18 ms·
> we need to tackle inclusivity issues in our communities No, I'd much rather see the FSF's core principles defended and expressed better than see them "tackle
by arsome 3y ago
> we need to tackle inclusivity issues in our communities
No, I'd much rather see the FSF's core principles defended and expressed better than see them "tackle inclusivity issues". Wasting time, resources and breath on this kind of thing is the problem.
- brookst 3y ago[flagged]
- c4mpute 3y agoFree Software already speaks to everyone. There is no limitation around the use by anyone. This isn't womens' clothing, this is software.
- dublinben 3y agoClearly not, if you take a look at the demographics of the free software community and how it compares to tech more broadly.
- c4mpute 3y agoAh, so a white female cannot represent free software to a yellow male or a red trans? How incredibly racist, sexist and bigoted. The composition of a group does not limit what it can do or stand for. Anything else would imply that some humans are more valuable than others.
- shrimp_emoji 3y agoThose are the demographics of "the software community", not "the free software community". Why did you think all those white guys got into the "free" one to begin with? > and how it compares to tech more broadly Big citation needed Attempting to socially engineer your way out of that is a potentially impossible road, lined with injustices. Fwiw, though, the creator of Bash is black: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Fox_(computer_programmer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Fox_(computer_programmer...
- tekla 3y agoWhat does advocacy of free software have ANYTHING to do with 1) Age 2) Race 3) Gender Why is it ok to be ageist, sexist, AND racist in this context?
- yawpitch 3y agoNo one was, in the remotest sense, being ageist, sexist, or racist above… seeking to widen the appeal of something beyond an old white male audience isn’t, in any way, to anyone but an absolute dimwit, seeking to discriminate against that old white male audience. Or, in other words that might make sense to a programmer: assert (old && white && male) + (!old || !white || !male) >= (old && white && male)
- johngladtj 3y agoWhy is it not?
- asoneth 3y agoAdvocacy involves 1) understanding your target audience and 2) making an appeal to them. If the composition of your organization does not reflect the composition of your target audience then both of those tasks become a little harder. This is not specific to the FSF, many organizations hire at least a few people who match their target demographics to do things like research, marketing, messaging, and outreach.
- esarbe 3y agoThat's what the FSF does. It's target audience are human being. The organizations composition reflects this; all of the FSF coworkers are human beings.
- bart_spoon 3y agoCan you first explain how free software currently fails to speak to anyone but old white men?
- harry8 3y agoI can see how you'd think this if you thought that the FSF's role was to "speak." I think of the FSF as doing something entirely different and the work that it does is valuable in and of itself and also, in addition, enables benefiting humans regardless of anything including what they think or what they say. That said, Emacs is still rubbish, vim all the way.
- mberning 3y agoTerrible, racist, ageist attitude. Hiring people for some superficial attribute is just as bad as not hiring them. It’s dumb.
- esarbe 3y agoYou confuse the messenger with the message. Accept that you'll never find the perfect messenger. There's always someone more alienated, someone more disfavored and someone more ignored, someone even less privileged. You can keep finding "better" messengers, but that's just a distraction. Focus on the message.
- RobotToaster 3y agoFree software generally has pretty good internationalisation support.
- fzeroracer 3y agoFSF's core principles cannot be defended if there's no one willing to defend them. RMS has been directly responsible for scaring away people from the core mission of the FSF. Not just because of what other people have mentioned, but because he directly insults and threatens other individuals when he doesn't get his way. He's been doing this for decades now [1], long before anyone can claim the current furor is because of 'cancel culture' or whatever. And the end result is a more and more irrelevant FSF. [1] https://news.slashdot.org/story/12/12/23/1945248/gnu-grep-and-sed-maintainer-quits-rms-and-fsf-harming-gnu-project https://news.slashdot.org/story/12/12/23/1945248/gnu-grep-an...
- dennis_jeeves1 3y ago[flagged]
- blueflow 3y ago> but because he directly insults and threatens other individuals when he doesn't get his way. Given the last attempts to remove Stallman, I'm confident that he isn't alone in OSS having these traits.
- fzeroracer 3y agoThe attempts to remove Stallman involved people bringing up stories and incidents of how awful he is to work with or even generally be nearby even beyond the most popular incidents. In turn, multiple open source and FSF organizations cut ties with him and the org when he came back to the FSF which is the whole 'you need people to defend the organization' problem comes from. And so the FSF becomes more irrelevant because they're more interested in the cult of personality rather than the actual principals of free software.
- blueflow 3y agoPersonally, i'd rather have RMS stay in place despite all of this than allowing a character assassination to work out. Because i consider the latter more awful. Edit: First commit of the rms-open-letter is by Molly de Blanc. TIL she is an ethics moralist like Coraline Ada Ehmke, which paints the whole RMS controversy in a new light.
- asoneth 3y agoMaking the FSF less inclusive seems like it could hamper their efforts to encourage more people and organizations to choose libre licenses, software, and hardware. In their zeal to defend Stallman from both fabricated and legitimate complaints the FSF seems to be cultivating a smaller but more fanatical audience. This may make it harder for them to achieve their mission.