An anonymous reader writes: Debian Project Secretary Kurt Roeckx has announced the results of a closely-watched vote on what statement would be made about Richard Stallman's readmission to the Free Software Foundation's board. Seven options were considered, with the Debian project's 420 voting d...
… Obviously it’s important to treat malice different from unintentional things when it comes to judging (and I know, you read the letter as judging and I didn’t but I see where you’re coming from and admit that it’s bad that it could be read that way). However, if you read the letter just as a demand to remove him to stop further harm (my reading) then, this is pretty much irrelevant.
That’s true, and, honestly, kinda shameful for the FSF. The FSF would/will/… have a hard time to justify it’s sense w/o RMS.
I think, in hindsight, the way the letter was worded and prepared was the wrong step forward. Unfortunately, I also don’t really see an alternative. There were more kind, more proper, discussions before, for decades. Sometimes they even resulted in change!
But where are we now, in the year 2021? The FSF has become irrelevant, for many reasons. Some can definitely be attributed to the way the Internet and corporations developed, how Open Source became a thing (ironically ESR has signed the anti-anti-RMS letter :D) etc. But also, the FSF was kind-of at the forefront of political discussion in the technology scene, with seeing the technology as someone that should revolve around human needs and society, and not vice-versa. It was refreshing, it was new, it was progressive.
And while the FSF is still radical, it feels like that’s the only thing left. Radical, senseless (to the point it becomes annoying), repeating of anti-firmware tirades etc. Obviously, many stances are still more progressive than the political climate, but they’ve lost pretty much their target group. It feels like having Rosa Luxemburg as a leader of “The Left”: While certainly progressive, not fitting for the time.
People pressed for changes, but nothing could be heard over the deafening presence of RMS. Maybe the best criticism of the FSF is that it’s just “The RMS Society”. Which isn’t necessarily bad, but it means that we have gap there, where an FSF that wouldn’t be “just RMS” would be.
All in all, I think we agree on many points of the problem(s). And perhaps even, that such an “open letter” isn’t always bad, but simply whether this was the point of time that this letter should have been written. And also, that there are certainly some things in the letter that could’ve been phrased better, to say the least.
That was a long comment, but I felt much more comfortable quote-posting as I didn’t want to write this up from memory, in order not to talk past your points or misrepresent you.
Wow… I didn’t even know there was a character limit… :P
Once again, very reasonable response(s). Honestly I think we fundamentally agree in most of the arguments, to the point that I’m running out of things to add -says as he proceeds to drop another column-
I’m sorry but in my quote-posting I’m gonna cherry-pick specific parts, not because I want to misrepresent you but because I don’t want to make it unwieldly. However, please call out at any point if I’m missing something important you said or misinterpreting something.
This is the part that still seems strange to me. If these episodes are so frequent and blatant there must be plenty of testimonials, it wouldn’t be impossible to record conversation, an email thread… or someone could prepare a public interview with him where he’s confronted about controversial behavior, maybe giving opportunity to the victims to talk (anonymously maybe even, just a recording without the face, maybe even altered voice) and see RMS reaction and response to it. Specially for things that you said were recurrent and he has not fixed for years. Confront him about the fact that those have not been fixed for years and show it to him, then show the public what he has to say.
Just having these kind of things exposed might actually spark change already, even without the need to collect signatures.
I understand that it’s still a lot of effort and it’s not as easy to prove as more public forms of abuse, but I find it hard to believe that there would be no witnesses willing to give a testimony or some form of evidence. Specially in the world of Software, where a lot of communication happens electronically, even internally. If the issue is privacy policy, RMS could be publlicly asked for permission to show his private responses in such interview… if he actually refuses then… well, that’d already look fishy and uncooperative which is something that’d be good to get exposure on.
If RMS had rejected to participating in such interview then… well, that’s something that could have been in the letter. If they cannot provide anything solid at the very least they should be convincing about why that is.
It would give good rep with those who were exposed to the proof. And at the same time it would also give bad rep with those who think that the removal was undeserved. This is why it’s important to be convincing.
