GNU maintainers already have full control over their projects. The only thing left to delegate to maintainers is the definition and application of the four software freedoms.
> The GNU Assembly is about treating the "GNU project" like an actual project.
With input from people who don't agree or would like clarifications? Because that didn't happen during the last time you tried this[1]. It was just the proposers talking in circles and ignoring input and questions, asserting that things would be for the better but unwilling to engage what "better" would entail.
> The GNU Assembly
is not GNU. And you were asked repeatedly to change the name to avoid confusion the last time you tried this with "gnu.tools", but it was ignored, just like all the input and questions that didn't straight up fit your world view.
> It is about collaborative governance and better communication
That's what got people to listen to you on the gnu-misc mailing list, but it turned out it was about ousting rms (without any solid plan other than "trust us") and shutting down dissenting opinions.
There's a reason you failed the first time, and it doesn't look like the gnu-tools initiative has managed to improve their governance or communication in the meantime.
Your link seems to prove otherwise. RMS is seen to leave the development of the projects he started alone, letting the developers decide everything. Sometimes, less than once per year, he chimes in for a totally non-technical part of the project (a stupid joke in the docs). But even then, the lead developers can have their way! It looks that the GNU maintainers have already full control. What else do you need? That RMS cannot even participate in the mailing lists? These are open, you can also write there.
In that case their highest religious authority has issued a fatwa against weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, and since they're religious zealots they would honour that fatwa.
So they're either very religious, and should pose no danger because of that, or they're not very religious, in which case they would pose no danger.
> and his (lack of) understanding of the modern computing environment
How can you look at the "modern web" and claim that? It looks like he understands it perfectly well, even back in the day, but what can he do other than say it's not good for user freedom when faced with user-hostile corporations with literal billions at their disposal?
> refusing to use normal web browsers and insisting on having web pages e-mailed to him
That's silly. His workflow is obviously email based, which, given that he travels a lot and stays in places with possibly less than stellar connection, is perfectly practical. Get all your work on your device when you have a connection and work through them in batches until the next good connection.
"He was kind, attentive, and has a loving core. In simple language, he patiently explained to my son, then around 12, about the virtues of the GNU/Linux operating system"
It's a bit rich that you accuse those who didn't take the initial smear campaign at face value of moving the goal posts.
First it was the Epstein connection, which proved false.
Then it was predatory behaviour at MIT with three quotes from over 3 decades, a sign on his door, and a mattress doused in implications.
Then it was simply "making some people uncomfortable", which is sort of a given if you talk about free software to groups of people who are in the proprietary software industry, and says nothing at all.
If you want the "real issues" addressed, stop drowning them in fabrications.
Until you've been as close to rms as the people that have worked with/for him that have tried and failed for years and years to resolve issues privately, whatever silly argument you are trying to make doesn't have a leg to stand on.
> people that have worked with/for him that have tried and failed for years and years to resolve issues privately
Is this about Thomas Bushnell? Because I feel this is about Thomas Bushnell[1].
Bushnell is currently a friar in a religious order and works for google, and there is nothing wrong with that[2].
I can easily work with devout religious people and respect and accept them for their superior knowledge of the matter at hand (say, Don Knuth), but there's nothing wrong with politely declining their opinions when it comes to "issues" or how to become a "better" person.
Again, no disrespect to Bushnell, who I'm sure did a fine job, but I'm not willing to take his assessment of the personality of an avouched atheist at face value.
> Is this about Thomas Bushnell? Because I feel this is about Thomas Bushnell
It doesn't have to be. I've known over a dozen people working at the FSF over the years, and they _all_ had the same stories about trying to avoid RMS as much as physically possible because of his behavior and how he treated people. At some point we have to stop looking for excuses and start listening to the people who are actually there.
> First it was the Epstein connection
Correction: _Last_ it was the Epstein connection, a straw on a pile of many straws.
> start listening to the people who are actually there.
I'd love to, if only these people who are so aggrieved would properly write down their experiences instead of "I didn't like him anyway" after-the-fact tweets.
> Correction: _Last_ it was the Epstein connection, a straw on a pile of many straws.
Yes, quite enough to build a strawperson as an effigy, and now you're doing it, because there was no Epstein connection. In all of MIT, the only person you can trust not to have any sort of connection to Epstein would be rms, but yeah, let's blame him and the dead guy, and take it from there.
> and now you're doing it, because there was no Epstein connection.
