm pretty sure they don't see it that way. The last big ideological 'war' was between FSF and OSI and it's quite clear that FSF lost. Open source proponents successfully allied with and used the FSF the launch their own platform to achieve their goals. Once their goals where achieved they dropped the FSF in the dust. In fact the FSF lost so badly most people don't even remembers what they fought for or even that they lost.
rollcat 3y ago
> Now we need another kind of freedom, we feel it but cannot articulate it. Simple: empower the user. Focus on the user's freedom to do things. I think FSF's goals can be easily rephrased in terms of that "new" freedom, while remaining consistent with the original vision. I also think this is where free software is failing very hard in the recent decades. I was running Debian+SailfishOS as my daily drivers up until 2019, when I completely switched to the Apple ecosystem, after one simple realisation: it empowered me and granted me the freedom to do more with my devices. There is no intrinsic reason why Apple is better at empowering their users than FOSS is, I think it's the exact opposite: FOSS as a principle and as a development practice has proven over and over again that it can compete with, and even take out proprietary juggernauts - in spaces other than personal computing. I have on my desk (just for fun) a PowerBook G4 (2001) with OSX 10.5 (2007), and I think that machine + OS is still ahead in usability vs a modern release of KDE or Gnome. I don't know, I don't think bridging that gap is impossible, but that might require unthinkable compromises like acknowledging the need for proprietary Wifi firmware, CPU microcode, or single sign-on for Google/Outlook/iCloud mail and calendar. So I'm not sure if it will ever happen.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

Good. Stallman and by extension the FSF are agenda-driven radicals. Following their guidelines ironically leaves the user with very little freedom.

npteljes 3y ago
Seems ironic, isn't it? In a complete anarchy, you'd have less freedom as you have now, despite the lack of law. But rules and law, while limiting freedom technically, are exactly the things that enable freedom. Because nature doesn't recognize freedom, and the boundaries that define it, and so, they are crossed all the time.

deleted 3y ago

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causality0 3y ago

The organization’s messaging is tone-deaf, ineffective, and myopic. That's putting it nicely. The FSF's messaging is religious bordering on cultish. Frankly I'm amazed they've accomplished as much as they have despite constantly shaming developers for daring to ask to be paid for their labor.

bionade24 3y ago

It's crazy that the FSF only stands up for license violations of the GNU project, not all GPL licensed projects. That's the reason the software freedom conservancy was created in the 1st place. RMS' management of the GNU project derailed long ago, from him vetoing for his jokes in project he's not involved anymore, going OT & insulting on mailing lists and often threatening GNU maintainers by stating that their project belongs to GNU, not them.

MaxBarraclough 3y ago
Both organisations require copyright assignment. https://sfconservancy.org/assignment/ https://sfconservancy.org/assignment/
- bionade24 3y ago
  The SFC currently tries to win a lawsuit out of "GPL software user" perspective: https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html
  - MaxBarraclough 3y ago
    Good point, I should have been more precise: they require copyright assignment if you want a special commitment from them to enforce the licence terms of your project. Will be interesting to see where that lawsuit goes.

bo1024 3y ago

Appreciate and agree with this article. It is nice to see an article that strongly agrees with the principles of FSF, but also critical of their clear stagnation. It's also disappointing to see a number of comments here that dismiss the call for more diversity in leadership and participation, and more connections to other communities. I think this is very important to spread the reach of the FSF.

phendrenad2 3y ago

I have a theory that people who blog at a site named after themselves are the most authoritatively wrong bloggers. Someone cannot really argue that something is failing without showing that it once succeeded at those goals. The FSF has never been very widely known or effective, except for creating a few pieces of software (gcc, emacs) and a few epic failures (hurd). The FSF has already done enough. It created the GPL license, which is a huge achievement and enough that we can leave the FSF alone without trying to "fix" it or mold it into something new. If Drew wants an effective FSF, hey, you can go make your own. If your ideas are so great, it'll surely rocket past the FSF and become the new standard-bearer in the open-source world. But ideas are cheap...

brodouevencode 3y ago

There's going to be a lot of negativity in these comments. I don't have numbers and this is purely anecdotal observation, but there is a large contingent of supporters of the FSF that base their association to the foundation on their political positions (read: a very large number of communists, democratic socialists, and anarchists support FSF). Any criticism of RMS will be met with at least anti-corporate but most likely anti-capitalist rhetoric. Full disclosure: I cut off my contributions to the FSF in fall of 2004. It was obvious it outlived its utility even then. Now I ride to downvote hell...

