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The Free Software Foundation is dying

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Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#151

Post by dang »

GNUfanaticism wrote: post #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,…

We've banned this account for flamewar. Not what this site is for.

HN is for curious conversation—which rules out $X-fanaticism for pretty much any X.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#152

Post by shortrounddev »

outsomnia wrote: post #140
shortrounddev wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

That way of interacting with the Internet wouldn't be that strange at the very beginning... it probably seems like integrating things into emacs from his point of view. I use noscript and uBlock... my wife thinks about that the same as you think about RMS' 12ft pole browsing. However she is just perfectly fine with Linux as her OS for 20 years now. How Linux came about IS bound up with - is thanks to - RMS and his pa…

I would not take opinions on technology very seriously from people who use technology like it's 1985. RMS does not have a real job as a software engineer and never has, and also does not work in the private sector. He is out of touch with reality and stopped growing as a human being at MIT

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#153

Post by shortrounddev »

nicpottier wrote: post #137
shortrounddev wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing an organization is obligated to do is: 1. Treat all candidates equally, regardless of race, sex, etc. 2. Hire the most qualified candidate for the job, regardless of race, sex, etc. 3. Not engage in conscious or unconscious selection bias when looking for new applicants. I consider it to be a valid hiring practice to make sure you show up to career fairs at HBCUs or women's universities Doing anything…

> Doing anything beyond that is not only a bad solution, it is immoral to press your hand down on the weight of one candidate over another based on his or her identity categories. It is as wrong to prefer a white candidate as it is to prefer a black candidate. This is a very convenient position to take for white men in power. Now we insist it must be a perfectly level playing field, never mind the centuries of racism…

This is a racist statement

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#154

Post by Scubabear68 »

philistine wrote: post #150
Scubabear68 wrote: post #5

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…

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.

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.

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#155

Post by GoblinSlayer »

kmeisthax wrote: post #136
yarg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The facial recognition software issue is not orthogonal: the biggest problem with it is that it's proprietary software being used to do law enforcement. We don't know how Clearview's software works and it is already generating false arrests and convictions. If this is an orthogonal issue, than software freedom is just a petty tech squabble between programmers with no bearing on the average user, and nobody should car…

All political campaigns against population work this way: censorship, privacy, four horsemen, gun control.

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#156

Post by richbell »

brodouevencode wrote: post #143
richbell wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The same take applies to individuals too, which basically nullifies your argument.

> The same take applies to individuals too, which basically nullifies your argument.

This in no way nullifies my argument.

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#157

Post by pelasaco »

Iolaum wrote: post #71
pelasaco wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

This has happened already, look at Open Source Initiative, Software Freedom Conservancy and others.

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....

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#158

Post by bheadmaster »

dang wrote: post #151
GNUfanaticism wrote: post #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,…

We've banned this account for flamewar. Not what this site is for. HN is for curious conversation—which rules out $X-fanaticism for pretty much any X. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The (fairly short) comment history doesn't really indicate flaming, IMHO. Having strong opinions while having the word "fanaticism" on their profile doesn't seem like a rule violation.

If I may, I'd ask you to refrain from such bans until the poster proves a chronic flamer. At least give them a warning first (unless you already did, and they continued, in which case please ignore this comment).

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#159

Post by mikl »

einpoklum wrote: post #113

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 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, mayb…

> > 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

In the business, we call this “missing the point”.

Re: The Free Software Foundation is dying

#160

Post by pelasaco »

vasac wrote: post #38
jmclnx wrote: 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…

Yeah, it's funny how they always want to reshape the FSF instead of creating a new organization with their own leadership, mission, and whatever else they want.

people still confusing basic concepts as in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35524866
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