If you prefer the phrases "defense of Minsky in his 70s having sex with a minor on a private island where Minksy then later hosted another conference _after_ Epstein's public conviction for sex trafficking and being designated a level three sex offender" or perhaps "refusal to recognize sex with minors as rape" we can use one of those instead. I don't mind. Because Stallman _did_ say he believed that Minsky had sex with a 17 year old on a billionaire's small private island and saw nothing wrong with it, and Minsky _did_ host a conference on Epstein's island after Epstein's crimes became public.
> I'd love to, if only these people who are so aggrieved would...
I think it's weird for you to expect everyone to blog about their daily negative experiences instead of venting to their friends and then trying to forget.
The two sides here are people who work at or with the FSF (or who have close friends who work at or with the FSF) and people whose only exposure is shit blogs that come up on google. And the people who work at or with the FSF are like "RMS is a nightmare for me or for a close friend of mine", and the people who google shit blogs are like "I don't find these shit blogs to be compelling enough to notice the fact that the people saying that RMS has been a nightmare are all the people who have to work with him". Everyone gets to pick their side though.
No, actually I would prefer facts instead of this incessant and tiring framing with laden and erroneous terms.
> I think it's weird for you to expect everyone to blog about their daily negative experiences
And I think it's weird that most with personal grievances against rms can't be bothered to write anything but the shortest of anecdotal tweets and most with pleasant or neutral experiences take the time write long form articles including names, dates, locations, etc.
If one sets out to ruin someone's life one could at least put in some effort to convince those that are not automatically on your side.
No it's not about that person. This isn't about RMS saying something that some of us disagree with and looking past it. It's much bigger than that. For example, RMS made the working environment at the FSF so bad that the staff unionized. The working environment is still bad (staff either burn out trying to make things better or get fired for some reason) but at least RMS can't fire people on a whim and the staff get bereavement leave (RMS was opposed to it) and cost of living pay adjustments (also opposed).
So in other words at the FSF workers are free to unionize like in the rest of the civilized World, while if you work at Amazon you have to pee in a bottle and be happy about it.
I think we should start a discussion about a simple fact: the World is huge, US is only a small part of it.
For example: RMS did not believe in providing raises — prior cost of living adjustments were a battle and not annual. RMS believed that if a precedent was created for increasing wages, the logical conclusion would be that employees would be paid infinity dollars and the FSF would go bankrupt.
That's unlawful in Italy to avoid salary discrimination where people in poorer areas (the South) are paid less for the same job.
It's considered a great victory by Italian huge worker unions.
Or this other one
RMS created non-safe spaces at both MIT & the FSF. When I was at the FSF, RMS had little to no empathy for the staff. The FSF was not a healthy, functional workplace. We formed a union to help protect ourselves from RMS — he controlled our pay, benefits, and workplace conditions.
Again, this is totally subjective.
It's a work place not a kindergarten, you don't like the place you leave, we are talking about software engineers not cleaning staff, they'd have a chance anywhere else.
this is simply this guy personally holding a grudge against RMS, but there's nothing objectively bad here.
You know what's really bad?
that it happens at Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple l, but you don't know because workers simply can't talk about it.
Low paid workers fear of losing their salary, high paid workers don't care about them and also don't want to lose their huge benefits and say screw them
What is terrifying is people thinking that knowing something is worse than not knowing because if you talk, it's bad for you.
What is bad IMO is thinking that unions are inherently a bad thing, but I am glad they exist and I am member myself of one of them in Italy that has 5.5 million other members and I gladly pay monthly to be part of it,even though I rarely need them they offer free services and protection to all the workers.
If nobody has been fired, harrased or threatened for proposing to unionize, that's a great plus in my book that puts the FSF ahead of many other job places in the US.
Maxwell was accused of directing Guiffre to have sex with Minsky by Guiffre in her deposition.
As far as I know there is no allegation from Guiffre or others that it actually happened, only that she was 'directed' to do so.
If I have missed sources that makes a clear allegation, I would appreciate hearing more.
Do you have actual sources saying otherwise, or are you inferring an allegation it actually happened from Guiffre's statement about the instructions she were given?
The questioning was about the high powered men Giuffre was trafficked to. To say it was only about Maxwell asking her to do so, is taking that quote out of context.
Again, that's not true. In that same deposition a third party testifies that Guiffre did fly with Minsky. Choose to argue semantics all you want, but it's a credible accusation.