HideousKojima 3y ago
Copyright is anti-capitalist. It's a state-granted and state-enforced monopoly on intellectual property (which is itself a legal fiction). I'm about as anti-communist and anti-socialist as they come, and I still support the free software movement because I see the current state of software licensing (not to mention issues with hardware ownership etc.) as rent-seeking by those who do not want to have to compete in the free market without the force of the state backing them up. It also undermines individual property rights. Whether or not the FSF is still the best champion for this cause is a different matter, but I support anyone pushing against the world of proprietary software.
- brodouevencode 3y ago
  You are absolutely on to something here. We need an alternative to FSF.
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  > Copyright is anti-capitalist ...uh, what? Like, if you're referring to, say, some hypothetically limited version of copyright where it's more or less a private right-of-action for artists to sue publishing firms for unpaid work, then sure. That would be anti-capitalist, specifically because the Soviets tried that. As it currently stands copyright is the foundation of modern capitalism. Yes, it doesn't feel like that if you're, say, a right-libertarian or a hardcore free market guy. However, you have to remember that capitalism and a free market are two different things. Capitalists do not care if the market is free, they care if line goes up. They will happily choke off the free market using monopoly power or government power if it will make them more money. A large corporation deciding that you will own nothing and be happy does not make them suddenly hardcore pinko commies. This is just the end stage of capitalism: once you run out of legitimate ways to make a profit, you find ways to steal from others. That's why we used to have antitrust laws[0] to keep companies from becoming democratically unaccountable quazi-governments of their own. And in my opinion the greatest own-goal right-libertarians ever made was campaigning against their use. [0] Antitrust law in the US has been functionally braindead since the "consumer welfare" standard was adopted by a bunch of federal judges litigating from the bench in the 1980s.

ddevault 3y ago

[flagged]

shortrounddev 3y ago
> I am not calling for non-proportional representation, or for forcing proportional representation either. Then what, precisely, are you calling for when you call for more surface-level diversity in the leadership? How do you achieve proportional representation without manual manipulation? And why do you think that DEI is the first problem worth listing? If we're criticizing Stallman as an unpopular and uncharismatic leader, it seems like his documented history of comments about child molestation should be #1, not vague hand waving over race and sex.
- m000 3y ago
  I was watching the Netflix documentary about Abercrombie & Fitch [1] the other day. At some point they were forced by a court to improve the diversity of the company. How did they handle it? (a) They created a Chief Diversity Officer position, and hired a black guy to staff it, (b) they padded their diversity numbers with low-pay/0-hour contract employees at the lowest level possible. Diversity is fostered by initiatives, not mandates. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19034522/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19034522/
- akerl_ 3y ago
  The article seems to be making the case that if you want to foster support for a movement, having somebody in a leadership role who alienates a plurality of your potential pool of members is a bad idea. Nit picking that the article didn't pick your preferred example to make the same point seems like, well, nit picking.
  - shortrounddev 3y ago
    he alienates people not because hes white or male but because he's an uncharismatic libertarian toad
  - chuddington 3y ago

boomboomsubban 3y ago

This article could be summed up with "there should be a completely different free software organization that behaves the way I want it to." Ok? Go ahead and start it.

iLemming 3y ago
Is your typical answer to any criticism of an open-source project: "You don't like it? Fork it and build your own!"? It's like a child who flips the board when they don't like being told, "That's not how this game is played..."
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  This article is saying "the FSF should change it's leadership, it's message, end it's support of GNU, and ditch the GPL." At that point, why call it the FSF?

etothepii 3y ago

> despite the 16,000-word FAQ which supplements it. Perhaps it is because of it ...

emu7652 3y ago

>We need more leaders of color, women, LGBTQ representation, and others... That is dangerous mindset, so dangerous that I think the article is just trolling, trying to trigger people. But in case if author was serious, choosing leadership or any position for tha matter, should be based on their vision, skill, the weight of their respect is set community rather that on their sexual orientation, color of their skin, country of origin and ect. Discrimination needs to go. And this writing, suggests discrimination based on race or sexuality and gender. I'll be honest I stopped reading after that point. From the beginning the ranting was already a salt mine, but kinda wanted to see what direction they were going with it.

