MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-02-25 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] Why the "social contract" should not be
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On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 10:42:09AM +0530, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
> On 23/02/20 23:34, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
> > Contrary to the members of Manor farm, we welcome anyone and will not
> > dismiss your opinion just because you are not a GNU maintainer. This
>
> Wait, I was told that my opinion on matters of GNU governance does not
> matter because I am not a GNU maintainer and that was not by the
> "members of the Manor farm".
>
> Siddhesh
Intellectually, this is the crux of the cause for discent. It is
assumed by some maintainers that GNU is there own personal country club
and that they are the stakeholders. And they aren't. If GNu is a play
thing for some weathly, upper middle class ivy leaguers and there
cohorts to provide free software for themsevles, then it is a total
waste and not worth the time and effort that anyone puts into it.
The puprose of GNU is to encourange and provide universal emanicpation
of all of us. Therefor, we are ALL stakeholders. There is no Democracy
in a GNU run by maintainers popular opinions. It is a tyrany of a
subclass of GNU stakeholders. It is not what Richard has promoted. It
is not even sustainable. It is laughable that a few folks think that
libelous attacks are justified because without Richard, the elegance of
a functional init system based on Guile will enlighten the world!
Maintainers aren't stakeholders. They are not even GNU supporters,
although some might be. GNU stakeholders are the public at large. It
is anyone who has participated in the use and development of GNU
Software as a political act. It is anyone who has downloaded a GNU
project and help put it in the hands of an otherwise disenfranchised end
user, to show them that it is possible to use such software to take
control of there own future. GNU's stakeholders include anyone who used
a GNU license to assure that their software is protected by strong
copyleft freedoms. It is your mother, your brother, your cousin, your
neighbor, your coworker. Everyone is a GNU stakeholder. That
protection and goal is being attacked by a select few maintainers.
But it doesn't matter. Even is every maintainer signed up to this
repressive action, to reorient GNU from its outreach to provide a
platform of emancipation and freedom to the public, it would do nothing
to change the equation. Maintainers can not be trusted to run GNU. We
have seen this over and over again, and we are see it now.
These coders don't reach into local schools to put Free Software in the
hands of children in the deep ghettos of NYC, and Baltimore, and St
Louis. They don't get free Software into the hands of chidren in
Nigeria, and Bangladesh. They don't promote the principles of Four
Freedoms that are needed to assure individual freedom in the digital
age. Maintainers serve a purpose, and have a say, but they do not have
a veto for the public interest; Not in GNU, and not in our broader
lives.
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive
http://www.coinhangout.com - coins!
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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