No, I'm not ignoring that. I'm pointing it out does not say what you claim it says.
It could imply it, but it does not say it.
It makes the claim she was trafficked. That is supported by the deposition. That is supported by the witness you mention. There is no reason to doubt that.
But trafficking does not contain an automatic implication sex happened in every instance. What matters to establish trafficking is Maxwell's purpose in sending her, not whether or not the purpose was fulfilled.
What you choose to believe is one thing, but your claim there is an accusation sex occurred in this specific case is not supported by that statement no matter how much you choose to read into it.
You're deliberately ignoring the plain wording of the questions and Guiffres own answers, and instead read into them what you want them to say.
Maybe Guiffre meant to make a direct accusation [against nst Minsky, anyway], but she did not in that deposition.
EDIT: You'll note I'm not at all claiming Minsky didn't have sex with her. I don't know if he did. It's possible he did. Still associating with Epstein at that point in time already stinks and it is reasonable to wonder why. It's possible Guiffres intent was to accuse him. A whole lot of things are possible. But what is possible and what accusations there are evidence for are different things.
she could be, we don't know (at least I don't know) and since I don't know, I prefer to stay on the cautious side.
For example Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz has now sued the woman in federal court in New York, claiming that her allegations are “lies, disparagement, defamation, harassment” that are “beyond the bounds of decency and not tolerated in civilized society.” [...] Dershowitz repeated his previous claims that Virginia Roberts Giuffre was “pressured to falsely accuse Dershowitz” by her lawyers, namely the law firm headed by renowned attorney David Boies.
As someone who has followed the case closely, I have no problem saying I believe Giuffre. She's hardly the only Epstein victim and there's plenty of photo evidence backing up many of her other claims.
I believe Epstein did it, Stallam believes Epstein did it too (he wrote it in the thread), there's no doubt about it.
Another thing entirely is the other accusations, we can't assume that every accusation is true until proven otherwise by a court of the law (except for Minsky who's dead).
That's why I support Stallman reasoning, a chain of criminal events can't be assumed on someone's saying, it must be proven or we go back to inquisition, especially if one of the accused is dead, can't defend himslef and it's the smallest fish in the pond.
I get these are all powerful men and have the means to protect themselves, but they have the right to be presumed innocent nonetheless.
Having followed the case myself, I wonder why nobody is talking about Wexner, former CEO of the Victoria's secret empire that was built thanks to the close friendhsip with Epstein and who's still on an honorary president's chair.
> L Brands executives were reportedly made aware, in the mid-1990s, that Epstein was posing as a modeling recruiter for the company. Although they alerted Wexner, he seems to have taken no action
An why Boies talked to Wexner (they now say it was his lawyer) and forced the judge to remove him and after the court removed Boies and his team Giuffre hired his opponent in the gay marriage trial that made Boies popular?
> Boies and his entire team from Boies Schiller Flexner were removed from the New York case in October after judge Loretta Preska determined that he had become a witness in the suit and, as such, could no longer advocate on Giuffre’s behalf.
> Charles J. Cooper replaced David Boies, his opponent in a California gay marriage case argued before the Supreme Court, as a lawyer for Virginia Roberts Giuffre in her federal defamation lawsuit against Dershowitz.
The case is now an O.J. Simpson scale event, I think we will know more only after the next hearings.
I am simply being cautious, I am not dismissing Giuffre, in my opinion things are too complicated to throw judgements around, one way or the other (except, as we have established, for Epstein).
I also don't believe Wexner can be the only Epstein's client.
If we look at the case in its entirety, what Stallman did or didn't do it's meaningless.
> in a world where the lingua franca (pun intended) is English
That would be for computing in general. When it comes to proving software, France's academia seems to be one of the few that takes "making working software" as a serious development for the future (maybe because of airplanes and nuclear power plants). They're actually in the forefront here, if not leading.
The correct response to "Coq sounds funny in English" should be:
There's hardly a single word in existence that can't be turned into an innuendo, or sound the same as a rude or funny word in another language.
If you want to reinforce the notion that cock can only mean penis, this is one hell of a way to do it! Meanwhile, cock is a common term of affection in Northern England ("Cheers, cock", although it might sound more like 'cyock') and also features in the name of countless pubs.
It's one of those things that says more about the accusers.
The Pajero was renamed in a lot of Spanish speaking countries.