ParetoOptimal 3y ago
> That is dangerous mindset, so dangerous that I think the article is just trolling, trying to trigger people. But in case if author was serious, choosing leadership or any position for tha matter, should be based on their vision, skill, the weight of their respect is set community rather that on their sexual orientation, color of their skin, country of origin and ect. Discrimination needs to go. And this writing, suggests discrimination based on race or sexuality and gender. The dangerous mindset is acting as if people with the power of hiring positions are unbiased and don't hire based on soft skills, "culture fit", and other irrational things. > Discrimination needs to go. Yes it does, but... it hasn't. The status quo is a heavyweight and inertia pushes it forward... would you have minorities suffer until the mythical future where discrimination doesn't exist comes?
Ekaros 3y ago
I think main question really should be how effective they would be in the role. And what truly are the goals of FSF and how could right leadership aim at those. Now some might thing diversity and inclusion should be the goals, but I think many disagree and consider that there is enough other organizations being able to do those things. FSF should have unique value proposition if it wants to continue to exist. And leadership should be effective for that value proposition.
- emu7652 3y ago

noirscape 3y ago

The main problem the FSF runs into, over and over, is that they're barking up the wrong tree if their goal is political change (which it's at least stated to be). Drew doesn't really address this directly, although many of the things he points at I would say are related to this. RMS is a big reason why the FSF is the way it is ie. its why their site is a disorganized mess of philosophical ramblings, poorly organized (and often badly written, resulting in people believing things about their licenses that aren't accurate[0]) legal FAQs and kinda poorly written predictive fiction attempts from Stallman. Your average user isn't going to give a shit about this. Your average programmer already knows and builds on top of FOSS - FOSS is the great portfolio establisher of the programming world at this point. You don't need to convince them. Your average user deals with far simpler (and frankly far more dystopian) problems like "my entire workflow broke because Google removed one of their apps and I was completely reliant on it", "Spotify removed all music of my favorite artist and now I don't have access to the music I paid for" and "Microsoft made it so that I can't use my computer without a Microsoft account anymore". The FSF has an extremely myopic view here that if it's not invented in FOSS land, it's not worth talking about. The GNU Project has an attitude that actively works against bringing people over to FOSS tooling unless they go all-in. Most people don't... do that, they'd rather gradually replace things as they become an issue. Your average user runs Windows and has an iPhone or an Android. Your average developer needs to target these platforms. What does the FSF provide through the GNU for developers and users? Preachy nonsense about how you should buy a Thinkpad and live like a digital hermit. Sure you can barely participate in modern society, but you're at least free! FOSS successes come when a project does attempt to bridge the user problem. LineageOS is an extremely useful Apache licensed Custom ROM that's widely used as an Aftermarket OS for Android phones for example. LibreOffice (formerly OpenOffice, MPL licensed) only became a household-ish tool because it openly was meant as an alternative word processor that strives to at least be compatible with Office (and most of its layout is basically borrowed from the last version of Office before they introduced the ribbon - aka the most production efficient version of Office). People gradually replace, but the FSF demands a total switch in workflows if you want to play on their turf, which for most people is frankly impossible. They can call Facebook and Google silly names all they want, but grandma needs them to schedule her bingo club on Friday. And unless you want to take up the effort of teaching 10 octogenarians how to use a FOSS WebDAV calendar app and Matrix, how to set their devices up for it and more importantly, how that works when their tablet is replaced 3 years later. It's basically unreasonable unless the workflow and experience is exactly identical to that of the tools it's replacing. And it basically never is. The FSF needs to start trying to work for FOSS being a reasonable option for end-users if it wants to live - the developer work is done, it's been done for upwards of 20 years now. Their insistence to keep focusing on the dev side has just let Google et al. create the dystopia they warned about just by ignoring FOSS (ironically the very thing the FSFs proposition claims was easily avoidable if we just build the tools. - We build them. Then Apple and Google just steamrolled the entire relevance of FOSS through either having proper UX design or shoring it up.) [0]: Anything to do with the AGPL.

baerrie 3y ago

I feel like there is a stronger case in saying open source is dying, or at least being corrupted. The vast majority of OSS is served by github, a company owned by Microsoft which already uses it for its own profits. In time the OSS movement may be completely compromised. Perhaps FSF shouldn’t change much and continue functioning as a beacon to guide us rather than a motor to drive us.

m000 3y ago

I find the proposed changes a bit disingenious. The gist is that Stallman should hand over the FSF franchise, to some unspecified persons, with free rein to do whatever they want with it, as long as it is loosely relevant with free software. It's only natural that Stallman will refuse, and I can't blame him for that. I mean, why not start your own "Libre Software Foundation" and get those unnamed "emerging leaders" behind your agenda? Why would you need to be the continuation of FSF if you plan to radically change it?

kentrado 3y ago
I think you are correct. It seems to me to be a power struggle disguised as something that should be done for the good of the FOSS movement.

hollowturtle 3y ago

>We need more leaders of color, women, LGBTQ representation, and others besides. I can’t really understand where the US is heading with this agenda. As a EU citizen I’m often puzzled and worried, why can’t the sentence just be “We need more competent leaders”? This should imply diversity per se, and btw who decides a place has enough diversity? There will be a diversity judge on workplaces?

