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The Free Software Foundation is dying

drewdevault.com

81–90 of 247 posts

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#81

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.

GNU Guix (package manager and OS distro) is a pretty big project, that's fairly recent.

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.

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#82

> 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…

If there was a replacement RMS, they too would have to say no on points of principle to things, make enemies of people who want them to say yes, be whispered against, be unpopular. That's what the role is, say what nobody else will say, make people uncomfortable when apathy is comfortable, and when nobody else will act, take action and rally others against things that are bad. It's not a role that will inspire univer…

The goal of FSF is not one which people inherently identify with. You can either die on that hill (and you surely will die), or you can go out of your way to try to be diplomatic and convince people of your mission.

If living the FSF moral means being like RMS, you'll never convince anyone. Here is how he browses the internet:

> I generally do not connect to web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites I have some special relationship with. I usually fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program (see https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/womb/hacks.git) that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. Then I look at them using a web browser, unless it is easy to see the text in the HTML page directly. I usually try lynx first, then a graphical browser if the page needs it.

https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

This is the behavior of a lunatic, and not someone who I consider tethered to modern society or the economy that relies on technology. He reminds of the guy in "better call saul" who has removed all forms of electromagnetism in his house. If I met this person IRL, and he tried to convince me of literally any opinion, I would assume outright that these are the ravings of a mentally ill person with paranoid delusions of grandeur

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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?

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.

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#85
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?

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#86
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.

Even more the reason to try and make sure it never happens to real computers.

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corporations will act in their own self-interests just like everyone else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

If the foundation is set up to allow this, then that's a fault of the structure of the foundation.

> If the foundation is set up to allow this, then that's a fault of the structure of the foundation.

"If I'm able to exploit you, it's your fault" is a strange take. Just because something isn't expressly forbidden doesn't make it ethical or moral.

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#88
post #3

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.

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)?

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.

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#89
>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?

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