GNU sed 4.2.2 released, maintainer resigns

I really like the elephant and gazelle argument. I am a huge emacs proponent and I love using it, but I feel like it need to be forked and gutted. The whole beauty of an extensible editor is that extensions should be optional. Including more shit each release is not justifiable.

Copyright assignment is impractical, and a great way to eliminate outside contributions to a project.

GNU is about developing a free distribution. The FSF is about licensing and activism. They're basically the same organization, but "GNOME is the new GNU" is a very different claim from "GNOME is the new FSF".

And yes, you can basically get a complete distribution from GNOME these days, although you're better off going through one of the real distros. And they are contributing the bulk of technical work for the distribution, such that GNOME is actually a more meaningful term for it than Linux (which "GNU" never was).

I find the "rant" and the linked post by Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos sadly missing any direct details over what the actual issues are. From reading it, one could get the idea that all the problem stems from GNU coding standard being archaic and not updated for modern programming.

Okey, I am skipping all the rant about FSF not funding software projects to pay developers, or that the GNU brand is not "hot", but both feels a bit silly. The hotness of a brand is transient, and in reality, only a handful number of brands inspires users and developers. I can't see how GNU would be more or less hot than say Gnome, KDE, or apache which each has a large number of projects under them. As for funding, since when did any of those organizations actually fund the projects? They role is provide help in setting up funding systems, help with tax declarations and provide further legal help.

Thankfully, the last link in the end (http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/529522/854aed3fb6398b79/) looks to bring some light of what the actually issues really are: copyright assignments being US only, who the "owner" of a community project is, Nikos' feeling that he aren't getting any tangible benefits from being under the name GNU, and last a request for more transparency in the GNU projects decision process.

As for those reasons, there are two I agree with and two I don't. Firstly, Copyright assignments being US only is bad and shows an inflexibility a non-profit foundation should not have. Their role is to help projects, and thus should be as flexible as possible and thus provide equal possibility to assign copyright to US or EU. Second, as for who the owner of a community project is, the answer should stare the developers in the face. It should always be the community (developers and users) that "own" the project and decides its fate. If Nikos' announcement had included a decision by the community (preferable in a transparent manner), it would had been hard for GNU to object. Third, Nikos' feeling that he aren't getting any tangible benefits from GNU are his to have, but legal assistance is something many projects value. If a project has no need for legal assistance, no need for help in creating donation systems, and don't feel a threat about lawsuits against individual developers, then a foundation such as GNU, Apache or other similar organization are not going to give much tangible benefits. Fourth, in regard to more transparency in the GNU projects decision process, I can only agree with Nikos. The corner pillar in a community is transparency, and GNU should be fully aware of this. If there are discontent growing because of an lack of transparency, it should be addressed and fixed with high priority.

> Open source can be described as a marketing campaign to convince people who don't care about free software to produce/accept it

On the other hand, Free Software can be described as an attempt by certain fanatics to hijack the idea of open source code sharing, in order to advance their own ideals.