Still, a lot of Spanish farmers drive one impervious to its slang meaning. This is probably because it actually does the thing they need it for, does it well, and they have better things to do.
Bushnell hasn't been working on HURD for a long time. He joined a religious order and works for google.
> Here's someone who spent about two decades of his life at the FSF
Kuhn is now the president of a competing organisation to the FSF that doesn't mind promoting Facebook or Google for their outreach.
> Here's a whole bunch of GNU project maintainers
Guix has been in disagreement with rms since he didn't want to adopt a CoC for GNU because it was "too punitive" in intent, and suggested using GNU's Kind Communications Guidelines instead.
> Here's a couple of high-profile GCC contributors
Nathan Sidwell is a Facebook engineer who instigated the removal of rms from the gcc steering committee. After the committee did so for technical reasons, he accused them of not being punitive enough towards rms and proceeded to tally various personal suspicions against rms.
Right, the question was whether there are people who have meaningfully contributed to GNU who disagree with RMS, or the only complainers are internet randos. Obviously the answer to that question is a list of people who have previously been active FSF or GNU contributors and now are either inactive or have public disagreements with RMS.
(By the way, Kuhn was on the board of the FSF while he was leading this "competing organization." The fact that this was not seen as a conflict of interest, and that the FSF has awarded him for his work at this "competing organization," implies that they are not actually competitors.)
Who, then, has the right to criticize RMS, if they don't? It sort of seems like anyone who raises a criticism of RMS can have that criticism dismissed because they've become a critic of RMS.
Who is a legitimate part of the free software movement other than RMS himself?
> Who, then, has the right to criticize RMS, if they don't?
Only people who are pure, demonstrated by worship of RMS, are free to criticize him. Of course, if they do so, they are no longer pure, and lose that license.
I only provided background information on the people you mentioned, not that their criticism should be dismissed because of it.
> Who, then, has the right to criticize RMS
I doubt there is a collective answer, but I encourage everyone to look into the various affiliations of both proponents and detractors of rms' reinstatement and make their own decisions on whom they should trust.
Today I learned the name of one of the first toxic people who seriously suggested to write gcc in C++. And they are admitting it themselves! What a tragedy. Of course, RMS was, rightfully again, the main opposing force. We live in sad, sad times.
Quoting this person's message:
> Interactions I've had with the SC, beyond maintainer appointment, seem to run into RMS.
Sounds like a feature to me! The main purpose of RMS's presence is precisely to keep away idiotic proposals like those of Nathan Sidwell.
Paraphrasing Torvalds, to keep people like Nathan out.
Being serious, the world needs an easily bootstrappable C compiler. It's a crucial pillar of our society, and we lost it a few years ago. That is a shame.
> it was common knowledge that he was afraid of spider plants
"p.s.: In the closet-sized "office" Bushnell, McGrath, and I shared for a time we did have some spider plants as part of a running silly joke. They did not actually scare RMS away OF COURSE"
-- Thomas Lord.
Please note the capitalised "OF COURSE" and reflect on the veracity of your "common knowledge".
Yes. Judging by the reactions here I think most commenters are unfamiliar with Harald Welte, prolific Free Software hacker and one-man GPL defender.
For all the noise out of kernel hackers about doing their own enforcement if needed, so any copyright assignment is not necessary, Harald is one of the very few who actually went through the trouble of doing something to keep the kernel GPL instead of "GPL as lipservice, BSD in practice."
By design.
GNU maintainers already have full control over their projects. The only thing left to delegate to maintainers is the definition and application of the four software freedoms.
> The GNU Assembly is about treating the "GNU project" like an actual project.
With input from people who don't agree or would like clarifications? Because that didn't happen during the last time you tried this[1]. It was just the proposers talking in circles and ignoring input and questions, asserting that things would be for the better but unwilling to engage what "better" would entail.
> The GNU Assembly
is not GNU. And you were asked repeatedly to change the name to avoid confusion the last time you tried this with "gnu.tools", but it was ignored, just like all the input and questions that didn't straight up fit your world view.
> It is about collaborative governance and better communication
That's what got people to listen to you on the gnu-misc mailing list, but it turned out it was about ousting rms (without any solid plan other than "trust us") and shutting down dissenting opinions.
There's a reason you failed the first time, and it doesn't look like the gnu-tools initiative has managed to improve their governance or communication in the meantime.
[1]https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2019-11/...