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Joint Statement on the GNU Project

guix.gnu.org

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Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#201

Post by shadowgovt »

simion314 wrote: post #196
shadowgovt wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're looking for guarantees in the social world. There are no such guarantees (much as there are no guarantees in the tech space... That, say, your favorite language today won't be obsolete in five years and therefore diminish the value of all the time and effort you invested in memorizing its quirks). There are some useful heuristics, such as "try and be a good person, minimize your judgement of others, av…

Thanks for the response, but I get the feeling that you need to censor yourself and if you are asked and forced to tell your opinion on X you should probably give a political response. Should I express my personal opinion on abortion,drugs,prostitution,religion, alchool, smocking or should I censor myself.

It depends on your goals and how much you trust the people you're communicating with (or the medium) to not turn your words against you.

"I should always speak in an uncensored fashion" is, honestly, one of the poison memes of the modern internet. It's never been wise in any human interaction, and moving to the Internet didn't change that fact. It did, for a brief time (until de-anonymization and search caught up with the technology available) let people obfuscate opinion origins behind a sea of anonymity and momentarily disrupt the words from the responsibility of having reputation tied to them. But when you go looking at the most anonymity-enabling communications channels on the Internet, you don't exactly find humanity at its best. Words divorced from reputation have yet to be proven as a net positive. Hell, even on Hacker News, our handles have karma points attached.

We social creatures developed concepts like "reputation" and tools like "memory" for a reason, and it wasn't a bad reason. Like any tools, they can be abused or over-applied, but no; saying exactly what you think all the time isn't virtuous (it is yet another tool, which can be abused or over-applied).

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#202

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

otterley wrote: post #62
starik36 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet somehow, Linux is arguably the most successful open source project in the world.

Perhaps, but we do not know how much better it could be today if potential contributors were not dissuaded by the politics and behavior of the existing participants. Popularity is only one gauge of success. There are other metrics, such as personal satisfaction, missing features, or other things that the project may have failed or scored less well on.

Ok, let's assume that kernel developers will accept Ada Ehmke's "The Post-Meritocracy Manifesto", and attract lots of people with great interpersonal skills, with diverse backgrounds. They'll be successful, leading rich, full lives. Oh, they wouldn't depend on exerting all of their energy on contributing to software, but that's just a minor nuisance, right?

Sure, the kernel will become insanely great if this happens, right?!

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#203

Post by simion314 »

otterley wrote: post #62
starik36 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet somehow, Linux is arguably the most successful open source project in the world.

Perhaps, but we do not know how much better it could be today if potential contributors were not dissuaded by the politics and behavior of the existing participants. Popularity is only one gauge of success. There are other metrics, such as personal satisfaction, missing features, or other things that the project may have failed or scored less well on.

All those potential GNOME or GIMP contributors that went to contribute to KDE because of RMS....

Next we will blame the lack of diversity in proprietary software on RMS too, I was afraid that it is something much more complicated but now that we found the problem all will be solved /sarcasm

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#204

Post by _ph_ »

blub wrote: post #113
dtornabene wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the ability for women to be able to contribute and simply be a part of the free software community without harrassment does not fall under "no real bearing on the project", just so we're clear here.

Women will never "be able to contribute and simply be part of the free software community without harassment", because any online community is a reflection of society at large, which is becoming more fragmented, agressive and embittered. Did female harassment get solved in society at large? No. You can't solve it in online communities, you're only building bubbles of false-safety which will pop once the pressure from…

Can we guarantee that there never will be any harassment? No, of course not.

But what we can do is strongly oppose any harassment. Clearly tell off anyone whe participates in harassment.

Of course, the leaders of any community should be a role model in not supporting harassment.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#205

Post by enriquto »

jordigh wrote: post #22
bitwize wrote: post #15

If I believed for a second that any successor candidate to lead the GNU project gave as much of a fuck about software and personal freedom as Stallman did/does, I might support them. My confidence that this will transpire, however, is not high.

There are lots of us who care. We can preserve software freedom with the same stubborn, uncompromising attitude without having to also alienate the very people we wish to help.

> We can preserve software freedom with the same stubborn, uncompromising attitude without having to also alienate the very people we wish to help.

You have already failed. I, for one, feel extremely alienated by your "joint statement".

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#207

Post by rowanG077 »

kennywinker wrote: post #187
rowanG077 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly right. Governments enforce their power through force and major corporations through money. Not groups that deserve any respect or their stance be taking seriously.

This is a huge aside, but the most disturbing part of your response is the bit about governments. Governments are _supposed_ to be responsible to the people. Responding to external pressure is literally their job. They should be respected when they are responsive to the people. They only need to "enforce their power through force" when they are not responsive to the people.

Yes governments job is to respond to the people. I'm not sure what your point is. That inherently makes the government a group that can't be trusted. It's too fickle to be trusted.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#208

Post by simion314 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #201
simion314 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the response, but I get the feeling that you need to censor yourself and if you are asked and forced to tell your opinion on X you should probably give a political response. Should I express my personal opinion on abortion,drugs,prostitution,religion, alchool, smocking or should I censor myself.

It depends on your goals and how much you trust the people you're communicating with (or the medium) to not turn your words against you. "I should always speak in an uncensored fashion" is, honestly, one of the poison memes of the modern internet. It's never been wise in any human interaction, and moving to the Internet didn't change that fact. It did, for a brief time (until de-anonymization and search caught up wit…

this sucks, Internet was supposed to be place where I can meet people and discuss different topics including some controversial ones,I am not talking about racism but more intellectual things like abortion, differences between male and female , gender topics. I may have an opinion on x and someone could make an argument and change my mind (in general most of us are ignorant and have a single point of view)

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#209

Post by cnst »

snotrockets wrote: post #34
etiam wrote: post #20

Oh my god. " all computer users" with the implication that Stallman is not representing the ones who demand to go straight to lynch mob behavior without a shadow if due process as soon as the word "sexual" is mentioned? And therefore Stallman should be thrown out of the project that is his creation and life's work? That's got to be one of the most forced political readings ever of that point in the manifesto. Well, i…

Due process is for the court. If you ousted yourself as an asshole in public, people not wanting to associate with you isn't legal, it's civilized society.

Then fork. Why don't they fork? The XFree86 group didn't have an issue forking and disbanding. Yet these people, with projects like Guix that noone has ever heard of, are simply using a GNU name to lobby against the hand that fed them.

Dr Richard Stallman is a person, too. It's no longer a secret that he likely has high-functioning autism. What is he supposed to be being now being disbarred from his own project that he founded in 1985? If people think he doesn't deserve to be credited as the founder of FSF, just fork, and be done with it. Instead what they're doing is trying to actively ostracise the very hand that fed them.

Re: Joint Statement on the GNU Project

#210

Post by excursionist »

shadowgovt wrote: post #197
excursionist wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One can't divorce community issues from technical issues when the project in question has a "philosophy" page. Anything can have a philosophy. Just because someone is a communist or a feudalist shouldn't prevent them from contributing or being part of a free software project. > The way rms treats people involved in GNU goes directly to what is meant by 'community.' Has RMS done anything to prevent people from using…

Based upon past travel hosts' interactions with him, having him visit to speak on the topic can involve you needing to burn the sheets he slept on. Yes, that has material impact on the organization; it decreases people's willingness to hear its leader speak on the topic of what the organization stands for.

A lot of things affect people's interest in a project. RMS being the original creator of GNU is definitely a big plus towards interest in hearing him speak. I don't see anyone who would be a better fit. Furthermore leading GNU is not just about giving talks with maximum popularity - and if popularity is such an important point then GNU is the wrong project.
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