craigsmansion

He doesn't and hasn't for a while.

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/...

Iran is governed by religious zealots.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[1]https://medium.com/@thomas.bushnell/a-reflection-on-the-depa...

[2] well, working for Google can be debatable depending on what you do there.

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.

No.

"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"

https://whoisylvia.medium.com/richard-stallman-has-been-vili...

He doesn't deem "having children" as some sort of special accomplishment though, which might rub some parents the wrong way.

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.

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:

"Maybe just learn French?".

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.

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.

Here's the lead developer of the HURD

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.

https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235267.html

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".

I guess laforge is doing other things atm

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."

You'd think the Linux Foundation would be all over this, but it looks like they prefer to keep the gravy train rolling (https://www.linuxfoundation.org/join/members/).

Sadly just like Mozilla.

Hmm. Maher earned about 375K in 2018 for presiding over a foundation with 145M in assets. I don't feel that's exorbitant in any way.

Looking through https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/3/31/Wikim..., wikimedia has enough income from investments to keep the wikipedia site running indefinitely should donations collapse.

I don't like these big budgets for foundations and groups for the public interest either, but in my opinion Wikimedia definitely shouldn't be compared to Mozilla here.

I don't understand why the gemini people don't just use http 1.0

Think of it as cars and bicycles: why do people use bikes if cars already exist?

- because it's healthier

- because given a proper infrastructure it's more pleasant (and probably safer)

Of course one can ride one's bike on most car oriented infrastructure, but it's nice to know you're not going to be hit by a truck if you make a turn somewhere.

[Never mind]

Algorithms are not simply math

I don't know about "simply", but algorithms are mathematical. I know so because everyone who matters in the field of algorithms says so (e.g. Knuth's "every algorithm is as mathematical as anything could be.")

Knuth adds: "An algorithm is an abstract concept unrelated to physical laws of the universe." so "in the same way mechanical engineering is not simply math" doesn't hold, or have even much bearing on the truth of the statement "Algorithms are not simply math."

And if it were simply math, then there would be no way to work around those patents

How does this follow? It seems to be an implication out of nowhere instead of an argument.

most open source codes are ... since

Another assertion presented as an implication. Following the same line of reasoning one could state: "Open source is not as good at producing kernels, mostly since proprietary vendors have a massively bigger pool of engineering" which by now has been shown to be false, in other words: a post hoc fallacy

It is not disrespectful or unethical to espouse this view.

And rms would agree. In fact, you don't need to like rms or believe in Free Software to become a GNU maintainer. This wasn't about that.

but it is disrespectful to the child victims

Yeah, no. When Nadine Strossen, former president of the ACLU, takes the time to weigh in on a personal title on the matter, that means Stallman has been vindicated. One can no longer pin their lack of reading comprehension on him. If someone only gets "the facts" from twitter, that is their own problem, not GNU's, not Stallman's.

accuse the signatories of the statement of acting unethically or underhandedly.

They spammed all GNU maintainers addresses.

Not all the advocacy for their cause was transparent and above board. It's all there in the mailing list for anyone to see and make up their own minds.

was the key leader for decades, and is basically its mascot.

RMS was and still is the GNU project leader.

It's been a very long time since RMS was able to marshall a group of people to work toward that goal.

He gives talks all around the world, trying to warn people about proprietary software and getting them involved in Free Software.

GNU is internally managed on a private mailing list.

But this little kerfluffle was on a public mailing list, as was requested by the various maintainers who wanted to oust RMS. It was open for anyone to follow along on the gnu-misc-discuss list from 2019-10 and forward. The discussion doesn't really support your "it has been a long time coming" assertion.

For a long time, key GNU projects have either effectively quit GNU

If you mean Gnome, it still has a lot of those who support GNU, or aren't even aware Gnome is not GNU. There are enough of them the Gnome leadership only raises issues when it allows them to raise their own profile and public visibility, like what happened during the MIT debacle.

The only change is that now they are doing it in public.

Thankfully, so everyone can read for themselves how claims that what is going on in GNU is "not good" is very subjective and more of a "not how I personally would like it to be".

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/2019-10/...

He hasn’t presented any argument why he should be considered an apologist.

He _literally_ did, himself, in the article he wrote:

"I think the privacy arguments are far-fetched"

and actually acknowledging it verbatim:

"While I'm going to sound like an Apple apologist,"

as in "people who say this are Apple apologists, but I'm only like one if I state it."

Many invalid points, and straw men in your comment.

Of course.

A lot to people are claiming Apple is a malevolent entity. In context, it is reasonable for him to rebut that.

The exclusive "or" in "do you trust Apple is acting in your best interests, or do you believe they're a malevolent entity?" still makes it a false dichotomy.

The straw man you cite isn’t a straw man. It is a solid argument.

"if I have the code, build the code, nothing can hide in the code.":

is not something someone knowledgeable would ever claim, only that having the code and building the code will be at least as safe or safer than not having the code at all. Presenting it as "nothing can hide in the code" and then attacking that is, in my opinion, a strawman argument.

The author used the word ‘feasible’.