ParetoOptimal 3y ago
> As a EU citizen I’m often puzzled and worried, why can’t the sentence just be “We need more competent leaders”? This should imply diversity per Confirmation bias and the inertia of continuing to choosing white males for leadership positions mean that there is no such thing as meritocracy. Even if there were (there won't be), there are issues of representation and opportunity which can only be addressed by actively seeking more diversity.
ghusto 3y ago
I've given this some thought before. I think it's born from guilt, you know, because of the messed up history they had. They think that if they change the branch names from master to main, everything's fine now. The irony is that I live in a country where there was also some _very_ messed up history, and the reason things _are_ alright now, is because they don't keep dragging that shit up. Everybody acknowledges that it was unacceptable bullshit, and moved on. The key difference is acknowledging and facing what your ancestors did, and _then_ moving on.
- t-3 3y ago
  The really strange part is that the majority of Americans have no historical connection to that messed up past at all. The group of people whose ancestors were even in the country while slavery was legal or women couldn't vote or before the Civil Rights movement is getting smaller and smaller every year.
  - ParetoOptimal 3y ago
    > The really strange part is that the majority of Americans have no historical connection to that messed up past at all. The legacy of all of it is still alive and white americans still benefit from the oppression at the expense of minorities. Essentially, it was never made right to the benefit of modern white americans... therefore the guilt they feel is founded because at some level they see the benefits of their privilege even if they deny it out loud. > The group of people whose ancestors were even in the country while slavery was legal or women couldn't vote or before the Civil Rights movement is getting smaller and smaller every year. Did you know the majority of black Americans couldn't get home loans until about 1990? Even then it was very difficult. Think about if your great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents all only lived in apartments or didn't have as secure of a housing situation. What effect might that have on someones upbringing?

janmarsal 3y ago

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deleted 3y ago

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ngvrnd 3y ago

“That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.”

einpoklum 3y ago

This post is mostly wrong, wrong, wrong. > Hammering on about “GNU/Linux” nomenclature Linux is just a kernel, not an OS. It was bundled with the GNU system, which was missing a kernel. See explanation here: https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html For many years you could use Debian over the FreeBSD kernel, for example - having the GNU system, plus a bunch of non-GNU software, over another kernel. These days, maybe we should call them GNU/systemd/Linux systems :-( > maligning the audience as “useds” rather than “users” Nowhere on the FSF website do I see that term used (I checked with their search function). I do see this term on GNU.org, applied to Facebook "users". I think it is not maligning people, it is critiquing behavior, and that is quite appropriate in that context. > antagonism towards our allies in the open source movement I hope you mean the Free Software (or FOSS) movement - right? Anyway, which allies do you mean? I hope you don't suggest that Facebook, Google, Amazon and the like are our allies. Or maybe your conception of "us" is simply different? > none of this aids the cause. Ah, but what is "the" cause? > The pages and pages of dense philosophical essays and poorly organized FAQs do not provide a useful entry point or reference for the community. It seems you disagree with the content more than you do with the website entry points. It is quite a useful reference; but again, perhaps your "the community" is different. > As for copyleft, well, it’s no coincidence that many people struggle with the FSF’s approach. ... over 1 million npm packages use a permissive license while fewer than 20,000 use the GPL; cargo sports a half-million permissive packages and another 20,000 or so GPL’d. 1. There's LGPL, which is intended for libraries (and npm packages would typically be that). 2. "Dedicating" software to be free, in the GPL sense, is no trivial matter. Sometimes you just can't do it because you don't own the legal rights; sometimes its because potential commercial users you are interested in will avoid GPLed stuff; and there are other reasons. But it is the direction we should be converging towards: Software as something that is fundamentally free, period. No more lock-ins and development siloing and other artificial sabotage of software development due to narrow commercial interests. > The FOSS community is now dominated by people who are beyond the reach of the FSF’s message. To the extent that's true - _that_ is the problem. And the author is part of that problem. But it's really not that new: In the 1980s and 1990s most of these people were simply mostly interested in closed-source commercial software. > It’s time for Richard Stallman to go No. > and the demographics [Richard Stallman] represents is becoming a minority Richard Stallman does not represent demographics. His community and institutional positions are not representational, they are based on his theoretical and practical contributions. > reach out to emerging leaders throughout the FOSS world, and ask them to take charge of the FSF’s mission. How is this different from how the FSF does recruitment right now? (I don't know, I'm asking) > The message needs to be made much more accessible and level in tone, and the relationship between free software and open source needs to be reformed so that the FSF and OSI stand together as the pillars at the foundations of our ecosystem. Let the OSI adopt the FSF's positions, then, and we'll have a "level tone" and everyone will "stand together". > Decouple the FSF from the GNU project Interesting. But - how closely are they coupled? > Develop new copyleft licenses I'm not a license expert, for sure. But - to the extent that the author's critique is of ease of reading and understanding what the license means, this is at least a worthwhile idea. But to the extent that the author suggests "permissive" licenses instead of freedom-preserving ones, that would be in line with the implied suggestion to just drop the free software philosophy altogether.

