Is it still opportune to collaborate with the GNOME Foundation?

Software PureOS
27

@ChriChri

I agree with “let’s please keep talking to each other, making arguments, helping to understand the world, helping to understand each other”. Forking is a way of talking, maybe not the first way you try, but it can be the right way, especially if done for good principles. I don’t think at all GNOME people are evil, I only think they are severely misguided. Forking is also a way to make your voice be heard (see the story of how EGCS got incorporated into GCC). I cannot feel any closeness with the GNOME Foundation after that letter, but I do feel still close to GNOME (as an object) and (parts of) the GNOME community. As I said, I will not be the one starting a fork.

Yes, I missed all these old discussions. I had commented about that two messages ago.

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28

Bad behavior is on a spectrum. It’s very easy to have behavior that drives women out of the industry, even 100% legally. Should all behavior be criminalized? Obviously not. Mistakes happen. Should the standards be higher for more prominent community members? Obviously.

29

The only constant is change! Just wait.

Who would have thought the Las Palma volcano would erupt? I finally got flood insurance. The house may not withstand a 100 foot tsunami across the Atlantic from the Carnary Islands, but at least I’m insured!

30

This is a nice critique of that letter:

(By the way, this is the guy who administrates the hate letter repository: https://github.com/neilmcgovern – unless the guy shares the same name and the same face with the executive director of GNOME, GNOME did more than just signing that letter)

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31

Stallman may do things that drive women out of the industry. But this is why I went overboard in referring to Stallman’s ‘victems’ as poor innocent helpless female victems. That’s what they’re not, or shouldn’t be. Do we want fragile women who are not equals and who seem to need special protections from the men, just to co-exist? Or should the community (any community) have empowered women who are valued for their coding skills as the men are, and not because they are women? Let the whole community acknowledge privately amongst themselves that Stallman is an asshole if that is the case. For Stallman, a degree of ostracism may be what he wants and/or needs, whether he likes it or not. I know that if the women in any particular group that I was a part of all tended to not like me or not want to associate with me, that I would feel terrible about it and want to make amends and regain their favor. But instead of letting that happen to Stallman, the men make it all political, do things to destroy the organization, and go overboard trying to assert their male instincts to protect the women as an excuse for other political problems in the organization that they are not dealing with. This is or should be a non-issue if the men who are pulling this crap would just grow up. For the women, all it takes would be one brave woman to make an appropriate comment publicly and at the right time and place, to put Stallman in his place if that is what is needed. Let the whole world laugh at him at once because of how the women treat him or because of what one woman said about him to purposefully humiliate him if that is what happens. Most of us wouldn’t be able to take much of that kind of treatment by virtually everyone. And if it never happens, then Stallman’s actions must not have been that bad to begin with.

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32

The whole thing is a frameup, we shouldn’t even discuss about the content of that letter (there is no content). The whole thing is an artifact. Of course, it is possible, probable maybe, that Stallman did some wrongs in his interpersonal relationships during his life, but the letter is not about that, the letter’s purpose is only that of mobilitating an angry mob – as that critique explains – without expressing a real content. If you pay attention, the letter never shows facts, only insinuations and a sparse collection of sentences written by Stallman about the most disparate topics.

After reading the whole package you are brought to think that Stallman is a monster, but if I ask you “Okay, so what did Stallman do?”, you will not be able to answer. It is basically a manipulation experiment. That letter is one unique fallacy from the beginning to the end.

It is horrible that people who claim they defend free software have signed that stuff. It is interesting to read this old discussion on this forum, where a user tries to push Purism in front of a choice that must be decided immediately (something like, “Purism, sign that letter and sign it now, or you endorse the monster”), which is a classical blackmailer’s technique (“Don’t go to the police, don’t speak with anyone, speak only with me and do everything now”). I wonder what kind of cold, calculating and unempathetic mind was able to orchestrate the whole stuff.

I believe that GNOME and who signed that letter will pay in the long term (in part they are already paying, after all they are serving the punishment of having such leaders). But differently than them, I won’t ask for the resignation of anyone: the moment GNOME stops representing me I simply stop having anything to ask them. Style is important.

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33

I was writing about a worst case possible scenario which has nothing to do with anything Stallman actually did. Even in that worst case scenario, the claims against Stallman do not warrant what is being done against him. The guy is probably completely innocent. And per my scenario, no one is acting as if he has done anything wrong as they would in that scenario. Once again, where are his victems? They don’t exist.

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34

I am not sure I understood this sentence. You mean that even if the letter is 100% wrong nothing can guarantee that it is wrong on purpose, right?

