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The Free Software Foundation is dying

drewdevault.com

11–20 of 247 posts

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#11
> 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)

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#12
post #4

>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 Lap…

> 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.

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#13
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.

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#14
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.

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#15
>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.

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#17
post #4

>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 Lap…

> 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 f…

> Corporations will act in their own self-interests just like everyone else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#19

> 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 organizat…

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.

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#20
post #4

>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 Lap…

I don't disagree with allowing installing arbitrary OSes, but it seems to me like this fight is already lost because phones (much more important than laptops nowadays) don't even have root.
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