davexunit 3y ago

The FSF (and GNU) have had plenty of opportunity to be encouraging to new people and ideas but instead they punish you for caring. The FSF office has historically been a revolving door where people enter bright and hopeful and leave disappointed and jaded. The union bargaining unit is mostly powerless. GNU mailing lists (the meta ones like gnu-prog-discuss), are mostly devoid of interesting discussion, preferring endless bikeshedding and resistance to trying new things. Plenty of people who contribute to GNU avoid those lists because they are so toxic. The inescapable founder's syndrome surrounding RMS and conspiratorial thinking that any change is equivalent to corporate takeover stops all change. GNU could be run collectively and democratically, but the old guard prefers to worship the man RMS used to be, when he actually was a brilliant programmer, and let him do whatever. The people who will bring free software into the modern day will come from outside the FSF bubble.

gavinhoward 3y ago

Whenever you're making an assertion that representation should be the top priority, you're saying that merit is not. That is not good. We need the best leaders for FOSS, whoever they are; their skin color, sex, and sexuality are secondary. But about new licenses: I've written a few [1], and I'm currently getting them checked by a lawyer. I think these licenses are an improvement, but feedback is welcome. [1]: https://yzena.com/licenses/ https://yzena.com/licenses/

vrtx0 3y ago

IMHO, this just seems to be another polarizing piece of clickbait, rehashing the pointless “RMS vs. ESR” diatribes. The author frequently posts in support of the OSI (applied for a seat, endorses their “we get to define open source” nonsense, etc.). A March 2022 post rants against Elastic and others because of a non-OSI “open source” license change, while glossing over Amazon’s and the OSI’s roles leading to that change. It also makes a strange argument about bias, which almost comically contradicts itself at the end. IMHO, the OSI, FSF, RMS and ESR have all done more harm than good to the open source community. I’m not saying they’re all equal, or even always bad, but I’m not a fan of bringing one-sided political or philosophical arguments into the hobby and career I’ve truly enjoyed for over 20 years. And no, my contributions don’t somehow mean I get to define what “open source” means for everyone.

ergonaught 3y ago

> It’s time for Richard Stallman to go I stopped donating to FSF upon his resignation. I resumed donating after he returned to the Board. In short, I disagree.

IndigoIncognito 3y ago

Why is everyone hating on Stallman, what did he do? Surely you can't eject someone for being a straight white male?

rcoveson 3y ago
I'm somebody who usually finds himself defending Stallman, so please let me gently nudge you to read at least the trivially discoverable criticism of him before making the assumption you're making.
- IndigoIncognito 3y ago
  Are you referring to his views on paedophilia?
iLemming 3y ago
Maybe because he holds incredibly uncompromising views that he defends with much fervor? Sometimes, it appears as if an overeducated child throws tantrums. Mature individuals understand that nothing in the real world is black and white. Even when one holds strong beliefs, it's essential to try and find a compromise. Otherwise, one's rhetoric doesn't differ much from religious fanaticism. Having a fanatic as a leader guarantees to attract haters.

Longlius 3y ago

I dunno why there's such an inordinate focus on changing the FSF. The FSF is what it is. It feels like instead of going another ten rounds with the leadership, it'd be more productive for the detractors of the FSF to simply make the organization they want. Unless, of course, the goal isn't actually about organizing at all and is actually about using the FSF's brand for clout and tapping on its already established network of donors.

akerl_ 3y ago
You frame that like it's a bad thing. If I want free software to thrive, and I think the FSF is doing a bad job of that, reforming the FSF has a lot of upsides over trying to bootstrap my own replacement.