If that is the meaning of what you wrote, I disagree. That kind of rhetoric is well known and can only be calculated. The effect that they wanted to obtain can only be intentional. Insinuating without proving, chosing what to say and what not, proving only unimportant things, and so on, that letter can be written the way it is only on purpose. You can stab a person by mistake (for example by falling on them while you carry a knife), but you cannot stab a person twelve times, decapitate them and end up burning the body by mistake.

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35

I meant to say that even if the claims against Stallman were true, that the current smear campaign against Stallman would not be the right way to address those issues. That being the case, the claims against Stallman are probably not any more valid than the smear campaign itself.

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36

There are more than enough credible sources by now.
If you’re dismissing those, then the burden of proof is on you. Where’s your evidence?

37

@Lliure

Incredible! You have collected three witnesses of the same “EMAC virgins” joke! Open your yes, Lliure, it is a frameup. You should focus your attentions on Neil McGovern.

“I emailed Richard Stallman at the encouragement of a couple of friends here …”

As everything in this smear campaign, totally unimportant compared to the smear campaign itself. He is surprised, since he “had very few negative reactions to St IGNUcius in the past”. Basically he kept doing the same jokes about “the church of Emacs” since the '80s, but times have changed and people today don’t find these jokes funny anymore (I agree, the whole “the church of Emacs” thing is not so funny). If he has sinned, his sin is bad humour. The criticized sentence is this:

[the EMAC virgins are] “women who had never used EMACS, and for whom being relieved of this virginity was a holy duty”

(NOTE: This is not a direct quotation but a second hand quotation)

Honestly, it is clear that it is a critique of the Christian religion (from which the concept of virginity is taken) more than anything else. The way he makes fun of it though, is from the '80s – inappropriate today.

““FREE SPEECH!” he screamed …”

That’s out of context, cannot judge.

“Yes this. I remember posting that his repeated virgin rapes joke was not okay …”

Yeah, I agree, the “the EMAC virgins” joke is not such a good joke.

“I don’t always read mailing lists, but when I do, it’s because Richard Stallman is claiming the negative reaction to his abortion joke makes him a victim and scares women away from open source”

Fake. Stallman would never say “open source”, not even under torture.

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38

To this I totally agree. The switches are small, the text explaining which switch for which functionality is incredibly small (at least to my aging eyes), and you have to pop off the back even to get at them.

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39

This looks like a board-level (corporate officer) problem. Whether or not these claims are true, the board needs to get its act together, not plead to the world to fix a problem that the board alone can resolve on its own. If the board can’t or won’t stop the battle, then the organization will eventually wither away on its own. The whole board is to blame for these problems. Either they have enforceable conduct policies or they don’t. And the conduct I refer to is not necessarily Stallman’s conduct.

40

Well the PP or PPP it using a SoC not good for killswitches that is the reason it come hidden like decor.

41

Where did you find it?

42

The tweet was paraphrasing. Here’s the original.

I was specifically referring to the comment I linked to:

I was fifteen, still obviously underage, and skipping gym class to hear him speak at a professional conference (that I’d snuck into). He actually pointed to me in the back and proclaimed, into the mic, “A GIRL!” causing the audience to turn and look. Mortifying. Then he proceeded to gesture toward me every time he referred to “EMACS Virgins.” (I cannot believe that he is still doing the same talk 10+ years later.) I was young and terrified of calling out someone that I’d previously idolized.

43

@dcz

It is not a direct quotation, it is a sentence that someone reported (thus it is probably a paraphrasis). Here is the link: https://opensourcetogo.blogspot.com/2009/07/emailing-richard-stallman.html.

@Lliure

Yeah, he says that he doesn’t believe that his jokes would offend anyone (I would be surprised if he thought they did and still used the same jokes).

That is playing about a kid with the kid present. It can be perceived as sexism by the kid, and so he could have avoided it.

We are still talking about the “Emacs virgins joke”, definitely light years away from the violence of the smear campaign, which becomes horrible considering Stallman’s contributions to free software.

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44

Back on the poison injected by the GNOME Foundation into the FOSS community (I am sorry if any of you still endorses the GNOME Foundation, but no word describes better what happened, and probably you should reflect on your support – and yes, I still like GNOME as a DE)…

A few days ago the FSF officially adopted a code of ethics. Today Alexandre Oliva published a letter sent to a feminist leader in the FLOSS community (unnamed):

While I invite to read the entire text (the original letter is available here), I found this passage particularly significant:

As for the experiences and reports you got… An FSF board committee whose members AFAICT all wanted RMS out investigated reports about RMS for over two years, before and after RMS resigned, and despite all the second-hand rumors, they could never get to any concrete findings. I have independently investigated various claims and invariably came to dead ends. Given how many false reports and ad hominem attacks on Free Software he’s been targeted with, it wasn’t at all unthinkable to conclude that this was yet another character assassination attack without substance.

