MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-02-14 |
| FROM | Alexandre =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Fran=E7ois?= Garreau
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] What's GNU -- and what's not
|
Don’t use capslocks. I mean, don’t avoid to use them while you mean them.
But if you *feel* you mean and thus need them, just wait a little, calm
down, do something else, write your thing, and only when you becomes
getting indifferent enough about what you wrote to be able to remove
capslocks without feeling you’re lying, do that, maybe lower the tone and
increase the kindness, and then send.
Le samedi 8 février 2020, 17:24:35 CET Carlo Wood a écrit :
> You seem very well aware that staying polite and keeping a
> smile at all times is very important for this goal.
Oh now that recalls me sealioning [0], something described as a form of
trolling I recently discovered (but iirc it was used against rms, saying
criticizing rms led to sealioning, I think)… now maybe it also applies in
the other direction?
[0] http://wondermark.com/1k62/
But there are two things to keep in mind when speaking about sealioning:
“sufficient ignorance/stupidity never can be distinguished from trolling”
and the Hanlon’s razor: “never explain by malice what can be explained by
incompetence/stubborness/stupidity/etc.” (it’s simply okham’s razor
applied to the hypothesis of presence of will). This is important to keep
being inclusive and not just ignore or expell people out of unprovable
supposition, or unbased feelings. From any side.
Ludo could simply be really naive and not remark why his tone, even to
people who could like the concept of democracy anywhere, cause distrust.
Just as people defending rms could not understand why… well I don’t
understand anyway and I’m tired. Let’s forget this and just work at what
we can when we can…
> At the same time you make use of the emotions that this hostile
> takeover causes among a few people to make THEM look like fools
> (since they are NOT keeping their emotions in check). This is,
> obviously, because they have a lot to lose if you win this battle,
> while you are not running any risk since you have nothing to lose,
> only to gain.
Well, in current state of affairs, he could loose maintainership… or rather
not, I hope, because rms won’t decide that over such actions (he simply
spoke out stuff and set up a website, doesn’t harm stuff under git or
whatever technical about guile/guix yet, he has his free speech he can use
however well or bad he wants), otherwise that would be somehow a win for
such ideas.
> The fact that bring all of this under the pretense of improving
> the GNU organization - instead of talking about what your real
> goals are - proves to me that you manipulative.
Actually “improving” is indeed really general and thus create distrust,
yet I think the “real goals” has been already stated “democracy” so that
to get rid of rms, because some people are tired of him or don’t like him.
And getting rid of such a historical figure can’t call for replacement, so
only a less impersonated (thus hopefully maybe less politically
centralized) power could do anyway.
Let’s note that rms already conceded that something should be worked upon
anyway so that we keep stuff running once he’s dead (be that in how long
possible, but even if we find a way around curing oldening itself, we’re
never 100% safe from an accident). But I’m unsure simply getting a
selection of maintainers who would have declared to agree with free-
software (along with, btw, as do the “social contract”, ask to warrant
upholding ambitious wide goals and reject certain people upon selected
behaviors), without any other technical baggage or experience, is good.
Either technical experience is important, and then we already have some
comitees and groups within GNU that likely would have a role in GNU
governance in a post-rms world, either it’s not, and then why only
maintainer? why not any member of FSF(E|LA|etc.)? but then it becomes a
mess.
> I've seen this type of thing before; lots of "political" babble
> and arguments like "how can it be bad when more people get to
> have a say in the matter?" after which those people nod and "vote"
> yeah. Then suddenly you are the sole active members of a committee
> that will take things a step further.
Saddly, yes, it most of time works like that. You need traction for
democracy, and contradiction, above all. But until then I saw more people
ignoring each other than compromises.
And you know what? that really looks like GNU, very GNU, really GNU. No
compromises. never. No real communication. Ludo&al, by their way of
trying to kick rms out, are showing to be at least somehow pretty similar
to him, even to what they may criticize of him. It doesn’t surprise me.
For some reason people within GNU, without having concerted, without
having formulated it even once, without requiring it in any manner, ends
being really similar people.
I take that as a compliment for rms. And for them. And for me. And for
many people I know there. Now find a way to formalize that and to overcome
that so to be able to actually work together, unlike it sometimes has
been.
> All of this effort must be fueled by something; probably hatred against
> RMS. And your hidden agenda is to shift the power balance away from him.
You are harsh. I want people to calm down. I believe (or otherwise I’d
hope) that nobody here really hates rms. But I’m sure some people are
uncomfortable with him. Uncomfortable like in “embarrassed in front of
some people to know or be anyhow linked with him”.
Two things: I’m not sure this kind of uncomfort, if it was totally well
explained, would be so much politically correct as any theory could be.
I’m not even sure the people in front of which that kind of embarrassment
is felt are more similar to embarrassed people, than these are to rms.
But I believe these embarrassed people would be even more for these people
to be aware of it. So rather than excaving and analyzing the truth about
them, and only then seeing what really is actually good or bad, they try
hidding it deeper and deeper under polished discourse, so not to have to
fear about anything.
> Well -- I do not agree with that.
>
> The BEST thing for any organization is when ONE man can take all the
> important decisions.
I disagree.
Now is it for all organizations that this is not the best thing? other
question, hard question.
> If you create a committee to take decisions that that will destroy
> the project: a committee, especially a new one, will mainly be concerned
> with staying in power.
They are already existing ones, and you’re saying that’d hold for them
too. But these are appointed by and made of friends of rms sometimes.
Then we can go further by saying rms is somewhat a supreme committee of
one person, and why wouldn’t your theory hold? because it wouldn’t if it’s
the “oldest one”? This is a complex and clunky theory.
> Most of their decisions will have to do with
> removing people from the project that has opposing ideas, RMS only
> being one of them. Nothing will be left in the end of this project then
> endless discussions and bickering.
This is exageration. What if it was only slightly worse and less
productive? or if it got more productive for a few new projects, and the
other stalled? or what if glibc died, gcc was mostly outsourced to llvm
but still living as a legacy and stable (ie. not changing anymore)
frontend of it, emacs slowed down on some parts and speeded up on other,
got many nonfree extensions, mainly was developed on github, while guile
and let’s say 4-5 more projects would continue as so and gained more
tractions? or anything between “better” and “bad”?
> No really important decisions will
> be made at all anymore. I've seen it before. I say no to movement,
> because whatever the result, it will be devastatingly bad for the GNU
> project.
That’s simply a conservative analysis, not necessarily the kind of
analysis the most convincing.
> So yes, people take down your "gnu.tools" domain. Having the word 'gnu'
> in it is misleading and hostile.
gnuplot and gnutella always did as well, never has been this an issue.
they have been asked to change, they said no or ignored, end of story.
move on.
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