Had the FSF listened to the letter, removed RMS and completelly changed the entire board, it would not be a total surprise to me if the same motivation that pushed for the anti-anti-RMS letter ended up giving birth to a new alternative movement, more welcome to RMS and the directors from the previous board. Maybe a new foundation would have been created, in a similar way as how the Open Source Initiative differentiated itself from the FSF. Creating more division in the movement and taking a bite of the FSF cake.
Maybe many in the OSI are secretly happy about all this drama, I wouldn’t be surprised if they got at least a small bump in supporters. After all they exist as a more pragmatic alternative to Stallman’s FSF. It’s also interesting that 4 out of the 16 people who appear as authors of the open letter are directors or former directors of the OSI.
That’s sensible. I agree.
If it isn’t read as an accusation of being “misogynist, ableist, and transphobic” (although if “internalized” had been added then I’d not argue), then you are right. If I do the exercise of reading it as only a demand, that would take away most of my criticism about the “wording” of the letter, and the only thing that would remain is my criticism of whether what was demanded actually stops further harm.
And yet this time the pressure was much louder. Why is it that? Is it because of the wording and demands they made this time? Or is it because they actually tried this time to make it more public, wrote an open letter and use their influence and position in several organizations to push for it in social media, asking others to support and sign the petition at a time when RMS was already in the news for being readmitted? Why did they not do that when they were demanding him to change?
It feels like people only decided to take a more serious and public action when they were angry and mad, misdirecting their demands by applying punishment as a form of poetic justice rather than thinking of an actual solution that could fix the problem.
I agree it would be good to see a new flow of progressive change. But the sad thing is that there has not really been any loud voice inside or outside the FSF that introduced any new strain of philosophy as groundbreaking as the initial movement was in the 90s. The thing is that we aren’t talking about a new approach, we are talking about the respect for others that already has been claimed. What we are talking is not being progressive but being consequent with values we already are meant to defend.
The issue is the question “are these values not being respected?”. There’s division on the answer to that, and if the division is not solved and it keeps scalating then ultimatelly it could mean the FSF itself could divide, with a new organization appearing or maybe the OSI taking over the banner.
The problem here is that both sides see each other as the enemy (this is very clear when seeing twitter), one side dehumanizing the other, as in a sort of ideological warfare. Dehumanization sparks dehumanization. And it’s hard to talk with someone about shared ideals when they have already dehumanized us.
We will see. My hope is that RMS & the FSF will both see the mess and try and take the kind of measures that the open letter should have requested in the first place and it didn’t (things like making sure RMS controversial behavior is under leash, communicates only in written form externally or internally with those outside the board, never go to any event without some form of caretaker that knows how to deal with him, etc… or whatever measures would actually help with those problems that the letter didn’t explain). And then hopefully this whole war will slowly be forgotten.
But it could also happen that they don’t manage to address the right problems (I’m still skeptical on whether it’s true that the FSF & RMS know / understand what the problems are, since the letter wasn’t specific about them) or that even if they did address them, they are already dehumanized and the ideological war against them will never stop no matter what RMS & the FSF board do (other than removing themselves not only from the FSF but from all interaction with the community).
I didn’t expect the limit to kick in as well, but there we go … :)
I agree that we do mostly agree (whelp) and I think there is indeed not much to say but just to clarify our points to enhance mutual understanding. I think we have pretty much reached what some people call “agree to disagree” although I do not like this saying…
For the record, I don’t feel misrepresented at all, and thoroughly enjoy your responses!
I cannot speak for those who wrote the letter, but I fear that there’s indeed not much written record since most of the allegations I heard of (before, and outside of the letter) were with misdemeanor outside of electronic conversations in conferences. Although you’re right that such things should’ve been tried (Idk if they did, but if they did, they should’ve brought this up). However, as in many cases, the usual minorities are too tired (and also afraid) to speak up and don’t have the energy to fight for their cause. Meaning, their support group (friends, family) do the work which is in many ways unfortunate but also means that there will hardly be proper interviews or similar. It’s difficult enough to do such an investigation when there are actual crimes. Also, I think, this would’ve increased and emphasized the “guilty” part even more, while the original intention was/should’ve been to make the FSF and RMS question their own deeds.
I totally agree that this misfired though.