He, clumsy, obsessive, meltdown-prone and sometimes harsh, as our shared condition makes us, has always been an easy target for this kind of discrimination. Besides, the movement he started and leads threatens various powerful monopolies, which makes him more of a target of such attacks. It’s easy and disappointing to see how his supposed offenses don’t seem to motivate action when committed by actual celebrities who work for the corporate forces who lead and who are served by the attacks on him.

Of course none of this proves him innocent, but that’s what’s suggested by the absence of credible evidence and the exclusivity of dead-end second-hand hearsay and fabrications. In case the people you know personally who have alleged harassment by RMS would like to report it to me, my opinion may change, and if they’re willing, I may pass it on to the FSF board. But, so far, what I’ve seen has been limited to false and dehumanizing allegations to support the discrimination of a person who fights for freedom and justice untiringly, without regard for much else, and with some traits that are hard for neurotypicals to understand or like.

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45

My faith in GNOME dwindled considerably since the attack on Stallman. They seem to treat political correctness as more important than the software they are creating. Therefore, sooner or later, their software will become a crap.

As a side note, I like the “neurotypical” word. A perfect newspeak insult to describe mediocre and meager.

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46

As I see it, walking away from GNOME doesn’t gain us much, and I don’t see a better alternative desktop in the offing where we can go. If we stay, there is the possibility that GNOME can be convinced in the long run to rejoin the GNU project and reaffiliate with the FSF.

The decision to remove GNOME from the GNU Project and disassociate GNOME from the FSF was the decision of a small number of people in the leadership of GNOME, namely Niel McGovern (the Executive Director of GNOME and former Debian project lead) and his circle of friends. I suspect if GNOME surveyed its users, the majority don’t have an opinion whether GNOME should be part of GNU and FSF or not, but among those who do have an opinion, I suspect that the majority do want GNOME to be part of GNU and to associate with the FSF. That means that an organized campaign to get GNOME to rejoin GNU/FSF might actually work.

On the other hand, many of the companies that contribute code to GNOME (IBM/Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical and Google) doesn’t particularly care for the FSF, and Richard Stallman in particular. I know that Google is openly hostile to the copyleft, and actively works to undermine it. For example, Google does not show users the software licenses off apps in the Google Play Store, so people see the word “free” and think that zero price is the same as free software.

However, I think that IBM/Red Hat, SUSE and Canonical mostly don’t want to be associated with a organization which has been linked with public controversies concerning sexism and the consent of minors. The decision of the GNOME Foundation to withdraw from the GNU project in 2019 wasn’t based on technical or philosophical differences with the FSF and its goals, but simply because people at GNOME didn’t want to be associated with Richard Stallman’s controversial comments on those subjects. At least that was the publicly stated reason.

Personally, I think that those businesses also don’t really care that much about promoting the goals of the FSF and the FSF has always been reluctant to associate itself too closely with any business interest, so the companies that contribute to GNOME didn’t see any compelling reason for the project to remain in GNU and be associated with the FSF. Another factor is that Richard Stallman has a tendency to get into pointless fights about minutia and alienate people, when he shouldn’t, so he doesn’t have many friends who will stick up for him at places like Red Hat and SUSE.

At the end of the day, GNOME is still the desktop environment most closely associated with the GNU project. Yes, GNUstep+Window Maker are officially part of GNU, but that isn’t a toolkit and desktop environment that many people want to use, so GNOME is still the best choice for most people who care about free software and there are some projects like GIMP, Gnumeric and Gnucash which are part of GNU.

The best strategy in my opinion is to organize a petition of GNOME users asking GNOME to rejoin the GNU project. Since Purism publicly associates itself with the FSF, it is good idea for the company to keep contributing to GNOME, so that it can gain more influence inside of GNOME, and hopefully get someone on the GNOME Foundation’s board. Purism is gaining influence inside of GNOME, since it is paying developers to work on the code. It is hard to estimate how much, but I am subscribed to the GNOME translators email list, and a lot of the announcements for new projects to translate are coming from Purism employees.