And he is correct in that. No single individual can maintain the software integrity of an entire operating system, but a group of people can do so. The omission here is that that group of people need not be Apple.

The argument here is that without Apple taking control of the user's software the user would fall prey to the privacy violating practices of the likes of Google and Microsoft, which is not true. Hence the "lie by omission".

If that isn’t a loaded term, I don’t know what is.

The term is from the article: "While I'm going to sound like an Apple apologist,"

He claims he is not X, but has given no argument why he shouldn't be considered X and has presented a lot of arguments on why he should be considered X.

He has presented no reason to assume he is not a devoted Apple user, or in his words, an "Apple apologist".

In short, I'm not sure I'm exaggerating, but that I'm willing to disagree on.

By posing false dichotomies: "do you trust Apple is acting in your best interests, or do you believe they're a malevolent entity?"

It's perfectly reasonable to believe that Apple is acting in Apple's best interest without attributing malevolence.

By downplaying rational arguments: "I think the privacy arguments are far-fetched (because others are worse)"

By using loaded terms: "Dogwhistles

The privacy squad mobilised"

Presenting strawmen: "if I have the code, build the code, nothing can hide in the code. This is a fallacy that people buy in to thanks to effective marketing "

Lying by omission: "It's not feasible for an individual to maintain the list of trustworthy or untrustworthy parties that Apple does."

It's perfectly feasible for a group of individuals. I'll take any group distro maintainers over Apple's word.

He really doesn't just sound like an Apple apologist; he is one.

GPL tries to reach into the surrounding and supporting code that the commercial entity writes and somehow force that company to "contribute"

Well, maybe that "commercial entity" could have picked a different library to begin with, and your rant has no bearing on the GPL at all?

When the automaker changes that code, do you really want it back?

Well, if you buy that car, yes?! Because that's the very stipulation you set forth when you published the library.

If you love our industry,

What a load of bollocks.

Ah yes, "cgroups", according to notable no-nonsense kernel hacker Al Viro:

"it's not just badly written kernel/cgroup.c - the interfaces on both sides (userland and the rest of kernel) are seriously misdesigned. As far as I'm concerned, configuring it out solves my problem nicely."

That was in 2011, so things might have improved. What remains however is that cgroups was added to the kernel, by Googlers, for easier maintenance, but with an implicit understanding that no sane person would actually make use of it to do something important.

... enter SystemD.

Implicit here is the idea that couplehood and family life were more stable

It doesn't necessarily imply that. What I took from the GP is that people are giving away control of their dating behaviour to large commercial entities with unknown implications.

It's not about technology making it easier for humans to interact, but about changing the nature of the interaction.

In a way it's similar to advertising. If you glance at an advertisement online now, it looks very much the same as looking at an advertisement in a magazine in the 90s, but to everyone on here it should be clear that behind an online ad today, there is a gigantic empire of data-collection and analytics that most people aren't even aware of.

An easy example here is that a commercial entity that matches people has no direct interest in people engaging in long-term romantic relationships, since it might prevent them from coming back. It's best to optimise their matching algorithms on other areas.

That might not matter too much if people were aware of these skewed algorithms, but it's also in the best interest of commerce that people are not aware of it.

It's dangerous to equate normal "behaviour X" with "behaviour X, but digital", especially if the difference provides space for a commercial entity to set themselves up as a middle man who has no incentive to be neutral.

No need for infernal advocacy here. Reddit is to some extent the unfortunate heir of newsgroups, as well as many independent forums, so of course there is going to be a lot of interesting and useful information on it.

The thing I imagine that gives some people such a negative view is coming in contact through the brand "reddit" and being dumped into large controversial sub-reddits straight away.

A lot of people bump into a particular sub-reddit through a search result and have no idea of the dumpster fires elsewhere on the larger "reddit" site.

and his position on technology and freedom issues.

In the linked article he is cheerleading in favour of closed-off platforms, and promotes ceding control of your software to a third party as a good thing.

But even before this Miguel de Icaza had no integrity left to speak of in my opinion. Some random schmoe actually would have been more believable.

"We think of open source as just a tool in a toolbox"

That's all folks: your aspirations of sharing and building a better world is a tool for MS's greater plan.

Also, the picture could have gone with the caption, "Microsoft: don't be evil. Contract it!"

Is there a Chinese author and speaker with decades

This is only as I understand it, but technically, yes.

People like to think that the Chinese Communist Party is a single body with a single well-defined set of ideas.

It's not.

It's perfectly possible for academics and even party politicians to utter criticism of the current party direction. They can, for example, advocate the return of fundamental Maoism, or advocate free market mechanisms. As long as you can argue a point of view that lies within the party's tenets, there is usually no problem.

It's different when:

- you are a person of influence.

and

- you argue against the stability of the country (where, conveniently, the CCP is seen as the most important stabilising force in mainland China (by the CCP)).

I don't know if a Chinese Chomsky exists. I have the impression that if he would exist, he would be marginalised by the media, or some of his ideas would be adopted and used in some splintered minority faction of the CCP and hailed as a great but impractical thinker, and mostly ignored.