Part of the issue is probably the writers of the open letter not really being sure themselves whether they want to prove RMS guilty or ask for introspection, and even subconsciously looking for “justice” when that’s actually not productive going forward. After all, the human being as a whole loves to jump on the justice/revenge/guilt band wagon far too easily. And even if criticism is well-founded, writing up this criticism is no fail-guard against unnecessary allegations of guilt.
Honestly, you voiced my secret biggest fear there. I’m not a fan of the OSI at all, which makes this whole situation so tragic to me. In fact, maybe the failure of the anti-RMS letter was for the best in that sense, as that way the “creation of the alternative FSF” is initiated anti-RMS side, although I’m not yet sure or convinced by the “GNU Assembly” either :D
Absolutely agree. For what it’s worth, I think the only new “progressive” voice here is the EFF, while strictly having a different focus, it is very much in the spirit of many things copy-left: User autonomy and rights. And since it also advocates for things that aren’t as… dare I say 'esoteric… as software licenses but also privacy etc., it’s much more approachable to those who don’t have the software developer outlook on things.
I’m with you on being skeptical of RMS & FSF understanding the issue in the first place. It’s something that’s not even unique to RMS. My mom is definitely quite left and progressive but she has a hard time understanding most of the issues the left is fighting for, other than all the ‘old wars’ (tbf, she’s 63), if it wasn’t for me explaining to her. And it must be me, since I’m her child and have a connection I can actually use to bridge this gap—with the end result being that she understands the issues well enough to see.
But this bridge is very difficult to build if you’re online, have no family or friendship bonds, and the issue is smouldering for decades. It’s doubly difficult since the primary issues the FSF fights for aren’t related at all to the problems discussed, thus discussing them inside the FSF or with RMS will always be seen as a distraction or annoyance, taking precious time away from their actual fight.
I guess we’ll see how this plays out. While I do hope that there will be change in the existing organizations, I’m afraid that the FSF and the core of the free software movement will die sooner or later, either with a bang or silently. I do have hopes in the EFF though, as stated, in taking over many issues that should be addressed in some way.
At the end of the day, you and me are not the ones who can solve this conflict, but RMS/FSF along with those who represent the victims and know of the abuse. They need to sit in a table together and actually talk about details, making sure the facts surrounding the matter are clear so specific actions can be taken.
We don’t know the details ourselves, and I think the main difference of opinion between us is when it comes to the different impressions we get when doing our “guesswork” on those details, which were left untold in the letter.
But these are just guesses and I cannot feel strongly for something that I do not have any strong evidence for me to judge how undeserved or deserved the accusations are. This is why I think the approach from Debian in this case here was appropriate, not pronouncing themselves towards any side until something more concrete resurfaces.
It would be great if the EFF takes a more active role in regards to Software Freedom and takes some of the load from the FSF.
There’s one historical detail that makes the FSF still being there kinda important: the FSF is the copyright holder assigned to a lot of free software projects.
I mean, that shouldn’t be a huge deal, since it’s all GPL after all… but the copyright holder is who has ultimatelly the power to enforce the license. Although I doubt that this will really become a problem.
Another, a more pressing one perhaps, is the “GNU GPL version x or any later version” statement of the license… it would be bad if the disinterest towards who is in control of the FSF (I believe the FSF is the license’s publisher) can result in unexpected new developments for future versions.
So I think the FSF still plays a role and it’d be better if it’s in good hands. But perhaps other organizations could take care of events or any specifics that might be more controversial for “The RMS Society” to get involved with. But this is why details need to be discussed… this is why it would have been better if the letter actually specified where, when and how did the problems happen.
Sorry for the late reply – the last week was a bit tiring and I didn’t feel able to give enough attention to a reply :)
I think you’re very right about it mostly coming down to perception. While I’d personally have wished for a more direct stance from Debian, I think I understand better now the ideas behind it. Thanks!
At least in Europe the EFF together with the Chaos Computer Club are quite successfully pushing for Free Software (and related issues). But they’re still getting there and obviously they didn’t want to “steal” the FSF topic from them. Although I guess this is what this will develop into, over long term.
I’m not good enough in anything wrt. law as to know whether this could be a problem, as this also depends very much on the country we’re talking about. But I agree that this is a minor issue.
Again, thanks for taking so much time for the discussion, it was really educating and helped me see other viewpoint(s)!