Then, in a couple years when the controversy over Stallman has died down, make a formal motion to the GNOME board to rejoin the GNU project and reestablish ties with the FSF. If there is resistance on the board, then organize a poll to survey GNOME users to find out how they feel about it, and use the results of that poll to pressure the board.

It is helpful to know the history in order to understand GNOME’s stance.

In the 1980s there was a proliferation of UNIX variants, and little collaboration and standardization, so it was hard for programmers to write software for UNIX compared to software for Windows and Apple’s System. When AT&T, SUN, Xenix and BSD announced that they would be merging their UNIX variants to create System V Release 4.0 in 1988, the response of the rest of the UNIX companies (Digital, HP, IBM, Apollo, Hitachi, Fujitsu, etc.) was to create the non-profit Open Software Foundation (OSF), which released a common graphical widget toolkit called Motif in 1989 and the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) in 1993 based on Motif. There were very high licensing fees for Motif and CDE, but all the companies in the OSF, which later was called the Open Group could use this software and they rapidly became the standard for UNIX programming in the 1990s.

Qt from Quasar Technologies (later called Trolltech) was first released in 1995 as a replacement replacement for the X Toolkit and Motif, but it had a dual license that said that could be used for zero cost by free/open source software, but proprietary software had to pay a licensing fee to use it. The KDE project was started in 1996 based on Qt in order to replace the CDE, but the FSF criticized KDE, because it was based on the non-free Qt.

Two Mexican students at UNAM university then started GNOME in 1997 based on the free GTK+ toolkit used in GIMP, in order to create a fully free desktop, and they started it under the auspices of the FSF’s GNU project, which helped it attract a lot of volunteers to GNOME.

Originally, GNOME was the desktop for people who cared about free software and most of its developers were from the Americas, and KDE was the desktop for people who just wanted the best software and most of its developers were from Northern Europe.

When Trolltech saw all the criticism from the FSF and the movement to promote GTK+ and GNOME instead of Qt and KDE, in 1998 it granted the KDE’s foundation a perpetual BSD-style license to Qt. Then in 1999, Trolltech released Qt under a dual license with a commercial license for proprietary software and the Q Public License (QPL) for FOSS projects. The QPL, however, was incompatible with the GPL, which generated a lot of criticism. Finally in September 2000, Trolltech released the Qt Free Edition 2.2 under both the QPL and GPL 2.0 licenses. There were still some fears about what would happen if Trolltech was ever bought or merged, so in 2004, Trolltech promised that if the Qt Free Edition ever stopped being released, then it would be released to the world under the BSD license. Starting in Jan. 2009, Qt 4.5 and later offered the option using the LGPL 2.1 license. Starting in 2014, Qt 5.4 and later added the option of using the LGPL 3.0 license.There are still some fears that the Qt Company may not release future versions of Qt under the LGPL, but since 2000, there hasn’t been much difference between KDT and GNOME in terms of licensing.

However, the fact that development of Qt has been controlled one company (Quasar/Trolltech 1994-2008, Nokia 2008-2011, Digia 2011-2014 and Qt Company since 2014) has made the other Linux companies nervous about becoming dependent upon Qt. Red Hat and SUSE (and later Canonical and Google) invested in the development of GTK and GNOME, and have generally promoted it over Qt/KDE.

KDE has stayed closer to its roots as an organization run by volunteers with very little corporate support. KDE has become the Linux enthusiast’s desktop, whereas GNOME has become the desktop for almost all the Linux companies and for people who want clean design without many confusing option in the graphical interface. Because many people haven’t agreed with GNOME’s design decisions over the years, a number of alternative desktop environments have been created based on the GTK, such as Budgie (for Solus), Cinnamon (for Mint), MATE (fork of GNOME 2), Xfce, Pantheon (for Elementary OS), Sugar (for OLPC), Phosh (for Librem 5) and LXDE, plus a number of defunct environments: Unity (for Ubuntu), Access Linux Platform (successor of Palm OS), GPE Palmtop Environment and ROX Desktop.

GNOME started out as the freer alternative KDE, but over time the project’s focus has changed as GNOME became the desktop with the most corporate support and the largest number of users. In August 2000, the GNOME Foundation was created, and GNOME became increasingly independent of the FSF. It has never followed the GNU coding guidelines and always been developed independently, so it was mostly an affiliation in spirit with the FSF.

There are still GNOME users and developers who want GTK/GNOME to retain the project’s original vision as the freer toolkit and desktop which is associated with the FSF. However, rejoining GNU and reaffiliating with the FSF is mostly to make a statement about its principals, since GNOME has always been a project that made its own decisions about its development and I don’t expect that to change.

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